Political Science Prof Asks: Is Algebra Necessary? 1010
Capt.Albatross writes "Andrew Hacker, a professor of Political Science at the City University of New York and author of Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It, attempts to answer this question in the negative in today's New York Times Sunday Review. His primary claim is that mathematics requirements are prematurely and unreasonably limiting the level of education available to otherwise capable students ."
Re:This guy is an idiot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unnecessary roughness on statistics (Score:5, Funny)
An engineer asks - how is that?
A physicist asks - why is that?
A polisci major asks - would you like fries with that?
Oblig xkcd (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A more fitting question... (Score:5, Funny)
Is political science necessary?
YES! If political science majors studied things like engineering or computer science instead, then who would sell me coffee?
Re:The real question is: (Score:4, Funny)
Emo prof asks: Is anything necessary?
Re:Unnecessary roughness on statistics (Score:5, Funny)
Give the guy a break. He can't do algebra. That means he can't do statistics.
Re:The real question is: (Score:4, Funny)
... is High School necessary?
The high school reunion industrial complex, as one of the few remaining vibrant industries in America, so its been declared "too big to fail" so we can't get rid of H.S.
Interestingly the reunion industrial complex is failing due to facebook... Why do you need a retro-cover-band and a rented hall to find out whats new, when every one who cares about such things, already knows from facebook.
My learning almost completely stopped in H.S.... its curriculum moves too slow. Made a very painful impact when I suddenly had to start learning again at university. Whoa, I haven't studied since middle school, WTF? You mean I have to read the book now?
Re:remember Heinlein's assessment? (Score:5, Funny)
"At best". Nobody was talking about you.
Re:yes (Score:4, Funny)
Absolutely! I cannot agree more. How many of us would not have even bothered learning something if we weren't "made to do it"? As a child, my parents forced me to do things I thought I'd hate only to find out I really, really liked some of of those things. Pushing that comfort zone is crucial to developing an educated and open mind about a great many things.
But, leave it a to politician to see a problem (in this case, our students failing mathematics miserably), and to propose a solution that states "well, we don't need that anyways." Call me crazy, but that seems a bit retarded even for a politician. Wait, no it doesn't...
Re:yes (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. Unfortunately, power hungry people who are actually not good at real world things jump into politics instead. In other words, we end up with a bunch of retarded ass holes running our nation. What a bunch of fuckers.
So power hungry people need to understand powers!
Re:yes (Score:5, Funny)
Sex ed helped with one of my engineering jobs. In fact, we got special training during a 1 week course. I still have the certificate. We even had dirty pictures on the wall. Friends from other divisions would freak when they visited my cubicle. I was lucky. My job dealt with OB/GYN and breast cancer (lots of drawings of boobs on my cubicle walls).
Another division dealt with enlarged prostates! No body liked visiting their cubicles. Pictures of wangs and needles. Shudder!
Oh, and I used algebra too.
There's a shirt for that (Score:4, Funny)
"Dear Algebra,
Stop asking us to find your X.
She's not coming back"
Re:Political Science Professor (Score:5, Funny)
"Does knowing how one is fairing relative to immediate classmates "
While I don't know how either of you are doing in the real world, it's a pretty fair bet that neither of you would fare very well on an English test.
But I bets both of you can al-jabber with the best of them!