"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

leghog said:
My wife has two sisters and a niece and her kids in Panama City. Hunkered down in the more inland house of the three. Haven't been able to reach them for nearly 6 hours.
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When Florence passed here I had nearly 0 cell service for several hours. Even after the storm was passed that Sunday most all day I had no service,Sometimes I'd receive a text but was unable to respond for awhile. I think due to power loss at the tower, and flooding was hindering them refueling the generator. They'll have trucks with large tandem axle generator trailers ready as soon as its possible to power up cell towers. I'm sure their ok, just keep trying.
 
veitsi_poika veitsi_poika
I agree, without trying something, and getting a grasp of its full depth you'd never know if its something you'll like and be good at. And mathematical theory like any other is essential to gaining full depth of knowledge.Being raised by a mechanic who also does carpentry, I had an early interest in those things. And tend to use those in my analogies .I think math like mechanics should be taught in linear steps. Every mechanic starts out with a basic tool box. Before you turn the first screw you need to know what a screwdriver is. Before you can do the most simple math equation, you have to know what numbers are. The more advanced mechanics you learn, the more specialized tools you'll have. Me and an aircraft mechanic may both have started with a basic 3/8 drive socket set, but that aircraft mechanic will now have tools I won't know how to use. I'll recognize them as tools, but will have no knowledge of their use. I recognize calculus as math, but have no knowledge of its use.
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
I recognize calculus as math, but have no knowledge of its use.
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Try Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”, which contains a brilliant description of how an integrating circuit can be used to direct the trajectory of a ballistic missile. It’s rocket science, particularly integral calculus in a practical application, made understandable (sort of) to the layman.
 
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scrteened porch said:
I think it's three syllables. I guess it could go either way, though. /fai ri/, /fair i/, /fai schwa ri/, /fai syllabic_r i/.
(I used to be in linguistics, but it's almost twenty years since I hung up my tongue guns.)
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I pronounce it with two syllables. Simple fix: add the indefinite article before "fiery."
 
scrteened porch said:
I think it's three syllables. I guess it could go either way, though. /fai ri/, /fair i/, /fai schwa ri/, /fai syllabic_r i/.
(I used to be in linguistics, but it's almost twenty years since I hung up my tongue guns.)
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I checked it out on a couple different websites and the majority was two syllables, so I made it "... a fiery..." LoL ;):thumbsup:
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
If I may Gary, as your a teacher of math on the higher end of the spectrum, what you think of the common core. I think I understand that its designed to get students to learn HOW and WHY a math formula works, not just THAT it works. But to me the best way I can describe it, is its like requiring someone to know the theory of how an internal combustion engine works to own a car. For most regular people they don't need to know HOW it works just THAT it works. Granted I don't have a head for numbers math wasn't my best subject. I don't do it with words but I often see and or write numbers backwards, especially the two digets in the middle of a 4 diget number. 5678 becomes 5768 to me when I write it down. Don't know why.Lol but in my current line of work I do end up adding and subtracting and dividing fractions pretty often;):thumbsup: thanks
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Sorry for the delayed response, David. We're not supposed to get political, and the Common Core Curriculum has become a real political football, with people seeing implications for the old battles of states' rights (or even local school districts' rights) versus "one nation ... indivisible", or even connections to the difficult balance between "liberty AND justice for ALL". So I don't want to address any of those disagreements (often between people who really know very little about data-driven best practices in teaching and learning, other than their own school experiences).

So my personal opinion of Common Core for math is that it's common sense. I think you accurately characterized Common Core standards for math as proposing that students learn both HOW math works (often called procedural knowledge) and WHY it works (part of what's called conceptual knowledge). In our society today, much of the procedural stuff can be quickly and accurately done by technology, but the "why" can only be handled by humans. For example, 36 divided by 3 is easy to calculate. But I think Common Core rightly expects that if kids are to be confident and creative users of math, they need to know a lot more than just 36/3 = 12.

For example, if I have 36 pocket knives that I want to give to 3 friends, and I want to know how many knives each friend gets, 36 divided by 3 is what we need. But if I have 36 knives that I want to package into boxes of 3, and I want to know how many boxes I'l get, 36 divided by 3 is also what we need. But these two situations are different in the sense that in the first we know how many piles to make and want to find the size of each pile (this is sometimes called "fair sharing"), while in the second we know the size of each pile and want to find how many piles we'll get (this is sometimes called "repeated subtraction" because we keep subtracting 3 knives until we run out). Students ought to learn that both situations call for division. Division of fractions is MUCH easier to understand from a repeated subtraction perspective (3/4 divided by 1/8 asks how many eighths can be subtracted from three fourths, and since each fourth "contains" 2 eighths, there must be a total of 6 eighths in 3/4: 3/4 divided by 1/8 = 6).

I think Common Core also wants students to realize that 36/3 = 12 is related to 3x12 = 36 = 12x3, that multiplication and division are related. Also that 3x12 means 3 groups of 12, 12+12+12, that multiplication can be seen as repeated addition.
And that 3x12 = 3x10 + 3x2 = 30 + 6. The more someone knows about how math ideas are related, the more powerful that knowledge is.

I think the same idea applies to your car analogy. Even though I don't know very much about why cars work, I know a lot more than my daughter does, and I think that makes me a better-equipped car owner than she is. I can do a much better job of trouble-shooting and problem solving than she can, just because I can identify symptoms and their severity and even make reasonable conjectures about what might be wrong based on my better (but still quite limited) understanding of the workings of vehicles.

Probably all you wanted is my bold-faced sentence. :eek::rolleyes: Sorry to lose control! :D

- GT
 
5K Qs 5K Qs
Thanks! Actually the long answer is what I was looking for. I agree it can be a touchy subject politically wise. I wanted to know what its about more for my own understanding. Better to get info from the boots on the ground than the talking heads. Seems to me the problem lies in the fact its new for a lot of schools. It will have a few bugs until teachers and those in charge of setting curriculums figure the best way to implement it. Thanks for the well thought out and well worded and concise response:thumbsup:
 
From time to time I read people complaining about the time it takes USPS to get your parcel at your home. I'm not in that number, it takes 6-10 days for USPS / La Poste to deliver.
My birthday being in the very near future (and who knows what I want better than me? ;)), I ordered a shirt in the USA (Columbus, OH) on sept. 27th.
For some mysterious reasons, my parcel shipped with DHL. Why not. Hub is in Germany (home of DHL), the worrying thing is that it went back to where it landed 9 days ago!!!:eek:
I hope next step won't be back to Ohio! Usually it takes them less time to get in France...:mad: So, even if sometimes USPS misses it, there's always worse to be found!
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Jolipapa said:
Could be :confused:, I hope not!
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I feel your pain JP. JB mailed a package Sep 17 to me. Langley, UK to Gatwin, UK to Chicago where it sat a few days, then back to Langley, UK where it took another rest. Back to Gatwin, UK and on to Chicago again. I have daily tracked it and this morning it says it has arrived!!! :D 24 days from what I've been told is not too bad...:eek: Haven't picked it up yet. Hope it weathered the miles okay.
 
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