[Edu-sig] mixed messages about math...

[David Handy]

You haven't heard me on this list for a while, but I've been lurking!
 
About Math and CS - I remember the time (when I was in high school, early 1980s) that there were several Math textbooks that included short computer programs right in the text. Students were  encouraged to type these programs into some nearby microcomputer and try them out. The language: BASIC. Students were encouraged to read the code and figure out what it did, and write more of their own. On, say, an Apple ][ or TRS-80 type machine. Again, these were Math textbooks, not programming nor electronics nor science textbooks. The first time I saw a computer in school (1979, it was a Commodore PET) was in my pre-Algrebra Math class. 7th grade. In Hillsboro, Oregon. We were encouraged to take a few minutes at the end of Math class time, on  a regular basis, to write whatever code our hearts desired. We would write code on paper at home (and look up examples in magazines) and bring it to Math class to type in.
 
Amazingly, Kirby, what you are saying is that things have gone backwards since the early 1980s in terms of integrating Math and Computer Science.
 
David H
 
On Friday, August 5, 2016 5:10pm, "kirby urner" <kirby.urner at gmail.com> said:



































I was just drafting another blog post for CERM Academy,which manages streams of thought pieces going out to 
subscribers, then warehoused in a WordPress site. [1]As a former high school math teacher, my question is about the likely fate of that profession, in the light of two 
messages coming loud and strong from the adult world:1) the US President, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many others, including hip hop stars, say "learning to code" is a great door opener, a ticket to the 21st Century


and

2) in order to respond to this demand, we're going to 
need a new army of CS teachers, very much in short 
supply at the moment.  Scientific American has another 
article on that theme in this August's issue. [2]What's being said, then, is:

3) whatever this "learning to code" thing is, it cannot bemath, as we presently do have a lot of math teachers, 
eager to innovate, but only a few "coding teachers" ergo 
"CS is not Math".That's quite a devastating message to be broadcasting.  
Math already has a relevance problem, with books like 'The Math Myth' chipping away at its lifeblood, its 
required status.  

"So what if we swapped out math for CS?" is the question 
that inevitably arises, once we tell the world they're 
really different. What if the school can't produce? 
"Stay home and learn"?  Who gets to do that?  That's
an interesting question.Before we go too far down this road however, it may
pay to look ahead.  Won't those hypothetical new 
coding classes include stuff about vectors and spatial 
geometry?  Luciano's OSCON talk was a lot about 
writing a vector class in fluent Python.  Isn't that what 
CAD is all about?  Look at Pi3D.  

Algorithms for finding primes.... Understanding RSA 
entails learning about Euler's Theorem, a generalization 
of Fermat's Little, and so on.  

Is 'The Art of Computer Programming' not-mathematical 
simply by virtue of being only semi-numerical?

In saying all these actually relevant topics belong to this 
new discipline, and that math teachers are not qualified 
to teach it, is stripping away their last shred of credibility.
The real weak link in this chain is not the math teachers,
but the fact that they're ball and chained to computer 
illiterate textbooks.  In the US, they're commanded to 
toe the line and teach to the tests.  But the tests have 
no use for hexadecimals (Common Core is base 10 only).

Finally, right when functions become "top level citizens",
(hooray) it turns out math teachers no longer get to 
teach exactly what that means, as the examples are all
in JavaScript or other "not math" languages.The real message we're sending to  is that mathematicsinvolves calculation, because in math class we use 
calculators and don't code, whereas computer science 
involves computation.
Math is for calculator people.  Computer science is for computer people.  It's TI versus Pi.  

We seem prepared to move ahead on such thin ice, akin to
saying data science is not really math, not statistics, because 
there's coding involved.  

Somehow the mere act of coding marks a mythical boundary, 
around which we're happy to design our civilization?








Anyway, subscribers here are already veterans of such
discussions.  I ruminate more in this recent blog post:

[ http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2016/08/accelerated-learning.html ]( http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2016/08/accelerated-learning.html )


Kirby

[1]  [ http://cermacademy.com/ ]( http://cermacademy.com/ )

[2]  [ https://flic.kr/p/KCTvvU ]( https://flic.kr/p/KCTvvU )



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