Re: Constraints and Functional Dependencies

On Mar 1, 6:58 am, "Walt" <wami..._at_verizon.net> wrote:
>
> I believe you are correct, but I think the syndrome goes far deeper than you
> have said. Basically, the US educational system has evolved a mthodology in
> which theory is quite simply not taught at all. What passes for
> "theoretical discussion" in an American classroom is really and extended
> introduction to the subject matter. The subject matter itself is embodied
> in a series of examples, that illustrate the real meat of what is being
> taught.

OT Free associating:

Conversations with Vadim and others from his part of the world have convinced me that the point at which the average Russian student achieves US-graduate-student level mathematical education is approximately the third grade.

US schools are firmly committed to single-streaming everyone. (This is a clear reflection of otherwise-admirable US social values of equality of opportunity.) This is done to an extreme: the *most* gifted students in a district will literally be put in the same class with moderately retarded students. My seven year old son is constantly telling me how school is "BO RING"; exactly my experience with public school, and apparently I went to unusually good public schools.

I was in my forties before I figured out the relationship between mathematics and computer science. Up until my late thirties they seemed only vaguely related. I can put a modest amount of the blame for this on my university, however; they pushed calculus and more calculus at me, which I have never found an application for, and ignored logic, statistics, set theory, and most of abstract algebra. I suppose this in part derives from the perception of computer science as being closely related to other engineering fields where I believe calculus is more relevant.

Barbie says "math is hard."

Marshall Received on Thu Mar 01 2007 - 18:44:52 CET