There is an alternative argument that argues for the opposite. Many pedagogues try to plead the case that first you must teach the “basics” (meaning the basic skills, like the “multiplication facts”) before you can expect a child [...]]]> The previous post was about the value of learning conceptually before you start practicing for skill.

There is an alternative argument that argues for the opposite. Many pedagogues try to plead the case that first you must teach the “basics” (meaning the basic skills, like the “multiplication facts”) before you can expect a child to acquire any meaning about it.

First, a short digression:
I HATE it when they call them the this-or-that “facts.” Firstly because it implies that anything outside the stupid, limited chart they are pushing are not “facts.” Is 84.5 * 63 = 5,323.5 somehow not a fact? And secondly because the way they use the word “facts” somehow implies that the fact is “outside driven.” By that I mean that it is a random kind of thing that you just have to memorize, instead of something that you can experience and learn from conceptualizing. Okay, back to our theme…

There is some validity to those pedagogues argument. Or at least there would be if some conditions were fulfilled first. But they almost never are in any public school system, which renders them pitifully invalid. Before I rip their into little girlie-man shreds, let me present the kind of case where their arguments would be valid:

“… wax on – wax off …”

Maybe you remember the cool seventies flick, “The Karate Kid.” (If you haven’t seen it, you should. It will illustrate several important points about teaching – and it’s a fun flick.) In it, the kid wants to learn Karate, and somehow convinces the somewhat reluctant Mr. Miyagi to teach him martial arts.

Mr. Miyagi ends up having the kid paint his house, wax his car, etc. Even worse, Miyagi is apparently a control-freak, and insists the kid do those chores with certain arm movements.

After a few weeks of this, the kid gets impatient, and asks about when Mr. Miyagi finally will teach him some self-defense. Mr. Miyagi pretends to try to slap the kid, and the kid blocks the slap perfectly. The kid is totally astounded that he could even do that.

It turns out that the arm movements that Miyagi Sensei was so obsessive-compulsive about are exactly the arm movements you need to learn for those basic blocking moves.

There was a perfect example of learning the skill mindlessly, by rote first, and then grasping the concept later.

This may actually be the best way for many things, including basic math facts. But certain conditions must be fulfilled in order for them to work.

What condition our condition is in

The first condition, is that the teacher must not only be a master practitioner, but a master teacher of his art. And it must be an art, in a deep sense.

I have only met one teacher in my lifetime in a public school (university) who met these conditions. He is a decorated and brilliant retired theoretical physicist and professor emeritus, and the founder of “Eduction” (or “Edux“). (More on Edux at some later date.)

How many teachers or parents out there want to try to fulfill those conditions? When you do, you’ll have nothing but my admiration. But until any of us do, we’d be well advised to teaching the concepts first, I think.

So if you’re short of being a Zen Master of your art, the next best thing seems to be being a thoughtful teacher, who doesn’t insist on teaching with a style that you can’t really fulfill, but will do the best with what is within your capacity.

There is a tendency to demand certain things from students without providing the means for them to attain those things. We “raise standards” and enact a cruel and, well, basically retarded “No Child Left Behind” act. Then we don’t fund it. We demand “accountability” (one of those words from this hypocritical era in American history that will go down in infamy) with “standardized testing,” yet we don’t give teachers the kind of training, the time, and the resources that they need to do their jobs. Then we blame them for it. And we blame kids for failing. You can’t load thirty kids into a class, undermine the teacher’s ability with some random “standards,” and then expect any meaningful outcome.

Those pedagogues who have the “lofty” Ideas, but not the means to make them work, are only going to confuse more and more children, and make sure no one wants to remain or become a teacher. It’s one thing to be an academic, with your head stuck firmly up your butt, and it’s another thing to try to stick innocent young kid’s heads up there with it.

“You vill do it first, und zen you vill undershtant it!”

If you are interested in reading some interesting thoughts about how to learn something to a degree of meaning that most of us might otherwise never dream of, consider getting a copy of “Zen in the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigal. It is a classic, and I don’t believe I can think of any other book that has a greater right to be on everyone’s bookshelf (and read).

If you’ll allow me another digression:

The archer in the animated movie below was scanned from the cover of my original copy of “Zen in the Art of Archery.”

This was one of the first “flash” animations I ever made. Please excuse the soundtrack if you speak Japanese. I don’t speak much Japanese (Suimasen watashi wa Nihongo hanesamasen), so when I chose the soundtrack, I chose it for the actual sounds, not the meaning. The sentences came from the soundtracks of old Japanese movies, and I have no Idea what they mean. If you are Japanese, you are either rolling on the floor laughing your ass off, or are pissed at me. Please forgive me. I meant no disrespect. Much to the contrary.

A lesson from contemporary China

I have been corresponding with a student at Beijing University who put up a video on YouTube. It is of him rolling a coin over his fingers and doing other magician’s “flourishes” with coins. The kid is amazing. The coin-roll is one of my specialties in magic (I am a semi-retired professional magician), and this kid’s coin-rolling skills just blow mine away. So I wrote to him to express my admiration, and we began corresponding to exchange Ideas about magic, performance, skill, philosophy, etc.

In one of his e-mails he mentioned this wonderful thought: “… and as in a old saying in China ‘Interest is the best teacher.’”

Tao, I couldn’t agree more.

Here is Tao jamming with coins:

Click here to view the embedded video.

BTW, as you watch this one, crank your speakers. The soundtrack is by Jeong-Hyun Lim, a Korean kid who recorded this at home. His youtube video was featured on these Chronicles on this post.

If you’d like to see an old (1991) video of yours truly rolling two coins at once, check out the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Afterthoughts:

As you watch those young Korean and Chinese kids perform those intricate, creative and absolutely astounding feats, you might ask yourself why many of us in the US set such wussified standards for our own kids. What will our kids accomplish when they are their age? More important, what will turn them on?

In a recent post of his he mentions an article written by Paul Lockhart entitled, “A Mathematician’s Lament.” It was written in 2002, but has only gotten mass coverage recently, since [...]]]> While surfing some of the other math blogs in the blogosphere, I ran across a post in Michael Paul Goldenberg’s Rational Mathematics Education blog.

In a recent post of his he mentions an article written by Paul Lockhart entitled, “A Mathematician’s Lament.” It was written in 2002, but has only gotten mass coverage recently, since it was featured on a post at the website of Keith Devlin.

For those of you who don’t know Keith Devlin, you are in for a treat. His writings are among the most lucid you will ever read about math. He makes very complicated things easy to understand. Please do yourself a great favor and visit his website.

You may have heard his lilting voice on NPR as “The Math Guy.” Devlin has also linked to Lockhart’s article, which is available as a free PDF download.

If you have any interest in math at all, even if you are not an educator, you will truly enjoy the enlightening thoughts that Lockhart shares with you. His appreciation, and enthusiasm for math, and teaching it are joy to read.

So take some time and revel in the passion Lockhart will enchant you with. Download the article now from the bottom of the post at Devlin’s site.

Please read the Devlin essay about the article. It says everything I’d want to say, only better.

Photography by Santarosa, Justin Wong and Brian. Edited by Brian

(This was meant to be posted on Monday. Sorry about the lateness).

Many of us who struggle to learn math (yes, I am one of them) suffer from assorted challenges, like ADD, procrastination, lack of focus, depression, and other things that are or [...]]]>

Photography by Santarosa, Justin Wong and Brian. Edited by Brian

(This was meant to be posted on Monday. Sorry about the lateness).

Many of us who struggle to learn math (yes, I am one of them) suffer from assorted challenges, like ADD, procrastination, lack of focus, depression, and other things that are or aren’t nameable.

That’s no big, deal, unless we chose to make it one. Every challenge is just that, a call to step up and beat it. So we constantly seek methods, systems and other tools to help us. That’s partly what makes a challenge fun – finding new, cool things that other people never think about.

Recently I was speaking with a friend of mine. He seems to get a lot done, and I always admired that about him. I mentioned that to him, and he seems to think that he doesn’t really. At least not naturally, anyway.

“But guys like you always seem to be on top of things, not terribly overwhelmed with all the things you want to do. You at least get your work done. Maybe there are a lot of hobbies and other interests you don’t get to, but you really get your job done.” I said. “It seems like one thing about the military is that makes sure you get your work accomplished.” (My friend is an officer in the Navy.)

He explained that that is pretty true. He said it had a lot to do with engineering controls vs. administrative controls. I asked him what he meant.

He explained that in his job, certain things must get done. They can mean the difference between life-and-death. Here’s and example from navigation history:

On sailing ships, you needed to know the time to navigate in open waters accurately. The administrative control would be to have orders to wind and maintain the clock to keep it accurate. But you could forget to wind it, it could break, or something else could happen to it.

The engineering control would be to have three clocks. As soon as one was off, you could check it against the other two. (The likelihood that two clocks would go wrong, and display the same time is infinitesimal.)

Note: The politician’s control would have to been to have two clocks. Then he could say he was doing something to check the clock’s accuracy, and save money at the same time, by not having to buy a third clock. In reality, he would have accomplished nothing, (you couldn’t tell which or the two clocks was wrong) and spent twice as much money as having one clock. But he would have done just enough for him to get credit for having an “action plan” and have the general population of dunces accept it.

Engineering controls vs. administrative controls have a lot to do with the difference between doing something, and saying you are doing something.

As you may have noticed, a recurring theme in Math Mojo is that there is no positive value in saying you are going to do something. Today is a great day to notice that if you are a New Yorker. Today is the day that we get a new governor, because Elliot Spitzer had to step down. He was the crusader who was going to bring a higher standard Albany. He had all the makings of a guy who’d keep his promise. He had been a go-getter State Attorney General. He cleaned up a lot in that position.

But his promises of “cleaning house” as governor fell to pieces in the wake of his lack of judgement and self-control. I won’t go into details, as they are not important here, and I am neither a moralist nor a gossip (they are the same thing). The important point, is that it doesn’t matter if you are a nincompoop who’s failing 7th-grade math for the second time, or you’re the super-competent Governor of an enlightened state – saying your going to do is nothing compared to making sure you do it.

Here’s another timely example – Today is St. Patrick’s Day. There are going to be a lot of Americans who are going to do some competitive drinking tonight. An administrative control would be to say, “I’m not going to drive if I drink to much.” Of course we know how good our judgement is to make a decision like that after we’ve had to much right? Um, I don’t think so.

An engineering control would be to let a designated driver, who is not a drinker, drive, if you intend to drink at all.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Q: When is a Compromise not a Compromise? A: When it’s a Red Herring

We talked about “red herrings” in the previous posts about “The Case of the Missing Dollar.”

I occasionally do after-school presentations of MathMagic for the C.R.O.P. program in rural upstate New York. I’ve been [...]]]>
Original photo by didbygraham

Q: When is a Compromise not a Compromise?
A: When it’s a Red Herring

We talked about “red herrings” in the previous posts about “The Case of the Missing Dollar.”

I occasionally do after-school presentations of MathMagic for the C.R.O.P. program in rural upstate New York. I’ve been participating in the program for years, as a local artist (magician). The program pays a very small honorarium, and a travel budget (Monday I drove 120 miles round-trip for peanuts) Most of the artists do it out of love of bringing their art to children who otherwise may never get exposed to it. It is a labor of love to all concerned, but it is a great mission.

The Creating Rural Opportunities Partnership (CROP) After School and Summer Program is a program which does just what it is named.

In it’s mission statement:

The goal of CROP is to provide intellectual development and opportunities for academic achievement for students grades K-8 with a strong focus on middle school.  In addition, CROP provides enrichment, health, wellness, life skills, recreational and cultural opportunities for 1260 middle school and primary grade students, community members and parents through a 21st Century Community Learning Center Partnership.

Over the last few years, funding for this excellent program has dwindled. Sound familiar? Art and after-school programs are typically among the first to get their throats cut when the government feels it needs to cut costs.

Last year the C.R.O.P. program for many schools in our area got wiped out. This year it looks like more of them will be hobbled or totally destroyed.

My heart goes out to the children, their parents and also to the facilitators of this program (the local Arts Councils are usually the people that make the C.R.O.P programs possible).

I’ve talked to the CROP facilitators and aides recently about how they are getting their program decimated. I admit, I don’t know the details (the system of how things like this get funded are abysmally convoluted and hard to track down). But some patterns seem to evolve as the program dwindles, and I’ve noticed how the government goes about it in a devious way.

They pretend to like the program and support it, but complain about the budget. So they “compromise” and say we’ll make only a small budget cut (even though they’d love to cut it entirely). The gambit goes something like this: “We’ll fund the artists, the facilitators, administrators, the space, etc. but we’ll have to cut the transportation budget.”

Transportation is the “late bus” for the kids who stay for the program. They are generally the kids who’s parents either work two jobs and have one car, or both work, and can’t pick the kids up at 4:45 or later, because of late shifts, second shifts or otherwise. In other words, the less affluent parents. Not all, but most.

So if the late bus is cut from the budget, these kids can’t get home from school, except for the normal school bus at about 3:15.

What follows, is that a lot of those kids can no longer take advantage of the after-school program. So attendance goes down. The three facilitators I talked to so far said that it’s down in their programs by about 50%

That gives the bean-counting weasels who want to de-fund the program for next year this red-herring: “Well, since attendance is down, that shows that the kids don’t really want the program. It doesn’t make sense for us to fund a program that nobody wants. So we have to cut the program.”

What the weasels do is first look for the place they can place their fulcrum where it will be most effective (or destructive), so they can cut the least money in the first round. That makes them look like they are compromising, but in reality, even though they are cutting maybe 5% from the budget in the first year, they know that will enable them to gut the program entirely the next year, with less of a fight.

This is a classic case of disenfranchisement. It’s like when African-Americans got the right to vote, but certain southern states passed laws that required people to be able to read and write to vote, or demanded a poll-tax that many couldn’t afford. That effectively eliminated a large percentage of the African-American population, who had recently been slaves, and had been forbidden to learn how to read and write, and had never been paid anything for their work.

In essence, the weasels are offering something that they know no one can take advantage of, because of circumstances that the weasels caused in the first place.

And who gets screwed in all of this? Classically it is the less fortunate part of the population. What a tragic shame. Not just for for the less-fortunate, but for everyone.

One of the consequences of this problem, is that some parents will reconsider working a second job, or will otherwise have to suffer financially, which also hurts the economy in general. Also, the CROP program gives kids a structured environment to do their homework in, with adult supervision and help if they need it. Sometimes they don’t have that at home at all. So CROP gives the kids a chance to actually re-enforce what they’ve learned in school, and perhaps actually retain it. Imagine that!

If that portion of the population doesn’t get that extra chance, their prospects for growing up to be fully enfranchised citizens suffers, the potential for them becoming burdens on the state grows, the economy suffers, the crime-rate possibly goes up, ad infinitum. All because some selfish weasels want to cut the throat of a program they are not bright enough to see is helping their own.

This is pretty much the de facto way administrators and policy makers work. Especially in the public school sector. Why not? It’s only your children and the world’s future at stake.

Of course, the weasels responsible will probably forever remain nameless and faceless. That’s their nature. That’s one of the reasons the system is so convoluted, to protect the guilty. I wish I could truly pinpoint the weasels who are responsible so we could bring them to justice. Or maybe we could just egg their houses.

Original Photo by Norsehorse Edited by Brian

Ah, I love it when readers beat me to the punch!

The comments to the original post pretty much sum up the paradox and it’s solution very well.

Khaled’s and Mark’s comments illustrate perfectly one of the things I wanted to point out about this [...]]]>

Original Photo by Norsehorse Edited by Brian

Ah, I love it when readers beat me to the punch!

The comments to the original post pretty much sum up the paradox and it’s solution very well.

Khaled’s and Mark’s comments illustrate perfectly one of the things I wanted to point out about this puzzle. That point is:

Just because something is phrased a certain way is not reason to assume that that phrasing is the best way to represent the problem. And one way to critically examine the situation is to reframe it in a mathematical equation.

Khaled said, “Interesting how, once you assume that you can implicitly trust a given source, you can be led through any logic, or illogic, and have a lot of trouble pulling yourself back to a critical mindset.”

How true. Then Mark gave a good method to understand how to see where the paradox lies when he said, “I started to write an equation, because properly written equations can solve all counting problems, but then realized that this was pointless, because adding 2 dollars to the 27 dollars the guests paid did not reflect what happened.”

Exactly! The question was phrased to lead you to believe that because the facts were a certain way (which it accurately represented) you had to see it in a certain way (which was anything but accurate).

This kind of paradox is harder to identify than simply by “fact checking.” If you do a diligent fact-check of the problem, you’ll find that no facts are misstated. In fact, everything in the entire problem is on the up-and-up, except for the last sentence – “Adding the two dollars that the bellboy kept would make a total of $29 dollars.”

There’s the rub. Why would you add the two dollars that the bellboy kept?

A good way to look at the puzzle is to “follow the money,” or mentally picture the flow of what went where, instead of just listening to the arguer’s “logic” and being lead down the garden path.

So let’s follow the money:
$30 went from the men to the manager.
$5 went to the bellboy.
Of that $5, $3 went to the men, and $2 was kept by the bellboy. There is no reason to add two dollars to anything.

The last sentence of the puzzle is added just to throw you off the actual path of the money. Magician’s do this all the time. It’s called “misdirection.” but when magicians do it, they (hopefully) are doing it for entertainment purposes, only.

Magicians thrive on what we call, “the willing suspension of disbelief.” We assume you came to the show to relax your mind and just have fun in the fantasy world of “that which can’t and does.”

On the other hand, politicians, fanatical religious lunatics, some salesmen, and an awful lot of educational policy-makers thrive on the “the unwitting, or coerced suspension of disbelief.” And that makes all the difference.

If you willingly part with something that is not inalienable – (your temporary suspension of belief, your money, etc.) – well, that is your decision. On the other hand, if someone coerces you or tricks you into actually accepting something as real, or takes your money without your agreement (as in a sale, loan, etc.) they are committing a crime.

And stealing your mind is a lot worse than stealing your money, in the long run.

That is one of the reasons I started Math Mojo to begin with.
Quick story:

I used to work in a Job Corps facility. I won’t go into detail, but in a nutshell, Job Corps is a government boondoggle set up to have corporations get money for running educational and vocational programs for deserving sixteen through eighteen year-olds who have been shafted by the traditional system, or their neighborhood, parents, etc. In reality, Job Corps shafts these kids pretty badly, as well.

At the Job Corps, I was a math teacher. Basically, they wanted me to administer cheap computer-generated quizzes covering basic “math facts.” The system was so dismal I cried many nights working past midnight at my desk to try to fix it even minimally.

OK – to the point – there was one female student who was very intelligent and mature for her age, but who’d been hopelessly victimized by her upbringing. She still had some very bad vestiges of the “we’re just victims” syndrome.

One day she came to me and said, conspiratorially, “You know, Mr. Foley, we all have electronic chips planted in our hands, so the government can track us. You know about that, don’t you?”

Oh, man! My heart fell. The best I could come up with was, “Look, you’re a poor kid from the hood, and I’m just a poor schmuck working in a rural government facility for $12 an hour. Why in the world would anyone want to track you or me? Or anyone else in this godforsaken place?”

I had thought I was doing so much good trying to teach these kids some logic, and rational ways to deal with their world through math, but still the walls had been been built so high and wide by their social backgrounds.

That girl was a nice, smart, valuable person. It DRIVES ME NUTS that our society accepts deception, abuse, and coercion of thought by politicians and educational policy-makers. ESPECIALLY by educational policy-makers, who after all, should be the front line against mind-abuse and enforced stupidity. People like that young woman should be nurtured and encouraged, not “kept down” and “inculcated.”

Back to our puzzle. They type of misdirection used in The Case of the Missing Dollar (?) has several names and versions. One of them is “Red Herring.” That will be the focus of the next post here at The Math Mojo Chronicles.

As Mark pointed out in his comment, one great way is to make an equation, which is a “schematic” of the problem, using numbers.

Another was is the method that is used by the subject of Alexander Luria’s (the great neuropsychologist) book, “Mind of a Mnemonist.” A mnemonist is a person who has a phenomenal memory. I don’t mean like your friend who knows baseball statistics. I mean like a person who memorizes every step he takes and can tell you what he ate on September 3, 1966.

It turns out that the subject, “S,” who was the mnemonist, had very interesting ways to look at math problems, too. He didn’t use symbols for numbers. He used graphic images of the situation. Here’s a taste, from page 105:

When faced with this problem:

The price of a notebook is 4 times that of a pencil. The pencil is 30 kopeks cheaper than the notebook. How much is each?

(You may want to ponder how you would solve this yourself before you read on.)

He pictured the notebook and four pencils next to it, with an equal sign between them.

Then he pictured the pencil = 30 kopeks cheaper than the notebook like this: A notebook, then an equal sign, then a pencil and a plus sign and 30 kopeks next to it.

That immediately lead him to see three pencils, an equals sign, and thirty kopeks.

From there it is easy to see that a pencil is 10 kopeks, which makes it easy to see that the answer to the problem is that each pencil costs ten kopeks, and a notebook costs forty kopeks.

To wrap this up:
You are in control of your mind. The more tools you have to solve problems with it, the less you are at the mercy of people who would like to steal and mislead your attention. And the more you are free to explore the world in ways that are beneficial to you.

You can find a very thorough and interesting (and totally understandable) discussion of the motel puzzle at this really interesting blog. Make sure you look at the clever post by walldog in the comments

Another good resource to understand the motel puzzle can be found at Wikipedia.

Original Photo by Norsehorse Edited by Brian

There’s a braintwister that’s been going around the internet, well, probably ever since there was an internet. It’s actually probably thousands of years old in one version or another. You may have seen it phrased like this:

Three men go into a motel. The man behind [...]]]>

Original Photo by Norsehorse Edited by Brian

There’s a braintwister that’s been going around the internet, well, probably ever since there was an internet. It’s actually probably thousands of years old in one version or another. You may have seen it phrased like this:

Three men go into a motel. The man behind the desk said that the room costs $30. So each man paid $10 and went to the room.

Later, the desk clerk realized that the room was only $25. So he sent the bellboy to the men’s rooms with five one-dollar bills.

The bellboy couldn’t figure out how to split five dollars evenly three ways, so he gave each man one dollar, and kept the other two for himself.

This meant that the three men had each paid $9 for their rooms, which makes a total of $27 dollars. Adding the two dollars that the bellboy kept would make a total of $29 dollars.

So where is the other dollar?

My advice to anyone trying to solve anything like this, or trying to think about anything at all, for that matter, is not to jump to conclusions.

Want to give it a try and add your thoughts in a comment? Go for it! I’m not asking for the solution, just some thoughts about the meaning of the puzzle – how it relates to life, logic, decision-making and understanding your world. I am not putting this up as a trivial puzzle.

My comments will be in the next post.

(Note: When I originally posted this, there were a few typos and other mistakes in it. If you busted your head over it till now, please accept my apologies. It should be correct now.)

Sometimes you read a story that just grabs you. I got one forwarded to me today that, at first glance, seems to have nothing to do with math. But since Math Mojo readers know that math is more meaningful than that stuff they shoved down your throat [...]]]> (Or “The Seamus on Mitt Romney”)

Sometimes you read a story that just grabs you. I got one forwarded to me today that, at first glance, seems to have nothing to do with math. But since Math Mojo readers know that math is more meaningful than that stuff they shoved down your throat in school, I think you’ll appreciate this one. Bear with me.

In the summer of 1983, Mitt Romney took a vacation with his wife and five sons, to his parents’ cottage on the Canadian side of Lake Huron. The trip from Boston was twelve hours long.

According to an article in the Boston Globe by Neil Swidey and Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff, June 27, 2007:

“…Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog…

“… As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

“As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.”

Yeah, otherwise known as “compassionate conservatism.” You know that to “conserve” means “to not use,” or “to use as little as possible.” To conserve your compassion for what? Your cronies? Your sons, who you conserve for your political agenda, but not to fight in a war that you support? Certainly not for your dog…

Just what kind of sick freak is Mitt Romney? What kind of sick freak not only does something like that to a dog (who I suppose is just a “possession” to people like him, not a family-member, or friend) but covers it with a mealy-mouthed excuse like, “They’re just not happy that my dog loves fresh air.”

Is that why people are not happy, Mitt, you disingenuous twit? Or is it because you transported a dog in a crate on top of your car for twelve hours? Or because you hosed him off when he expressed himself on your plan?

People like Romney like to imagine that their lack of compassion is “emotion-free crisis management.” (And I like to call my abs a “six-pack,” but that isn’t true either, unless it’s a six-pack of bags of cottage cheese.) (OK, maybe you didn’t need that visual, either.)

There are branches of math and logic that deal with decision-making. Crisis management is part of decision-making. First, you determine what the crisis is. It seems that in this case, Mitt determined that the crisis was that a dog put a damper on his nice vacation plans.

But the actual crisis was that some idiot put a dog in a crate on top of a car and planned to drive for twelve hours. Or which do you think is a bigger crisis?

If Mitt can’t figure out what the crisis is, he’s not fit to govern. Hell, he’s not even fit to be dog-catcher!

(By the way, twelve hours for you and I is about three and a half days in dog-years.)

Surely you’ve heard people say they don’t like math because it’s too “factual,” or something like that. That is personality flaw, not something wrong with math. It’s an easy flaw to correct, thank goodness. When you think that the alternative is to have your description of your reality and your decision-making be mushy and nebulous. Getting clear critical-thinking skills keeps you from buying the muddled, weasely arguments and excuses that politicians of both wings are bound to try to fool you with.

If you know, or learn, how to dissect a problem as well as you can, you can find patterns where there are patterns, and you can also see where there are none. It doesn’t mean you’ll always be right, but you’ll be wrong a lot less then people who cannot think clearly.

Caveat:
Please, please don’t make any assumptions about my stand on any other issues concerning Romney or any other candidates. I despise Romney for even thinking about doing something like this to an animal, and for not being able to say, “I’m so sorry. I learned as soon as I did that, that it was an idiotic thing to do, and I have done things to insure that I don’t screw up like that again.” I’m not making any general political statements here, except that it seems that “they’re all like that.”

It’s not the mistake, so much. (Of course what he did was idiotic – but it was not heinous, and I’m sure you have done things equally as stupid – I know I have!)

It’s the total inability of politicians and other people of their ilk to actually be honest when they err, or learn from anything from their mistakes (except how to cover their tracks.)

In an ABC news article by Blair Soden on June 29, 2007, Physicist Dr. W.J. Llope, a senior faculty fellow at Rice University in the department of physics and astronomy, has his theory about the Romney’s decision to strap Seamus to the top of the car:

“Seeing the inside of the car is full, Romney absentmindedly says to himself, ‘Where am I going to put ole Seamus here?’ and hearing his name, the dog says, ‘Roof, roof,’ said Llope.”

Read Soden’s article for the physics and math of what happens to a Dog on a Roof Traveling 50 MPH.

Read these related articles:

Wonkette (The article is facetious, but the comments are brilliant!)

Peta for this telling quote:

“… any individual who does something like that may have what scientists term the absence of the mirror neuron, i.e., a pin-pointable absence in the brain of the characteristic which allows the individual to feel basic compassion. The implications are frightening. Anyone who suspects that they are not able to feel empathy for others needs to be aware of the existence of this condition. What is also worrying is that Mr. Romney seems to hold the very old fashioned idea that he needs to actively show he is heartless, hence the hunting claims he has made. Not subsistence hunting, but pride in killing defenseless animals.”

Time.com (“Mitt Romney loves his ‘Family Pets’”) Sure, Mitt. Next time share the fun with your kids, or don’t you “love” them?

Bill Frist – “Heinous and dishonest” (his own words) Cat Killer in the name of Science

Hat tip to my cousin Jayne for sending me the original story this morning.

As always, the story this post is based on has been checked at the snopes.com site for it’s veracity.

While listening to “Morning Edition” on National Public Radio awhile ago, I heard a report about self-esteem in the workplace, and how Gen-Xers need constant praise for the simplest of accomplishments in order to feel appreciated.

Oh, my! The poor darlings are in the workforce now and now there are actually consulting firms [...]]]>

While listening to “Morning Edition” on National Public Radio awhile ago, I heard a report about self-esteem in the workplace, and how Gen-Xers need constant praise for the simplest of accomplishments in order to feel appreciated.

Oh, my! The poor darlings are in the workforce now and now there are actually consulting firms that deal with how to keep the delicate little flowers happy, to retain them as workers, powered by constant praise, awards ceremonies and cookies and milk, I guess.

My first reaction was, “How idiotic. Just don’t hire the little turdblossoms in the first place, and the problem’s over.”

As usual, my first reaction is pretty useless. It seems that a great majority of gen-xers suffer from this self-esteem pathology, and if you aren’t going to hire gen-Xers, you are going to severely limit your pool of potential employees, some of whom may be genuinely talented for the job, despite their self-esteem problem.

So what do you do?

Damned if I know.

But pondering the dilemma did bring me to a less tangential issue for Math Mojo – that of self-esteem and education.

There are many school of thoughts on this. Schools today seem to take the expedient route of pandering to the basest wants of students as much as they can get away with. Bribes like “student of the week awards,” even up to cash awards, etc. We must make every child feel like a special, little snowflake, even when they are being little Smeagols. Very bad mojo.

Real respect and appreciation cannot be coerced by whining. In the long run, if a person lives long enough to attain a basic maturity level, they will see through the cowardice of their elders who pandered to them. Then they’ll have to go through a whole resentment stage, and, again, if they live long enough to reach the next maturity stage, they may find their own solutions for it and get over it.

Why put them through that unnecessary baloney? Why make external praise, or lack of it, such a big deal? Shouldn’t we teach that self-esteem comes from self? Isn’t that why we don’t call it “other-esteem”? If you condition a child to need his praise from you for every little thing, that is a control issue. It’s child-abuse, as far as I’m concerned.

Why is it that an entire generation seems to want to get their praise from external sources, for performance that is not necessarily praiseworthy? Did they design this phenomenon themselves? I don’t think so.

If the natural reaction to a child is to cry when it needs something, why would that make an adult feel the need to pander? Why doesn’t the adult do it’s best to actually fill the need, without having to feel guilty about the child’s natural needfullness? That unnatural, self-absorbed guilt is the motor for this whole problem. Then the guilt needs to be assuaged, and the pandering process begins. How did we learn to make ourselves feel so guilty?

The vicious cycle begins when the pandering does not solve the need. The kid didn’t need a toy, or a lollipop, s/he needed to be burped, get a hug, get fed, get diapers changed, or something else. No amount of what a child doesn’t need is going to satisfy the child. So now we have a crying, whining child who is spoiled, too.

And we are going to blame the child for this situation?

So what do we do about it? Once again, I don’t have a clue. OK, so maybe I do. First of all, if we observe children who we admire and consider well-balanced (this will be a different kind of child for different people, of course) we can model and learn from how their parents treated them.

Do you think the child who does well and feels good about himself was pandered to? Hell, most of the people I admire went through much rougher childhoods than my pampered, suburban butt. They weren’t pandered to by anyone.

Now, I’m not saying that you should make a child miserable – far from it. I’m saying that there should be balance. Try to protect them from negative extremes.

I do believe that what a generation watches effects their behavior to some extent. There have been so many studies about the effects of media with violent content on a child’s mind. You wouldn’t show Quentin Tarantino movies to a child (would you?). Maybe you shouldn’t show “Care Bears” or “Teletubbies” either. (And no, I am not referring to that sick paranoid homophobic freak’s theory about Tinky Winky allegedly being gay. You know who I mean if you ever read a tabloid.)

Of course everyone is special. Isn’t that nice? Now we can all join the “I’m Unique” club, just like everyone else.

The reader replied to my answer:

thank you professor for answering all of my future qustions, but u never answered my old [...]]]> (Continued from the previous three posts.)

• What if I Fail 9th Grade Math? (Part 1)
• What if I Fail 9th Grade Math? (Part 2)
• What if I Fail 9th Grade Math? (Part 3)

The reader replied to my answer:

thank you professor for answering all of my future qustions, but u never answered my old answer though. What happens if i fail math 9 of coruse ill be end up in emath10 whats emath10 (doesn’t sound good though)Like do i get to go to collage but if u can’t answer that qustion ill ask someone else. Heres a qustion for you though what good paying job are there in this world without math like doesn’t require math because u told me everything involes math. but i am asking you to name some jobs thats don’t require math as a requirement. I am asking you all these qustions because i am scared the world might be a different place when i grow up so i am just prepareing for the future.

Professor Homunculus’s reply:

You know, I think your questions are much more interesting than most of the other kids’. They involve real thought about the future.

OK, as far as math 10e is concerned:
Colleges don’t even know what math 10e is. They don’t care how you did in any particular class, as long as you graduate, and can do work.

Every school has a different system for dealing with kids who fail some course. In other words most schools don’t even have math e. They make you repeat a course, or take some other course, (probably similar to math e, but called something else).

So don’t let any teachers scare you about any particular course. Three years down the road it won’t mean anything to anyone, even you.

As far as “can you go to college:”
You can go to college if you can pay for it. That’s the way it works in America. To get into a good school you have to be able to pay for it, and you have to have either had good SAT scores, or good grades, or both. And of course there’s the other traditional American way – you have to know someone, or have an endowment. Can I be so bold as to imagine those are not in your immediate grasp?

Now here’s the deal: If you get really good grades, or do something else good in school (like play sports, although that is a stupid reason for a school to accept you, but hell, it works) then someone else will pay for you. Like the government, or a grant, or the school would want a good student like you so bad that it will let you go there cheap, or free. Some kids will even get paid to go to school.

There are some community colleges that will take any loser. There are more and more of them. Employers know that, and don’t really consider a degree from a community college much, unless it is from one which not every chump can get into.

But you don’t have to fit that mold. If you are just passing everything, I ‘m afraid you will. But if you make up your mind to beat the jerks at their own game, and do some extra work now, so you will get extra benefits later, you can go to a much better college than you ever dreamed.
Even with math 10e. But that means if you are “just going to pass it,” you can fuggetaboutit.

No matter what level you start at, if you show great improvement (by doing better work, extra work, and surprising the idiots who think that only “dumb kids” take math e) you will capture the attention of your teachers, get a reputation for being a good student, and doors will start opening for you.

So, yes, you can definitely get to college in math 10e, under the condition that you make up your mind to do well in it.

By the way, if you find out now what stuff will be in it, I will be glad to coach you, if you let me know the curriculum. Ask a teacher for the curriculum, and which textbook you will be using, and let me know.

Now, as far as what good jobs use no math:
None of them.

Sorry, every job needs some math, and the better the job, the more your logic, reasoning and math skills need to be in order to make decisions and write reports.

There are some decent jobs which may not seem to require much math. Let’s say, for example, secretary.

You can get a job as a low to mediocre paying secretary if your math skills suck. There will definitely be times when you wish you had more math, though.

Besides that, for the high-paying secretarial jobs, you will probably need accounting skills. That means real math.

Waiters and waitresses do better when they are good at math, memorizing prices, figuring tax and tips, (quickly, not just like some dude who sucked in 9th grade math, get it?) adding up bills, dividing bills, etc.

What jobs that are not so great don’t need much math? Let’s see:

1. crack whore
2. dishwasher
3. busboy
4. stock clerk (although sometimes they need math, too)

and that kind of stuff.

3 out of 4 of the above jobs are not too bad to make some money while you are going through college. But they are nothing to aspire to in the long run.
See what I mean?

Through all your questions I hear the same theme running in the background. It’s, “I’m afraid that if I don’t do well I will have no future. And I am afraid that I can’t do well in this.“

OK Part I – You always have a future. It may not always be the one you want.

Part II – It can be a lot closer to the one you want if you realize this:
You can definitely do well in Math 10 e (or whatever it is) and learn enough math to do whatever you need to do to get into college.

I have tutored lots of kids who don’t take their future as seriously as you, and they have made it. You sound like you have better “stuff” than most of them, so I can say from experience that a kid like you can make it. But you have to bite the bullet and decide to do the work. The work isn’t always what you think it will be, and you won’t always get it at first. You can’t give up the first time you think, “this stuff sucks.”

Realize this:
Math makes sense, and math helps you.
If it doesn’t, it’s because either your teacher is an ass, or you are impatient.

You can immediately change about being impatient. Be more patient, listen harder, and then, if your teacher is still an ass, write to me when you don’t get something, OK?

The best of luck to you, and I hope I answered the question this time.

Hotcha!

Professor Homunculus

I’m going to end this series of posts with something I got from the mother of the young man who wrote to me with the questions in this series. After I posted the last post (this one – Part 4), she wrote this to me:

thank you professor you can now goto bed and feel relax because u help one soul and gave it anthor chance =)

And that makes it all worthwhile.

Some days you just feel great! I love readers of “The Math Mojo Chronicles.” Hotcha to all of you!