Assistance needed please

[Atom]

So I'm working on a 4-6 page paper for my honors English 12 and in general it's about how our current math curriculum is a flawed system that doesn't prepare students for life after graduation.


I'm doing this for two reasons, one I'm struggling, two I needed a way to get this from my computer to my phone to another computer.


Anyways any opinions, editing, and knowledge would be appreciated. Thanks.

Spoiler

I have, in recent times, noticed a distinctive trend in most public education facilities; distinct lacks of curriculum regarding an important and highly pivotal object within any soon to graduate student’s life needs. An object that has been and shall constantly be an important part of our modern society barring any drastic fiscal policy changes in the near or distant future. A distinct lack of an in-depth and well taught course on personal finances in general and taxes.


I myself have found myself rather fortunate to have received, although simply at a glance, a class course on taxes as well as a personal finance class. I mainly accredit this advantage to the nature of the school I attend, although in many, if not most, standard education facilities throughout the United States there remains a distinct requirement of such curriculum. A majority of schools find it within their curriculum to teach classes like Calculus, trigonometry, algebra 1 and 2, and occasionally statistics.


All of this is well and good for those wishing some form of mathematics based career field in the future, but as the New York Times stated excellently, “How often do most adults encounter a situation in which they need to solve a quadratic equation? Do they need to know what constitutes a “group of transformations” or a “complex number”? Of course professional mathematicians, physicists and engineers need to know all this, but most citizens would be better served by studying how mortgages are priced, how computers are programmed and how the statistical results of a medical trial are to be understood.”


An excellent point not only points out a flaw in this current curriculum but they then preceded to go on and offer excellent alternatives to the curriculum that would further prepare students for life, “Imagine replacing the sequence of algebra, geometry and calculus with a sequence of finance, data and basic engineering. In the finance course, students would learn the exponential function, use formulas in spreadsheets and study the budgets of people, companies and governments. In the data course, students would gather their own data sets and learn how, in fields as diverse as sports and medicine, larger samples give better estimates of averages. In the basic engineering course, students would learn the workings of engines, sound waves, TV signals and computers. Science and math were originally discovered together, and they are best learned together now.”


The need for this change in our schools curriculum is not only obvious in fresh graduates but also on a majority of U.S. adults, a survey conducted by AICPA found. “The telephone survey, conducted between March 14 and March 17, asked 1,011 U.S. adults to name all the ways financial stress is affecting their lives. Of those who rate their financial stress ‘very’ or ‘somewhat high,’ almost half, 47 percent, said they are sleeping less; 43 percent said they have less patience with friends or are seeing them less often; 31 percent are eating more junk food or gaining weight; and a fifth, 21 percent, are arguing more with their spouse or significant other. One in six, or 17 percent, are getting sick more often, according to the survey results.”

 

[Ignitedstar]

As public schools continue to cut spending, they do it for things that would not "help" students doing their standardized testing. Unfortunately for the U.S. government and the public school system, a lot of a district's funding, even going down to separate high schools, is dependent on how well the students do taking standardized tests. This creates a catastrophic snowball effect: As a district's students continue to do worse, the government gives the district/schools less money. But how do educators do better when many believe that money is necessary for the success of their students? What does that cause? Cases where teachers from low performing schools help their students cheat on standardized testing to increase funding for their schools.


It's bad. There's also a double standard in this, as well. Not helping the situation that the U.S. government spends the most amount of money per student than every other nation on the planet, yet often our "standardized test scores" are significantly lower than other developed nations. I KNOW there are statistics for this. It's often cited when people are criticizing how flawed the U.S. public school system is.


What are the things that "don't help students doing their standardized testing"? Classes like music, gardening, family living, finances, and theatre, are the first to get hit by the chopping block. When I was in middle school and my first two years of high school, these existed. Not necessarily anymore. For some reason, not teaching students how to do their taxes when they plan to enter the workforce is not something that should be taught in school, neither is learning how to balance your check book, how investing works, how the stock market works, what banks actually do with your money, how to take care of your own plants and animals, learning CPR and what to do in emergency situations, learning how to take care of babies and how to discipline children properly and NOT punish them, plus mending, sewing, cooking, and then some. That's weird, those all sound like life skills...


I live in the Portland Public School district in Portland, Oregon. We voted for a Arts and Music tax that every working citizen above a certain income in PPS district must pay, because PPS does not receive enough funding from the government to keep these programs afloat. A lot of people were not happy with it. $25 a year. I voted for it, because I grew up in a situation watching those programs disappear WHILE I was in high school. It's disheartening.

 

[Interstellar Bun]

I saw this topic and felt I had to add a bit to it. As for the transferring of paper from one computer to another, email it to yourself. If you have a smart device of any kind, you can access your email from your phone. If that doesn't work, dropbox and google drive works just as well. If you're in physical proximity to the other computer, thumb-drives are great too.


I could go into how the way math was taught in high school actually hindered me in college as a CIS programming major, but it's finals week and I would be here all night and not finish my C# assignment, so I'll save that rant for another day. I just think it's sad how, being a math oriented major, I was hurt by my public education rather than assisted by it. Math shouldn't be about tests, it should be about logic, puzzles, and understanding how the world around us works with reverse engineering the problems in order to deepen our comprehension of it. However, sadly, this is not the case and this is why so many students end up hating math with the passion of a thousand suns.


Myself included.

 

[Atom]

I saw this topic and felt I had to add a bit to it. As for the transferring of paper from one computer to another, email it to yourself. If you have a smart device of any kind, you can access your email from your phone. If that doesn't work, dropbox and google drive works just as well. If you're in physical proximity to the other computer, thumb-drives are great too.
I could go into how the way math was taught in high school actually hindered me in college as a CIS programming major, but it's finals week and I would be here all night and not finish my C# assignment, so I'll save that rant for another day. I just think it's sad how, being a math oriented major, I was hurt by my public education rather than assisted by it. Math shouldn't be about tests, it should be about logic, puzzles, and understanding how the world around us works with reverse engineering the problems in order to deepen our comprehension of it. However, sadly, this is not the case and this is why so many students end up hating math with the passion of a thousand suns.


Myself included.

I could have done all the above options but I felt I could knock out teo birds with one stone Lol


And thank you for your thoughts.

 

[White Masquerade]

Yeah. Ignited hit it right on the head. It's all about tests. I'm from the state of Florida, and school districts down here are always fighting about whether certain programs should be funded. The lunches are terrible. Breakfasts terrible. Substitute/new teachers are being hired in lieu of keeping old teachers, because it saves money. There's more on this, but I'll tie it into what you're looking for.


Cutting down costs means mediocre teachers. It means less chance of there being an instructor, that actually put a personal stake into teaching students what they should know to move on. The focus being on tests makes it worse. On top of half-hearted teaching, you get split years. Half the year is dedicated to things students should know, while the other is teaching students how to pass whatever standardized test they need to take. The triple buster, is that it's math. Math is literally the only subject that magnifies the cutting-down effect. Math is successive, so if someone doesn't grasp the functioning of a previous level of math...I will say it. They cannot understand or move onto the next one. The growth stops there. Period. If someone does not learn the Unit-Circle in Algebra II/Pre-Cal/Trigonometry, they will not make it to Calculus and higher levels.


The educational system right now, is malformed, and like I said before, the structure of math itself, magnifies the detriment felt by math students. Fortunately, since institutions can't, individuals are stepping up. One example is Salman Khan of Khan Academy. https://www.khanacademy.org/


He is bringing lessons home to students, that don't get what they're being taught in the classroom. There are loads of short video lessons on his site, that help people understand material. I have used it myself. If you take a look at the math section, you'll see tons of comments thanking Khan Academy as well as helpful peers, for clarifying what they didn't get at school. Math is starting to shift from, "I learned it in school," to "I learned it by myself."


Lastly, the educational system is out-dated too. People used to be able to sit in class, study their heads off, and get material. For some reason or another, in this age, students are more distracted/bored. The proliferation of mobile devices and maybe even changing genetics, has got students' minds spazzing out. If nothing in a lesson catches their attention (is fun), they zone-out, sleep, phone-up, or talk to a neighbor. You see how this ties in with math right? Again. As a non-fun subject that builds, this is crippling. It is possible to use live examples to make math more interesting (oranges and apples), but this only works at the lower levels. Math gets really abstract at higher levels. There are little to no demonstrations that can be used.




After reading your post, I see what you're getting at xD . Practical applications of math are what people should be learning. The courses you listed are excellent. It doesn't make sense to fail a class full of info you're not going to use in real-life. Worse when you're paying for the class. Yup, people like physicists and engineers need to know intricate math, but for others, their time is better spent learning practical math.


Grade schools should function more like colleges. Teach practical course of each subject, then have the students advance into the abstract of classes that intrigue them. Let them pick their classes. For a lot of people, Cooking Class is more beneficial than Algebra 2 and beyond. This solves the un-prepared issue. Students have practical math skills, and if they feel like going into a math-heavy profession, they can adjust their route accordingly. Non-math students are set for the real-world and don't waste their time with something they won't use.


(' :| ) Atom...I went all over the place. I hope something I said helps.