OT: Math education history

You forgot one I liked.

Teaching Math in 2001 A logger sells a truckload of trees for $100. His cost of production is $110. The Arthur Anderson auditors calculate his profit as $20. How much should the stock price rise?

Steve.

If you want to do the conservative/liberal thing... get your facts straight. This competency based education stuff is being promoted by the conservative groups as an accountability tool to use against the unaccountable union-pinko-liberal-commie teachers. So, now, they've defined teacher's and administrator's jobs in terms of passing standardized tests. If the students fail those tests the teacher will be looking for a job.

You don't have to tell me what has happened... I see this, professionally, on a daily basis. High school graduates can pass the heck out of those tests, but they can't read, write, do math, or think creatively.... and outcome based education, per se, is NOT the answer.

So, write your president and ask him to take a manly stand on the issue of illegal aliens. Hint: the solution it isn't giving them drivers licenses....

Thanks, Tom!

I R O T F A L M A O B I D H A W F L A S T P L S A T T

For the cryptically challenged: "I'd roll on the floor and laugh my ass off but I don't have a wood floor anymore since those profiteering loggers sold all the trees."

Bob (thinks he's as cute as Larry Jacques) Swinney

I had a guy apply for a job and under "Special Skills" he wrote: "I can read a tape measure." I hired him on the spot!

The reason so why many of today's jobs require a college degree is that today's college graduate has learned about as much the high school graduate of the '50s....

.....well.....NEARLY as much....

I had a job interview once which was "Can you read a micrometer? Measure this please." Got it right (to the nearest .0001"). The boss told me he'd start me out at (number), and in a week, I'd either be making twice that, or not working for him anymore.

I worked for him for 6 years, all through college and then some. When I was in school, he told me that school came first, and that if my grades started to suffer, my pay would suffer; my hourly pay was twice my grade point average, changing each time I got a new report card.

Quite possibly the best boss I ever had, and fun work too (airplane component design & manufacturing).

Dave Hinz

The same thing happened to me so often in the last few years that I gave up trying to be helpful and at the same time reducing the amount of loose change sagging my pockets.

It's just too discomforting and saddening to see it happening to some poor kid right in front of me.

I don't know the answer...

Jeff

You've never given them a coupon then....

I had a two for one coupon at one of the chain burger joints. The kid running the register rang it up as full price. I pointed out the error. He responded "you didn't tell me what you wanted." I couldn't figure that one out. He had to have his manager come over and explain it to him, as I couldn't figure out how to make it much plainer. The whole time he was complaining that I hadn't told him what to do. It was really sad.

JW

I'm amazed she accepted a two dollar bill without questioning. Must have been through the special training. If only I had linked the Taco Bell $2 story, and could find it. Joe

When I buy something for, say, $1.58 I give them $2.37...just to watch them squirm!

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!.........breaking into sobs.....

Gunner

It's better to be a red person in a blue state than a blue person in a red state. As a red person, if your blue neighbors turn into a mob at least you have a gun to protect yourself. As a blue person, your only hope is to appease the red mob with herbal tea and marinated tofu.

(Phil Garding)

Rileyesi wrote: (snip)

When I worked retail, I would have been mean. I'd have given you back your 2 pennies (assuming minimum number of pennies) and a quarter before giving you 2 quarters and 2 pennies from the register.

Of course when I started out, the register didn't figure the change for me. And when we got ones that did, I still figured the change back in my head to double check the machine. Todd

Thats Evil! It might hurt their self esteem!

I like it!

Gunner

It's better to be a red person in a blue state than a blue person in a red state. As a red person, if your blue neighbors turn into a mob at least you have a gun to protect yourself. As a blue person, your only hope is to appease the red mob with herbal tea and marinated tofu.

(Phil Garding)

I tell them just ring up exactly what I've given you and the till will tell you the change. They are happy with that. Some smaller places keep a plate with a few coppers next to the till and can even cope if you come up 1P short in your rummage for change, though I try never to do that. Mind you if someone *NOT* on minimum wage screws up, I do make my opinion known :-)

| > Last week I purchased a burger for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I | > was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it | > to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at | > the screen on her register. | >

| > I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, | > but she hailed the manager for help. | >

| > While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and | > cried. | | The same thing happened to me so often in the last few years that I gave | up trying to be helpful and at the same time reducing the amount of | loose change sagging my pockets. |

I do it despite the ignorant looks I get. Youngsters (have I gotten that old?) need to understand that learning goes on way after the classroom, and they can either figure it out or continue to wonder why they can't get a decent job. Besides, it works often enough I can manage to keep the pile of pennies down.

Don't get to thinking that the manager can be much smarter. When the pickings are slim in the leadership abilities, you run with what you have.

Its no better this side of the pond in UK. A couple of months ago I purchased some fixed and swivel castors from a well known chain. The fixed ones totalled £25 and the swivels £30, but since they attracted a 20% discount, the total price was £44. The sales guy said that, because there were two different prices, he would have to apply the discounts separately. He pressed the till buttons and came up with a total price of £49.50. When I queried the price he said that he had taken 10% off each and that the two 10%s made the required 20%. When I told him he must take 20% off each he said "No, that would give you

40%". We almost had a stand-up argument until the manager pointed out his error - but I think he still doesn't believe it.

Well, look at how we have been raised. From 5th grade all throughout high school, calculators were the norm for me. We were never taught counting change, I guess because it was always assumed the register would work and it was a dated skill.

I couldn't count change at my first job, first time I had to, some lady started bitching at me, probably went home and bitched more about my stupidity.

First time I tried, it was change for $1.57 or so from $2.00. I didn't have a calculator, so first step was to subtract them, took a while because I wasn't used to subtraction in my head. Then comes figuring out what exactly to give them, $0.43 isn't really a simple division problem when you have $0.25, $0.10, $0.05 and $0.01 to work with.

Once it is explained, raise $1.57 to $1.60 with 3 cents, dime to $1.70, nickel to $1.75 then quarter to $2.00, it is easy. I had never seen that in school though. I hope you don't expect teenagers to one day say "Hey, I want to know how to count change, I'll look it up" It's not a very interesting subject.

Nate

I suspect that plenty of people in 1950 were terrible at math also, but they didn't work as cashiers.

Teaching how to make change was pretty standard in, say, 5th or 6th grade arithmetic, Dave, back in the 1950s. In the early '60s, when I worked in my parents' store, and in the late '60s, when I worked at Sears, the biggest problem was too many cashiers around the register, impatient to move the customers along, who would make change in their head and pull it out of the register without ringing the sale. Any idiot could be taught to do make change. They also were taught not to make a layer-cake of cash, change, and receipt.

It's like Morse Code. If you haven't done it much, you'll have to think your way through it each time. If you did it every day for a while, you never forget it.

-- Ed Huntress