More Smutty Than You: TSR's Hall of Shame

[Darqstar]

I think all the griping about "kids these days" has always been largely based on envy. I remember old ladies glaring at me when I was a teenager, going about my own business. We talk about the worship of youth in our society, but there's also an undercurrent of hating teenagers. They have their whole lives ahead of them, they haven't had the time to develop adult judgment, and they're raised differently these days than we were in those days. They have very little actual power; old people hold most political power. It's okay to bitch about teenagers, as it isn't to bitch about almost any other group.

That's because a lot of teenagers are smarmy little jerks.  And it isn't that they mean to be, it's that they're at a place in their lives when it's almost impossible not to be smarmy and jerky.  They are moving up towards their physical peak, and life hasn't smacked them around as much.  I'm not talking about earth shattering stuff either, I'm just talking about the daily grind. 

When I was 14-17, no one knew more than me.  NO ONE.  Even though I wasn't the smartest kid in my class, even though my parents were both really smart people, no one knew as much as me.  Not my teachers, not anyone in authority.  God, those people above the age of 25 had been poisoned by life.  I was young, hip, and I knew the score baby.  And I wasn't a particularly bratty or out of control kid either. 

I'm not saying it isn't a tough time too.  I often remind my friends of how rough it was being a teenager when they start bemoaning their kids.  It is a rough time, because you're fighting for independence, yet your parents have to have some control over you, because you're not going to always make the smartest decisions.  You're being told on one had, "Grow up and act responsible!" on the other hand you're told, "Oh, you're just a kid!"  And don't forget, even though your body is telling you that under no uncertain terms, you are fertile as hell and really wants you to DO something about that, everyone older, everyone in authority is shaking their finger and going, "No, you can't have sex, it's WRONG."  Meanwhile, most of them are married, thus you assume, getting laid.

Yet, we look back at it and see it as a carefree time.  We think that it was so easy then.  No real bills to worry about, if we worked, most of our money went for our pleasure, (Yes, some kids were working at the age of 7 and supporting their families, the net is full of those people, everyone I talk to will proudly tell me that they got their first job in diapers and every cent had to go to their parents.  So, please, don't jump to tell me how you were different, I know that for every rule there is an exception, but most of the kids I know now and knew back then did NOT have to support their families, at worst they paid a minor token "rent" just so the parents could teach them responsibility.)  We think about how strong we were, how if we fell flat on our asses, we got up and kept right on going, no muss, no fuss, 99% of the time no injury but to the pride. 

It's easy to look back and think it was easy.  But it wasn't.   I've often wished I could go back and be a teenager again, but every time, I want to go back and know where I've been.  I don't really want to be a teenager, I just want the body I had then, the one that could take a header off a motorcycle, go sliding across the dirt, and only suffer from road rash. 

I think the brash cockiness teenagers have is seated in evolution too.  Let's face it, hunting is risky, dangerous stuff.  Yes, you can try to make it safe, but when you're hunting big game, there is usually a group of folks who have to get real close, and really risk life and limb.  Most adults don't want any part of that shit. But teenagers are more likely to go, "Hey, sounds cool, sign me up." 

I think my husband's college linear algebra book was influenced by New Math.  It actually said things like "How do you *feel* about the number 15?", I kid you not.  What this had to do with linear algebra, I'm not sure.  Maybe the book should have said "imagine" rather than "feel about"?

*Blink*  Well, no math teacher ever asked me how I felt about a number.  But there were numbers I had a fondness for.  One, zero, five, ten, and twenty-five were favorites of mine.  Yes, they're easy to work with, but I also felt an odd sense of confidence and peace whenever I saw them in an equation.   "oh, it's my friendly numbers, I'm going to be able to do this one, just fine." 

I'm also very fond of the number 4 and I can't tell you why.  It's not that it's even, because I'm not very fond of 6 or 8.  I like four. 

[SoggyFox]

I don't think anyone here is putting down the younger generations, but are worried that they are getting cheated of a good education.  And all making you prove your math does is cause people who intuit the right answers screw up.  I do my division long half the time, but the other half of the time I do it in my head and couldn't tell you -how- I got the right answer without spending 4x the amount of time that it took me the first time.

I guess I was influenced by the Breakfast Club - the part where the janitor catches the teacher reading through files and points out that kids today aren't any different than they were back then.  Its true.

[Darqstar]

 And all making you prove your math does is cause people who intuit the right answers screw up.  

The problem is that most people can't just intuit the right answer, they have to work it out for themselves.  If you stop teaching kids how to figure out the equation and how to do it so any equation similar to the first can be done in the same way, then the only kids who will ever be able to do anything related to math are those who have this magical intuition.

A better solution would be to recognize the ones who have the gift and advance them.  It wouldn't be too hard to figure out, give the kid a test, watch them take it, or administer it orally.  That way you know the kid isn't cheating. 

[El Diablo]

There is a song about new math, by someone who taught math, even - Leher?  I suck at spelling, 'specially while head is semi-explody.  But new math is almost more like the psychology of numbers, not about how to make them -do- anything useful.

Tom Lehrer, math professor at Harvard and satirist extraordinaire. Here are the lyrics to "The New Math" (any typos aren't my fault, I cutted and pasteded):

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens,
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add them to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?

Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.

From the three you then use one
To make ten ones...
(and you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
cause addition is commutative, right.)
And so you have thirteen tens,
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five...

Well, six actually.
But the idea is the important thing.

Now go back to the hundreds place,
And you're left with two.
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?

Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!

Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!

Now that actually is not the answer that I had in mind, because the book that I got this problem out of wants you to do it in base eight. But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten really
Youre missing two fingers. Shall we have a go at it? Hang on.

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
And you add them to the two,
And you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.

Now instead of four in the eights place
You've got three,
cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you cant take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours.

Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into it? I hear you cry.
Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?
(Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.)

From the three you then use one
To make eight ones,
And you add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four.
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
And you're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?

Now, let's not always see the same hands.
One, that's right!
Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.

Hooray for new math,
New-hoo-hoo-math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
Its so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!


Doesn't do him justice, you gotta hear the guy perform this stuff. "The Elements" is mind-boggling. Although my personal favorites are a tie between "The Vatican Rag" and "The Masochism Tango."

[pickles]

I'm a fan of the Vatican Rag.... and Silent E. Pretty much everything he did for the Electric Company, actually.

[Anyerfillag]

This talk of new math reminds me of this maths forum I went to a few weeks back; I'm a governor at a local primary (ages 6-11) school and went along to show my face at this after school meeting to let the adults know about how their children were being taught maths. I was "WTF?!" all the way through especially when it got to this thing called chunking - I had to stop myself from giggling as all I could hear in my head was "truffle shuffle!

[SoggyFox]

Oh noes - now I need to dig out the movie, I've got it here -somewhere-

[Nietzsche]

Oh, high school is complete bullshit. Lemme get us back on track before all of you start geeking out about parabolas.


Pedophilia FTW!


Her coot looks like it's about to fall out!


This is in everyday.

[rum nate]

That is everyday? Wow, just wow.

[bmyall]

There are some seriously sick people over there...seriously sick!

[Pescado]

I think my husband's college linear algebra book was influenced by New Math.  It actually said things like "How do you *feel* about the number 15?", I kid you not.

How do I feel about the number 15? I feel it would be a waste of the rest of the magazine.

[Kaitlyn]

It actually said things like "How do you *feel* about the number 15?", I kid you not.

I don't know a thing about New Math, but there is such a thing as Synesthesia, where people associate smells, tastes, feelings and sounds, among other things, with numbers, letters, colors or words.  A person with synesthesia might very well "feel" something about the number 15.  It's not a common phenomena, though.

When my son was in kindergarten he mentioned to us that 'E's were green, "Es are always green".  The hubs though the kid was displaying synesthesia and got so excited, but it turned out that whenever the teacher pinned letters to the bulletin board at school, each letter was a different color and the Es were quite literally green.  False alarm.   

[Pescado]

I think this "synesthesia" clearly represents a wiring short inside your brain, causing the signals to be crossed. It's obviously a mental defect. Therefore, you are lucky that the Es turned out to simply be literally green.

[cookiepirate]

Between Schoolhouse Rock and my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Brown, I had no problem learning basic math.  Every Friday, Mrs. Brown would give us 100 math problems on flashcards.  You had about 5 seconds to look and write the answer down before the next one.  So we had to figure it out in our heads, memorize multiplication, etc...as quickly as possible.   Same for reading and spelling.  You memorized and retained that memory.  No phonics, which IMO is the worst way to teach a child to read because they learn to spell that way as well (my son was a victim of "phonics", hard to undo the damage).  Since my daughter has a slight hearing loss in one ear, she had a hard time telling certain sounds apart.  So, they had to teach her the old fashioned way, memorizing, and she has never had a problem with spelling or reading.

Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways.

[Pescado]

Our way involved live ammunition. If you got it wrong, you could die. Great incentive not to screw up. It helps weed out the stupid from the gene pool. I mean, what's hard to understand? We've explained this. It's hardly a random process, so there's no reason we need to explain this more than once, unless you are mentally retarded. In which case, the gene pool will quickly fix itself with this process.