I think most of those problems stem from the selection process for teachers. They seem to come from Schools of Education in the university system. I think they should come out of industry from successful careers that required the basic skills of biology, math, English, history, and so forth.
I would be a TERRIBLE teacher, but if I weren't at least I could explain to them WHY they have to learn the value of pi, why they have to know how to read the newspaper, understand history and the like. I recall very little explanation of the reasons for the fundamentals from my own elementary education, although it was superior to what I hear now.
Here's the reason they need to learn the value of 'pi:' They might become foresters like I did, and we have a measuring tape called a D-tape. It's graduated in inches that are 3.41628 inches long so you can determine the diameter of a tree by measuring it's circumference.
Forestry is a discipline that calls itself the 'art and science of forestry.' I needed a working knowledge of advanced math, English, biology, botany, ecology, history, physics, meteorology, geology, dendrology, wood science, plant physiology, ornithology, fish biology, soil science, land surveying -- the list goes on.
I never had a course in calculus, but I was working some problems on a forestry project and somebody came along and told me it was calculus I was doing. I had no idea.
When you need to draw on that many fields of knowledge, you tend to understand the reasons why you had to learn basic math in grade school. |
