Homestead mailing list

[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> Why?  First 99.9% of all higher math learned in a vacuum is forgotten
> within a short time.  Don't thinks so?  If I were to take your
> highschool or college math textbooks, how much of it could you still
> do cold?  For most people it is very, very little.

I'll agree with you on that, but I personally can still do calculus.  I
took it for several years, and all that practice just drilled in the
methods.  Algebra for me is as simple as you saying the alphabet.

> Is what you 'feel' based on observation and experience or is it part
> of the schooling conditioning?  It's a fair question.

Well, I've never been unschooled or homeschooled, but I am what they
call a lifetime learner and I teach myself a lot.  I have always done
this, too, even in public school and throughout college.  I don't think
it is an either/or question.  I would say that when I said "I feel that
they really need to have a more well-rounded capability in math, even if
they end up in a career that doesn't use it", I think I meant it both
from observation and experience, as well as being 'brainwashed' as you
say.  Most people today change careers several times in their lives.
You never know what you will need to know for a certain job.  If you
choose acting, for example, and you become a dramatic actress for the
first ten years of your career, and then suddenly you get fat and can't
find a job anymore, then you might have to change careers in order to
provide for your family or do something else you enjoy.  Most people are
approaching 30 after 10 years in a first career, and it is hard enough
to recall what math skills you once learned after that period of time,
let alone try to learn anew if you haven't been actively
learning/practicing the whole time.  Sure, it can be done, but during
those weeks or months you are teaching yourself that new skill or
method, so that you can qualify for the new job, you family income is
zip, whereas if you knew it all along, you could make a career
transition in a reasonable period of time.
I consider math skills like any other homestead skills-gardening,
sewing, etc.....you learn it, you practice it, and then when you really
need it, you have it, and you have already done all the trial and error
part of learning, so the knowledge is there when you need it to be.  If
all you have ever sewn is a few pillows, but suddenly you need a wedding
dress, you better learn quick.  It can be done, sure, but the time it
will take you to do it might put a damper on the wedding.  Likewise, you
learn to garden before you are hungry or so poor you NEED to grow your
own.  You practice it year to year, starting small and working your way
up, until you can master your land.  If all you've ever grown is a few
sunflowers or some potted plants from a nursery, you are in for a rude
awakening when you try to feed yourself.
I am not as succinct with words as you, James, so I hope you understand
what I am trying to convey.  So, the answer is yes, all of the
above...it is observation, it is experience, and it is the schooling
conditioning.


> Bev, you are indulging in the schooling practice of amputating
> something from reality and holding it up as if it were a separate
> thing with a life of it's own.
Perhaps.

For example, the older children were once engaged in speculating how
> tall a certain dead tree was.  I told them they could figure it out
> without measuring the tree directly.  After some dialog, they figured
> it out without usng what you'd recognize as 'trig functions'. (I will
> go through the process they came up with if you are interested).

Yes, I know that method. My stepfather taught it to me when I was a kid
as he used to work for a tree company subcontracted by the forest
service.  It's geometry, not trig.  Geometry can often be substituted 
for trig in angular based triangles, but for spherical triangles, you 
really need trig.  What occupations deal with spherical triangles and 
would likely use trig?  Astronomy, oceanography, meteorology, 
cartography, navigation, audiology (important for musicians too.), just 
to name a few.
> That is, if you took the standard exams (TCAP's in this state) and
> gave them the trig parts, they'd think the author of the test was
> demented and far divorced from reality (and they wouldn't be far from
> wrong).  Yet they have an intimacy with angles and how they function
> that completely does away forever with the false concept that any of
> it is beyond them.

I don't know James, playing devil's advocate here, that sounds a bit 
like ignorance, knowing that you don't know something yet demeaning the 
source of the knowledge as being divorced from reality??  Whose reality? 
 Maybe in my reality I use trig more than your kids do, and maybe just 
maybe, they could learn something from me instead of turning me off 
because I claim higher knowledge.

> Life, for them, is the problem to be solved.  Not so much solved as
> savored. Take today for example, a friend took all of us for a day's
> outing on the local lake on his steam launch.  Eldest was given the
> helm, told to keep the boiler between 100 and 120 psi, and to call
> out the depth on the depth gauge (fish locator).  We had a great
> time, as he was wearing his pirate hat.
>
> "Helmsman, where away?" "Bearing SSW, depth is 128 feet." "Give us
> that in fathoms, mate." "Ay, 21 fathoms, capt'n." "And what speed." 
> "Ah ... uh ... what be the length of this vessel, bos'un (friend who
> owned the boat)" "28 feet" Here eldest tossed his apple core near the
> bow and counted as it passed the length of the boat. "Speed be 4 feet
> per second." (The boat passed the core in seven seconds). "Give us
> that in knots." "Aye, capt'n, remind us again what be a nautical
> mile." "1.15 land lubber miles, mate."
>
> After a few minutes he came up with the right speed, the direction we
> were going based on the sun's position (roughly) and how long it
> would take us to make the return trip.  All in his head while
> steering the boat and looking out for shallows.
>
> Meanwhile younger daughter was asking how the steam moved the boat,
> what did the 120 psi on the gauge mean, and what happened to all that
> energy by the time the cool water was exhausted.

That sounds like a fun day, James.  Pretty soon, your kids will be the 
captain of their own ship, and while they will be able to read the 
instruments and rig the sails, will they truly be able to navigate? Or 
will it be a hit and miss proposition.  Did they use an astrolabe or do 
they know how to use one?  If they left San Diego on a sailboat heading 
for the Galapagos, would they be able to pinpoint their position on a 
map, or just approximate it, because when you are talking about visiting 
islands in the ocean, you really need precision.  One degree off equates 
to the island being over the horizon.

I guess my point is that I know your kids are learning, but as a parent, 
I would worry that they would be overconfident in what they already know 
and since they don't presently see the need to learn something more 
advanced, they don't.  This lack of learning a new, more advanced skill 
could be the difference between making the island and not making the island.
> > What are his/her interests (the oldest)?
>
> Making model ships, historically accurate ships from scratch.

Ask him a question for me...I have been wanting to know what the 
Vikings/Norsemen used for navigation.  Obviously, they used the stars, 
but that is rather general information.  Did they use sand clocks?
> It is an unexamined myth that an integrated education such as the
> unschooler has makes it difficult to deal with artificially specific
> subjects such as trig functions and scientific notation.  

Well, I don't believe that myth.  I also don't believe certain things 
are artificial, either.  You know I homeschooled and unschooled with my 
own kids, so you know I am not anti-homeschool.  BUT, not all 
unschoolers and homeschoolers are as diligent as your children or 
Lynda's, and not all homeschooling parents are providing the 
opportunities like your steam launch experience, so that leads me to the 
conclusion that some kids, the ones who aren't motivated to learn if 
something is hard, are falling through the cracks.


To an
> intelligent mind that has never had the false focus that it ought to
> be hard and mysterious, it takes all of five minutes to explain
> scientific notation and not twenty to use it in calculations.

Agreed.  I did not mean to imply that is was an advanced math or that it 
would be hard to learn.  I included that because it is a concept that 
people rarely use on a homestead yet one that I believe people should 
understand.  You, personally, would take the 5 minutes to explain it to 
your kids, but would others?


Bev
--
BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm   NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W    Bev is Earth, Ron is Sky