Animal Farm

I'm going to assume that with the level of education on this site, most of you would be familiar with the novella Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Today, Aden showed his introduction for a paper he has to write, to his teacher, who told him that Animal Farm is not an allegorical piece of literature.

What do you say?

Unless they have changed the meaning of the word allegorical behind my back, I say his teacher is talking out of his/ her arse.

That's what I thought.

His teacher wants him to say it's satirical, which is also true, but not the only truth imo. I'm thinking about having a chat with this teacher if Aden has no joy on his own.

It's such an extraordinary thing to say, is there any chance Aden might have misunderstood the criticism? I know you have a bright boy, but I also know that things can get unintentionally twisted between school and home.

I agree it's worth a quick word with Teach though.
Animal Farm is usually an aide to describing allegory.
Is A Pilgrim's Progress just a nice story?

I worry about a person, especially a teacher, who doesn't understand why it's allegorical, he/she obviously didn't understand what the book is about.

I officially say ... WTF?

And let me just add:

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He is not alone.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I expected. I knew he was right, but was just so dumbfounded by what his teacher said to him.

I've suggested that he continue on his current course, and we'll see how he goes for marks in the end.

It is only first draft stuff, but as I said, I thought it was really good and that he'd obviously put a lot of thought into what he wanted to say.

We'll see what the teacher has to say when he hands in the whole first draft for revision in a couple of weeks.

A quick search of online dictionaries inicates to me that Animal Farm is pretty much the definition of allegory and satire.

I don't really see how something can be satire and not an allegory, by some defintions satire is more 'modern' and concerns ' the folly of man' whereas allegory is more 'spiritual'. Could be where the teacher is coming from but IMHO they are wrong to be splitting hairs when a child has found a subject to be enthusiatic about.

Somtimes once a grade has been given it is hard to get it altered, things are then recorded in a system which would take effort to change, it might be better and easier to get the teacher on board earlier, a stitch in time....

*cough*yet more reasons to homeschool*cough*

Aliantha;798646 wrote:

His teacher wants him to say it's satirical, which is also true, but not the only truth imo. I'm thinking about having a chat with this teacher if Aden has no joy on his own.

I would encourage Aden to continue to work on the allegorical angle, but also devote some discussion to the satire as well. The teacher is right that it's satire, so it can't hurt to incorporate the teacher's comments, but it's also clearly allegory, so that should be discussed as well.

I bet it's a communication glitch. The teacher probably was trying to emphasize the satire, and said something that could be interpreted as dismissing the allegory, and Aden picked up on that and thought it was a clear refuting of the allegory, when maybe the teacher meant only to diminish it a little and focus on the satire. Unless the teacher has a history of being a tool, I would tend to think it's just a miscommunication. Teacher probably isn't that dumb.

If the teacher is teaching about writing, he may be insisting on using the word Satire because it is a TYPE of fiction. Allegory is kind of like a simile... a tool, not really a genre, so much.

or maybe the teacher is a wanker.

The teacher is obviously a pig. Allegorically speaking, of course.

footfootfoot;798672 wrote:

*cough*yet more reasons to homeschool*cough*

*cough* For every teacher like this there are ten parents less equipped to prepare their children for a productive adulthood *cough*

^whs^

My 7th grade social studies teacher was more than happy to let me grab the encyclopedia and school him on the correct pronunciation of Edinburgh. He was all like "Well I'll be...been saying it wrong for years!"

Maybe the teacher wants the kid to think outside the box (what an overused phrase I know) and not just regurgitate the whole allegory essay. Or, maybe it's a crappy teacher. I also had a 7th grade science teacher who told us when we chewed our fingernails they all ended up in our appendix. :lol:

Well, he's certainly sparked discussion and interest, which is a sign of a good teacher.

Spexxvet;798686 wrote:

The teacher is obviously a pig. Allegorically speaking, of course.



*cough* For every teacher like this there are ten parents who are products of the educational system who have been rendered less equipped to prepare their children for a productive adulthood *cough*

FTFY:D

Spexxvet;798686 wrote:

*cough* For every teacher like this there are ten parents less equipped to prepare their children for a productive adulthood *cough*

word.

Talk to the teacher... that's always a good thing. I also think glatt is on to something with this.

I bet it's a communication glitch. The teacher probably was trying to emphasize the satire, and said something that could be interpreted as dismissing the allegory, and Aden picked up on that and thought it was a clear refuting of the allegory, when maybe the teacher meant only to diminish it a little and focus on the satire.

Somebody, I'm not sure who, at this point;798686 wrote:

*cough* For every teacher like this there are ten parents who are products of home schooling who have been rendered less equipped to prepare their children for a productive adulthood *cough*

FTFY:D;):evil2:

*cough* For every teacher like this there are ten parents who are products of home schooling who have been rendered less equipped to prepare their children for a productive cough.

Patient: doc I have a terrible cough!

Doc: is it productive?

Patient: Well, I'm not using it for anything.

Allegorical/satirical sounds like a rip-off of the tastes great/less filling faux debate used to promote multiple facets of a subject.

Thanks for all the feedback girls and boys. :)

Yes it's possible there was a misunderstanding. Aden has used references to satire in his paper also, so I'm still not sure what the problem is with the teacher.

It all happened like this.

Aden brought the task sheet home with all the criteria for the paper, and guidelines for what he needs to do in order to achieve whatever mark he's aiming for. So I looked at all the info with him, and he selected the question he wanted to answer which was something along the lines of, "How was the speech by Old Major twisted by the pigs and distorted into a different message" (sorry I can't remember the wording exactly right now, but that's the gist of it)

So we talked about the different tools used by the author, and one that came up was allegory. The fact that it's a story about one thing but represented by different characters. He worked on it pretty solidly and came up with a really great intro which talked about the story being an allegory for the revolution and rise of communism in Russia. He did research and we talked about which characters represented which historical figure and he seemed to me to have it all pretty neat and tidy. Meaning he seemed to have a fairly deep understanding of what he should know.

eta: Aden also mentioned that the story was completed by 1943 but no one would publish it till the end of the second WW. The teacher said that was wrong also.

The stupid thing is, the teacher told Aden he was wrong, then handed out an example essay for the kids to read which used almost the exact statement Aden had, so that's when Aden felt vindicated enough to bring his concerns home and ask me what I thought he should do.

So in the end, my advice is that he should finish the draft as he began. Maybe the teacher will understand his point better once it's all down on paper. If not, Aden will have the teachers feedback on the draft, and a week to make whatever changes he needs. However, he says he's not selling out and that he believes he's right (and I think he is too), so if the teacher is still saying he's wrong, and marking him poorly, we'll get some independent advice from English teachers at other schools and present the argument that way.

The issue is that every single piece of assessment Aden does from now on will count towards his final grade when he leaves high school, so he really can't afford to get dudded on even one paper. He wants to do science at uni, so he has to get a pretty good mark in the end.

I think he's lucky to have parents who are able to make a critical judgement about where he's at with things like this, and who are able to lend him a voice to ensure the best outcome. I feel sorry for kids who have to do it on their own. It must be so much harder.

Aliantha;798784 wrote:

The issue is that every single piece of assessment Aden does from now on will count towards his final grade when he leaves high school, so he really can't afford to get dudded on even one paper. He wants to do science at uni, so he has to get a pretty good mark in the end.

I tell my kids that the bottom line is to give the teacher the answer they are looking for.

You can discuss things and argue your point, but if the teacher insists they want X before they will give you a good grade, then give them X. Don't give them Y.

But I'm a good conformist. I generally obey authority. YMMV

The life lesson of 'do you want to look good or be good'?

glatt would have said a kilometer is longer than a mile.

glatt;798788 wrote:

I tell my kids that the bottom line is to give the teacher the answer they are looking for.

You can discuss things and argue your point, but if the teacher insists they want X before they will give you a good grade, then give them X. Don't give them Y.

But I'm a good conformist. I generally obey authority. YMMV

Yeah I know, and I do agree to a certain extent.

The issue I have is that Aden can take a good lesson from this. That people in authority are not always right, but that there are procedures which can be followed in order to correct a wrong.

We'll go to the school with our evidence and ask for a review of his work. Also, it is my understanding that all their work is sent for independent review anyway because they're OP students (meaning they intend to apply to university), so this paper will be flagged if it goes pear shaped anyway.

I've told Aden he needs to do some independent research on the rise of communism in Russia so that he can argue his case well, and with respect if called to do so in front of the class. I've stressed to him the importance of not trying to make the teacher look like an idiot, but to simply put forward his case in a way which is irrefutable to logical minds.

If on the other hand, this teacher is simply an idiot (which could turn out to be the case) I'll have Aden moved to another class to avoid having to go through this with every piece of work this year.

eta: I will add that Aden has partially brought this on himself by being a tool in class quite often during his younger years, so he has created a less than stellar reputation for himself among some staff members, in particular the English faculty, so I can hardly blame Adens teacher if he's been warned that Aden is a trouble maker. Unfortunately for Aden (and this is another lesson he has to learn), it's going to take some time for him to convince teachers and other staff that he's committed to his studies now, unlike the first few years of HS.

Then again... :haha:










Just kidding, Ali.

I know Bruce, and it's true what you say. I hope I don't go about it that way in the end though. lol

I'm very hopeful that Aden can negotiate a positive outcome for himself without the teacher even knowing I'm involved.

Coaching from the sidelines is always better than kicking the ball for them. ;)

No, from what you wrote, I think you did exactly the right thing, both before and after the remark by the teacher. Kudos for taking an interest in the assignment and helping organize the preparation.

See if Aden can convince his teacher there was a sequel to Animal Farm and get extra credit for discussing its relevancy:

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Ha! He loves that song. lol So does his mother. Such a catchy tune.

glatt wrote:

I tell my kids that the bottom line is to give the teacher the answer they are looking for.

You can discuss things and argue your point, but if the teacher insists they want X before they will give you a good grade, then give them X. Don't give them Y.

I'm with glatt. I think one of the most important life-lessons to learn is that your boss is still your boss. Or they're the police and you're not. Or it doesn't matter if you had the right-of-way, you're still dead.

Let Aden make his case for it coherently and calmly, but in the end, if the teacher holds his ground, I'd say just give the guy what he wants and move on with life. It's not worth damaging your grades over a moron like this.

"Although some people take Animal Farm as a satire, it can also be plausibly interpreted as an allegory.".


School should be teaching him how to think, not teaching him what to think. Especially English.

I think the purpose of going to school is to learn, not to get good grades.

You're not from around here are you?

HungLikeJesus;799331 wrote:

I think the purpose of going to school is to learn, not to get good grades.

I see your thesis and raise you that I think that helping your fellow students learn, if you grasp a concept faster, is also an integral purpose of group schooling.

If I feel like I get what the teacher is saying, but that the teacher is having trouble framing the point in a way that the rest of the class quickly grasps, I have a tendency to shout out slangy or colloquial rephrasings of what I understand the teacher's point to be. It helps ME confirm that I understand the broad strokes of the teacher's point, and hopefully, it also helps the rest of the class, or at least those in the class that I (at risk of sounding immodest) that are slower to grasp the point than I am, to understand the broad and oversimplified point. I try to frame my rephrasing as a question, but I do admittedly have (as I'm sure people on the Cellar have noticed) a tendency to posit points I don't intend as absolute and factual but rather subjective and variable as factual for argumentative or clarificatory purposes. That is to say, sometimes I say stuff I know is arguable and subjective like it's factual and absolute, for purposes of locking in the opposite side to a point I understand.

This can come across, in class, as either curious or flat-out disrespectful. I've had my share of teachers who held either view of my disruptiveness. It's definitely different as a college student than a high school student - so far, all of the college or community-college courses I've taken have been taught by teachers who have a far less authoritarian view of teaching than any of the high-school teachers I've had - but I also had a private-school (high-school) education at Taipei American School that is probably noticeably if not wildly different than public schooling in any country. I know I'm not the only cellarite pursuing a degree, but if I'm not mistaken I'm the only cellarite who's recently graduated high school and then directly entered the college program I'm currently pursuing. and in the programs I've been in, in high-school and college, the vast majority of courses I've taken have been taught by teachers who were active and participatory to the point that they've been ready to debate or clarify their statements in front of the class as a whole when challenged on technical/factual points in their statements. They either clarify what they really meant in the oversimplified shorter point they made, or they defend the point they made as being correct even when I believe it to be inaccurate or incomplete. Either way I feel that I and my classmates benefit from the more in-depth point, even if I elicit the clarification at risk of seeming like a contrarian asshole that no teacher wants to have. Maybe it's elitist and unfair of me, as a private-high-school student, to expect all teachers to be open to debate and disagreement... But I think the idea that a teacher, a person whose express job and mission is to educate, should also be considered (on ACADEMIC, not BEHAVIORAL issues) an unimpeachable, don't-argue-just-go-with-the-flow figure, is flat-out dangerous to the idea of learning. If a point can't be explained or logically defended, no matter how many generations of teachers have stated it as fact, it shouldn't be taught in a class, and if it is, it's the DUTY of every thinking, analyzing, actively-participating student to challenge it.

HungLikeJesus wrote:

I think the purpose of going to school is to learn, not to get good grades.

That's naive.

I'm sorry, but it is. The American high school system is not set up for learning. If you want to learn--and you certainly should--then read a book. Seek out people who are experts in what you want to know. But for God's sake, don't go to a public high school.

infinite monkey;798688 wrote:

I also had a 7th grade science teacher who told us when we chewed our fingernails they all ended up in our appendix. :lol:

Oh my golly goodness. Does this mean that I do not have a stomach full of undigested chewing gum, nor will the watermelon seed take root?

Clodfobble;799364 wrote:

That's naive.

I'm sorry, but it is. The American high school system is not set up for learning. If you want to learn--and you certainly should--then read a book. Seek out people who are experts in what you want to know. But for God's sake, don't go to a public high school.

I don't quite get your meaning. I learned a lot in public school.

Or have things changed that much in the last few years?

Though I have completely forgotten how to make a pipe out of a piece of tinfoil.

HungLikeJesus;799371 wrote:

Though I have completely forgotten how to make a pipe out of a piece of tinfoil.

Don't worry its like riding a bike in an emergency situation it will come back to you like CPR. I bet there's an app for that but you could wiki.

Well, I think it is important to give the teacher what they want, but it's also important to learn to think.

Some would say that the best thing is to just do it the teachers way and just take the other knowledge under advisement to yourself (so to speak), but I honestly believe that the sooner kids learn to state their case and back it up with solid evidence, the better their learning outcomes are likely to be. Of course they must also learn to listen and understand another point of view.

It's all part of learning, and I don't think there's as much to benefit if you only have one without the other.

Clodfobble;799364 wrote:

That's naive.

I'm sorry, but it is. The American high school system is not set up for learning. If you want to learn--and you certainly should--then read a book. Seek out people who are experts in what you want to know. But for God's sake, don't go to a public high school.

HungLikeJesus;799371 wrote:

I don't quite get your meaning. I learned a lot in public school.

Or have things changed that much in the last few years?

Though I have completely forgotten how to make a pipe out of a piece of tinfoil.

Things have changed a lot. Standardized testing out the wazoo and funding based thereon saw to that. But I disagree with Clodfobble. They are totally set up for learning. Rote learning to pass standardized tests. Not to help people acquire the skill of learning independently. Unless you are lucky like us and have an alternative public school option.

NO teacher with that attitude would last 5 minutes in our school. But when Hebe moved to regular high school, one teacher warned her (as a friend) that she should "choose her moments" when correcting teachers :lol:

Yes well, doing it at an appropriate time is ideal. Also doing it respectfully is important. The teacher is not going to make life easy for someone who makes them look like an idiot (and even if they are one, it's beside the point).

the length of one kilometer was greater than that of one mile

That is extremely sad, but in the context of a thread about George Orwell, funny as hell. 2+2=5, anyone?

Clodfobble;799364 wrote:

That's naive.

I'm sorry, but it is. The American high school system is not set up for learning. If you want to learn--and you certainly should--then read a book. Seek out people who are experts in what you want to know. But for God's sake, don't go to a public high school.

My kids' elementary school's stated goal was to teach the kids how to learn and think. They were not about rote learning - that's what catholic school is for.

Would you rather live on an Animal Farm, or in an Animal House?

Please submit a 500 word essay comparing and contrasting the two (50 pts)

Spexxvet;799592 wrote:

They were not about rote learning - that's what catholic school is for.

BS.

What's wrong with rote learning? How else are you going to learn the multiplication tables?

HungLikeJesus;799655 wrote:

What's wrong with rote learning? How else are you going to learn the multiplication tables?

http://www.rocknlearn.com/html/multiplication_rap.htm

Here's how you learn the Nines tables:

1) Piss off Sister Francis
2) I mean really piss her off
3) Write the nines tables on the blackboard a couple dozen times
4) You'll never forget them

HungLikeJesus;799655 wrote:

What's wrong with rote learning? How else are you going to learn the multiplication tables?

Learn multiplication tables. No, you learn how to multiply, then you use a slide rule.:p:

Do they learn to use slide rules anymore?

I was talking to a cow orker today, he has a final in his Stats class. I talked about how I hated Prob and Stats in college. He said they do a lot of it in Excel. As far as I know Excel wasn't even invented when I took probability and statistics. Weird world.

No, they don't. I had an el cheapo plastic slide rule, but only as a novelty, and never used it in school.

I don't even know what a slide rule is.

Last year I found a slide rule, in really good condition, at an antique store in New Orleans. I've learned a lot from it.

infinite monkey;799685 wrote:

Do they learn to use slide rules anymore?

I learned in about 1975. One had to be leery of those newfangled calculators.

[YOUTUBE]eSBybJGZoCU[/YOUTUBE]

Spexxvet;799718 wrote:

I learned in about 1975. One had to be leery of those newfangled calculators.

[YOUTUBE]eSBybJGZoCU[/YOUTUBE]

Mr G made us learn it. I just went on a search through my desk drawers (desk I've had my whole life) thinking it was in there but I didn't see it. There's still a bunch of my HS stuff in it though.

Spexxvet wrote:

My kids' elementary school's stated goal was to teach the kids how to learn and think. They were not about rote learning - that's what catholic school is for.

...Says the man whose children have never been to Catholic school.

HungLikeJesus;799655 wrote:

What's wrong with rote learning? How else are you going to learn the multiplication tables?

By not putting them in tables for a start. Lets call them multiplication "facts" because I'm too tired to come up with a better word. They are learned by multiplying numbers together in as many settings as possible. By discussing observed patterns such as always ending up with a number ending with 0 or 5 when multiplying by 5.

Multiplication facts are not learned by rote in my kids' school. Sure, some of the kids are older than those in some regular schools when they can finally answer every single one at the snap of a finger, but they sure as heck understand it, can picture it in their heads and they have it down by the time they are ready to move on to complex problems where it helps to have them all memorized.

If -and only if- you reach the end of 4th grade (ish) and don't know them all pretty readily, will you then be required to actually make a concerted effort to learn them. But still that is done in a fun useful way. This is one of my volunteer jobs -helping those kids. And I do it by identifying which ones they are having problems with and trying to work out why. Then I create games based on those problems. Like car races with Hotwheels cars and special dice that you must multiply together to move that many spaces -where you can take as many turns as you want so the faster you get the answer, the faster you go. And a rip off of Set.

It works, and these kid have no hatred of math, no concept that there is a general conception that math is hard and boring. that is a self-fulfilling prophecy and it need to be buried. Learning multiplication tables by rote is what turns kids off from math. that and their parents passing on their hatred of doing math in school. Because it's boring.......

Even in the most traditional schools, you don't learn to spell every word from a weekly spelling list. You pick most of them up through reading and writing and actually using them. The lists are/should be saved for the harder words. Imagine how hard/dull English would be if you spent most of your early years staring at lists of words rather than reading/being read to. If you were expected to know all the words before you got to put them together in any interesting way. We don't do it with language, why do it with math?

/passionate mathnerd with an agenda and a bee in her bonnet

I find the squares interesting - that the square of a number ending in 1 or 9 always ends in 1, 2 or 8 in 4, 3 or 7 in 9, 4 or 6 in 6, 0 in 0 and 5 in 5.

There are a lot of other cool properties, and, of course, squares are just special cases of multiplication in general.

Maybe we should have a math(s)-specific forum.

Exactly. isn't it so much more interesting to note that rather than just learning by rote that 6*6 = 36?

And it's fun to note when squares and cubes pop up in the fibonnacci sequence etc...... but rote learning misses all of this

I once stumbled on this for a sequential series of squares:
Given: B(n) = A(n) squared, and C(n) = B(n) - B(n-1)
Then: [COLOR="DarkRed"]C(n) = C(n-1) + 2[/COLOR]

For example, in rows 5 and 6 below...
C = 25 - 16 = 09
C = 36 - 25 = 11

A__B__C
01 01 01
02 04 03
03 09 05
04 [COLOR="DarkRed"]16[/COLOR] 07
05 [COLOR="DarkRed"]25 09[/COLOR]
06 [COLOR="DarkRed"]36 11[/COLOR]
07 49 13
08 64 15
09 81 17
10 100 19
... ... ...
35 1225 69
36 1296 71
37 1369 73
38 1444 75
39 1521 77
40 1600 79
41 1681 81
... ... ...
etc.

You people are corrupting my thread about English with Maths!???

I think you can count on it. :bolt:

They're both languages with beauty. I think you'll find we're improving it :)

I'm a prime number fan, myself.

Clodfobble;799736 wrote:

...Says the man whose children have never been to Catholic school.

But I spent grades 9-12 with my 3 closest friends who had gone through 8 years of catholic school. They had memorized their multiplication tables and grammar rules, but couldn't write a poem to save their lives. Nor could they grasp highly conceptual ideas. They learned how though - one was our valedictorian.

Aliantha;799792 wrote:

You people are corrupting my thread about English with Maths!???

Since there is no math/s forum, we have to math in other forums.

Ali, will you accept a compromise ?

Mathematical Beauty: A limerick
Doesn’t it just gladden your heart to see
These games we can play with infinity?
How can one stay aloof
From the elegance of a proof
And remain immune to mathematics’ subtle beauty?

Punya Mishra, Jan 27, 2010

HungLikeJesus;799838 wrote:

Since there is no math/s forum, we have to math in other forums.

I warned you guys about this. You are all on report (except Ali, since she started this thread about English.)

Penalty for posting maths in a non-math forum should be calculated by dividing the square root of the number of maths posts by the cube root of the number of non-math posts in that thread, then taking the base 10 log of the result and multiplying by the square root of -1.

42

monster;799885 wrote:

42

TILT

That's not a prime

The times tables have worked perfectly well for hundreds of years. They aren't broke and don't need fixing.

My friend's kids can't multiply or divide 3 digit numbers by paper and pencil, they have to pull out a calculator ... heck, they can't even figure a restaurant bill, tax, and tip without a calculator, not just because it's faster, but because the math is simply beyond them. And they're not dumb kids.

But they didn't have to learn their times tables. They had to understand concepts. Which is even further down that road paved with good intentions than the New Math.

Calculators are on the elementary school supply lists now, along with paper, pencils, a see through backpack to prevent school shootings, and a nice pencil case (clear also). I wasn't even allowed to touch a calculator until my Junior Year of high school, and then only for trigonometry.

Not here they're not. No calculators until 7th grade. All my kids can do long division. Thor's doing some right now, as it happens.

Same here Wolf. Maybe its a PA thing?

Well, I agree with wolf about there being a benefit to rote learning as far as things like times tables go, but then, I'm a fan of kids having a broad education which encompasses all sorts of learning styles.

Don't even get me started on what I think about how some teachers and schools teach English these days!

In primary (elementary) school, maths is not just about the maths.

Mental arithmetic is usually one of the first lessons each morning.
Singing the tables gets kids into the daily routine, into the "school brain mode". Pencil-and-paper arithmetic is a warm up for whatever brain exercises will follow.

And at all levels, it has benefits beyond the immediate skill.
The ability to do symbol manipulation with numbers improves the ability to do symbol manipulation in any field, such as grammatical transformations of verbs, etc.
It's like bicep-curls for your brain. Pretty much no-one needs to do bicep curls for a living, but doing bicep curls will improve your ability to do whatever physical task it is you do need to do. Same with the seven times tables and your brain.

I disagree.

I do think that "songs" are not as off putting as other forms of rote learning, but I don't believe they help much -they link all the "facts" together so it's hard to extract the one you want. You might have to start at the beginning until you come to the one you want.

The rote learning is not the bicep curls, the multiplication and division problems are. the rote learning would just be looking at them and flexing them a little.

Rote learning can and does have its uses, I agree. But mostly at a young age, it only serves to help label a subject boring and difficult. Especially in math. Also in spelling, but that lesson has already been learned a little, I think. few kindergartens focus on spelling over content these days. Sure, there are many teenagers today who can't spell worth a damn. There always were, it's just that they didn't used to have internet and iPhones so the evidence wasn't so readily available.

Lots of those old guys couldn't spell, either. Look at Shakespeare.

And here's Robert Burns. He must have typed this with both thumbs:

Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass,
Whare are you gaun, my hinnie?
She answered me right saucilie,
"An errand for my minnie."

O whare live ye, my bonie lass,
O whare live ye, my hinnie?
"By yon burnside, gin ye maun ken,
In a wee house wi' my minnie."

But I foor up the glen at e'en.
To see my bonie lassie;
And lang before the grey morn cam,
She was na hauf sae saucie.

O weary fa' the waukrife cock,
And the foumart lay his crawin!
He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep,
A wee blink or the dawin.

An angry wife I wat she raise,
And o'er the bed she brocht her;
And wi' a meikle hazel rung
She made her a weel-pay'd dochter.

O fare thee weel, my bonie lass,
O fare thee well, my hinnie!
Thou art a gay an' a bonnie lass,
But thou has a waukrife minnie.

No doubt it was a manual typewriter at that.

Amazing, indeed. Chiseled those little funny marks right into the stone for you, it would ...

HungLikeJesus wrote:

I find the squares interesting - that the square of a number ending in 1 or 9 always ends in 1, 2 or 8 in 4, 3 or 7 in 9, 4 or 6 in 6, 0 in 0 and 5 in 5.

See, to me this kind of stuff was always so frustrating and completely useless. What good does it do?

"What's 9 squared?"
"Er, I don't know--but I know it ends in a 1!"

I had several teachers try to teach us cute little tricks like this, and it always seemed to me that memorizing the tricks was much harder than just memorizing the answer in the first place. But I'm down with monster's method of memorizing the answers organically as part of general learning, rather than drilling them.

6*7 is one of the trouble makers that does need a little effort. I first of all give my kids a little "British Culture" lesson. If you say something is "at sixes and sevens" it means it's all messed up. And we all know the answer to life the universe and everything is 42. Well we do once we've had our British culture lesson. So if every thing is all messed up you put it right with the answer to everything. 6*7 = 42. You wouldn't think it would work if you have to give them the cultural reference first, but it does. And they enjoy yelling 42 at me when they see me in the hall :lol:

There, see, that had a literary reference in it too :)

Clodfobble;800102 wrote:

See, to me this kind of stuff was always so frustrating and completely useless. What good does it do?

"What's 9 squared?"
"Er, I don't know--but I know it ends in a 1!"
...

It's useful when calculating square roots. If the number ends in a 1, you know the square root ends in 1 or 9.

My G-daughter is in 3rd grade and changed schools last month.
She did not know the multiplication tables,
and was placed in a class that is learning division and estimating.

Question: how do you teach division to a child that does not know the X's-table ?

We are having nightly sessions to learn the tables, mainly because
[COLOR="DarkRed"]I can't stand watching[/COLOR] her try to figure out how many times 7 goes into 42.
She was trying to add 7+7+... and almost always made a mistake.

After learning most of the tables, there are still some combinations that still give her trouble,
so I have used the same approach Monster describes above...
6 sheep in 7 pens, or [COLOR="DarkRed"]any silly image[/COLOR] that will stick in her mind to simply know 6 times 7 is 42.

And by coincidence, I have also used HLJ's "trick" above with squares
to help trigger her memory.... e.g., how many times 7 goes into 35 must be 5.

So, rote memory, memory tricks, silly images (e.g., to remember people's names)
all help in moving on to the more important issues,
and not being held up trying to figure it out from scratch,
without wasting the most valuable resource... time.

It works, and these kid have no hatred of math, no concept that there is a general conception that math is hard and boring. that is a self-fulfilling prophecy and it need to be buried. Learning multiplication tables by rote is what turns kids off from math. that and their parents passing on their hatred of doing math in school. Because it's boring.......

rAMEN!! Preach is sister!

Lamplighter;800113 wrote:

Question: how do you teach division to a child that does not know the X's-table ?

Multiplication Rock, my friend. And she can learn parts of speech and about the constitution and how a bill is passed, too.

When I was a child I did arithmetic recreationally. Yeah, I really knew how to live. I also read a lot.
It's by those two activities that I ended up being (if I do say so myself) a reasonably learned person with the ability to think and know my times tables and what an allegory is.
School was utterly useless and is 85% jumping through hoops and checking boxes, 10% realising that people with authority are almost invariably useless and don't care about you, and 5% trying to remember how to do percentages and the more complex maths. What is Sin, CoSin, and all that other stuff? What is Log? I used to press those buttons on my calculator to get the right answers, but I never understood what they meant.
School really is the most spectacular waste of time and resources.

Blueflare;800210 wrote:

When I was a child I did arithmetic recreationally. Yeah, I really knew how to live. I also read a lot.
It's by those two activities that I ended up being (if I do say so myself) a reasonably learned person with the ability to think and know my times tables and what an allegory is.
School was utterly useless and is 85% jumping through hoops and checking boxes, 10% realising that people with authority are almost invariably useless and don't care about you, and 5% trying to remember how to do percentages and the more complex maths. What is Sin, CoSin, and all that other stuff? What is Log? I used to press those buttons on my calculator to get the right answers, but I never understood what they meant.
School really is the most spectacular waste of time and resources.

Pfft! That's nothing. Our fearless leader taught himself the meaning of the word autodidact.

:D welcome Blueflare. You are in good company here. If you have a twisted sense of humor. If you have no sense of humor you are in almost good company here.

When I was a kid I documented game results (like a detective game I had, etc) and kept records and compared.

Ha! Funny...that's pretty much what I do now.

Only without the fun and with the added Dragon Lady Boss. ;)

Welcome Blueflare! Stay a while. Want a beer?

Lamplighter;800113 wrote:

My G-daughter is in 3rd grade and changed schools last month.
She did not know the multiplication tables,
and was placed in a class that is learning division and estimating.

Question: how do you teach division to a child that does not know the X's-table ?

Same way you do to one who does. Unless you feel that it's not important for them to understand the real world implications of what they're doing on paper.

We are having nightly sessions to learn the tables,

I bet that's making her really LOVE math, sounds like such fun!!! .... :rolleyes:

mainly because
[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="4"]I can't stand watching[/SIZE][/COLOR] her try to figure out how many times 7 goes into 42.

But it's not about you, grandpa. it's about her. go in a different room if you can't stand it. Kids need to do their own homework and make their own mistakes in their own way. The best way to help is to encourage them to write down their working so you can help them discover where they went wrong when they do.

She was trying to add 7+7+... and almost always made a mistake.

As do kids when first learning by rote rather than experience/practice. 8*7 = 54 etc. 54's in there somewhere and 8*7 was 50somethig..... Also, it sounds like she need the addition practice if she is still making mistakes so often. Bypassing that is not doing her any favors.

After learning most of the tables, there are still some combinations that still give her trouble,
so I have used the same approach Monster describes above...
6 sheep in 7 pens, or [COLOR="DarkRed"]any silly image[/COLOR] that will stick in her mind to simply know 6 times 7 is 42.

Not the same at all in fact. It could so easily be 8 sheep and 4 pens. there's nothing unique there. needs to be unique or it's not memorable. The image may be memorable, but the numbers, no.

And by coincidence, I have also used HLJ's "trick" above with squares
to help trigger her memory.... e.g., how many times 7 goes into 35 must be 5.

So, rote memory, memory tricks, silly images (e.g., to remember people's names)
all help in moving on to the more important issues,
and not being held up trying to figure it out from scratch,
without wasting the most valuable resource... time.

More time is wasted when you learn just enough facts to pass the test, but not the deep understanding that you can transfer to other applications (and "save time")

Has tw taken over monster's account?

Spexxvet;799718 wrote:

I learned in about 1975. One had to be leery of those newfangled calculators.

That's true, and it's gotten worse.

I had to work on this picture to make it readable, but it's unchanged.

oh. em. gee.

Please. I don't want to play that game again.

:lol:

Man, when ever calculators disagree - even the same brand - what hope is there for us?

Put your hope in learning arithmetic.

It's not really possible to define "common sense",
but it is a step now included in our school's teaching process,
that was not specifically included back in my day.

My G-daughters homework includes making an "estimate"
before working out the details of the problem.
So when they get an answer, they have a way to ask
if it seems "about right" or "makes sense".
Likewise, keeping track of the "units" in so-called "word" or "story" problems
is a helpful part of getting the correct answer.

I don't know how long schools have been doing this,
but I think these are great "innovations" in beginning math,
and can be used later on with more complex problems,
to avoid stupid blunders... like misplaced decimal points, etc.
.

I learned about keeping track of units in HS, and I think it was one of the more important things I've learned. But it has made me very intolerant of people who mis-use units (like saying crazy things like kW/hr when they mean kWh). I guess that should go in the mis-used thread.

I learned about keeping track of eunuchs in HS too.

Damn man, those crazy motherfucking eunuchs, was like herding cats, amirite?

Why would you want to go around hurting cats?

You mean the bird killers?

you don't herd eunuchs, you just steer'em.



though I reckon it hurts at the moment of eunuchification.

BigV;800616 wrote:

... though I reckon it hurts at the moment of eunuchification.

You mean like Germany in 1871?

BigV;800616 wrote:

you don't herd eunuchs, you just steer'em.



though I reckon it hurts at the moment of eunuchification.

Isn't that a unified field theory based on strings and swinging doors ?

BigV, I sore what you did there.

DanaC;800601 wrote:

Damn man, those crazy motherfucking eunuchs, was like herding cats, amirite?

Seriously. We're LOUSY with eunuchs around here. Lousy, I tell you!

How good and right it is that both infinite monkey and wolf can be seen in the Animal Farm.

Is petting allowed?

Only if it's heavy, babe.