1) Do you consider circle geometry to be the most useless high school subject? How about replacing literature with statistics?
2) Even though circle geometry is rarely used directly by average adults, it’s relatively easy to grasp and helps to develop mathematical thinking. Statistics is more involved and requires some background in combinatorics and discrete math which are not covered in many schools. Do you think majority of high school students will be able to understand statistics when it’s taught instead of circle geometry?
1) That’s a good point, but I was thinking about how to improve the high school maths syllabus, not so much about high school in general. I don’t have any strong opinions on removing literature instead if it were one or the other. However, I do have other ideas for literature. I’d replace literature with a subject that is half writing/giving speeches about what students are passionate about and half reading books mostly just for participation marks. I’d have the kinds of things students currently do in literature part of an elective only.
2) p-testing is a rather mechanised process. It’s exactly the kind of thing high school is good at teaching. Basic Bayesian statistics only has one key formula (although it has another form). Even if there is a need for prerequisite units in order to prepare students, it still seems worthwhile.
Do you think that the mechanic act of plugging in numbers into formula’s is more important than the conceptual act of understanding what a statistical test actually means?
In terms of use, most people only need to know a few basic facts like “a p-value is not a probability”, which high school teachers should be able to handle. Those who seriously need statistics could cover at a higher level at university and gain the conceptual understanding there.
It seems that a lot of people who have lessons that cover students t-test come out of them believer that the p-value is the probability that the claim is true. I would expect that most students of high school classes don’t go out of the classes with a correct understanding
Rationality is not a rational belief system but it is a way of using intuition to guide anticipation. I think a lot of people are using intuition to guide their anticipation (because it’s not like they think they need intuition) but I find it a bit doubtful. It seems to me that intuition is a method for determining anticipation and anticipation in cases where the answer is “no”.
I don’t think that intuition directly helps people build intuition, but it seems to help me in thinking when trying to find things to optimize for. In my experience, intuition is a way of being more accurate when you have a choice of response.
The most important thing to recognize is that the feeling people have when you think about things is that it’s a feeling they can’t control or control. It’s not that intuition directly makes things, it’s that an intuition can’t control the feeling. If you are familiar with the concept of a feeling, then you can go ahead and build intuition for the concept as well if you are also familiar with it.
The only places where intuition is a useful tool are those where it’s a way to start your thinking on concrete problems. That’s how I’ve found that I’ve learned something like “learn the right way to approach the problem”.
Questions:
1) Do you consider circle geometry to be the most useless high school subject? How about replacing literature with statistics?
2) Even though circle geometry is rarely used directly by average adults, it’s relatively easy to grasp and helps to develop mathematical thinking. Statistics is more involved and requires some background in combinatorics and discrete math which are not covered in many schools. Do you think majority of high school students will be able to understand statistics when it’s taught instead of circle geometry?
1) That’s a good point, but I was thinking about how to improve the high school maths syllabus, not so much about high school in general. I don’t have any strong opinions on removing literature instead if it were one or the other. However, I do have other ideas for literature. I’d replace literature with a subject that is half writing/giving speeches about what students are passionate about and half reading books mostly just for participation marks. I’d have the kinds of things students currently do in literature part of an elective only.
2) p-testing is a rather mechanised process. It’s exactly the kind of thing high school is good at teaching. Basic Bayesian statistics only has one key formula (although it has another form). Even if there is a need for prerequisite units in order to prepare students, it still seems worthwhile.
Do you think that the mechanic act of plugging in numbers into formula’s is more important than the conceptual act of understanding what a statistical test actually means?
In terms of use, most people only need to know a few basic facts like “a p-value is not a probability”, which high school teachers should be able to handle. Those who seriously need statistics could cover at a higher level at university and gain the conceptual understanding there.
It seems that a lot of people who have lessons that cover students t-test come out of them believer that the p-value is the probability that the claim is true. I would expect that most students of high school classes don’t go out of the classes with a correct understanding
Meta: Downvoted because this is not a question.
I think that your “solution” is the right one. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe it was.
“It’s going to be a disaster,” you say. “And it’s always a disaster.”
Rationality is not a rational belief system but it is a way of using intuition to guide anticipation. I think a lot of people are using intuition to guide their anticipation (because it’s not like they think they need intuition) but I find it a bit doubtful. It seems to me that intuition is a method for determining anticipation and anticipation in cases where the answer is “no”.
I don’t think that intuition directly helps people build intuition, but it seems to help me in thinking when trying to find things to optimize for. In my experience, intuition is a way of being more accurate when you have a choice of response.
The most important thing to recognize is that the feeling people have when you think about things is that it’s a feeling they can’t control or control. It’s not that intuition directly makes things, it’s that an intuition can’t control the feeling. If you are familiar with the concept of a feeling, then you can go ahead and build intuition for the concept as well if you are also familiar with it.
The only places where intuition is a useful tool are those where it’s a way to start your thinking on concrete problems. That’s how I’ve found that I’ve learned something like “learn the right way to approach the problem”.