Schools, etc. (was Re: "Dummies" books (was ...))

[Kenneth Brody]

Fairlight wrote:
[...]
> If someone can't handle that elementary logical progression of thought, I
> don't trust them near anything more complex than the pocket calculators
> that banks give out as freebies--certainly not a programmable graphing
> calculator like a TI-60 or HP-48.
> 
> And as for math, that's the sole reason I never got a CS degree.  I failed
> pre-calculus in high school and gave up higher math as a bad lot.  As CS
> was considered an engineering degree at my university, there was no way
> in hell I thought I could make it through five semesters of calculus.
[...]

I was actually talking about this sort of thing the other day with Laura
and her sister.

When I was in 7th grade, hand-held calculators were just starting to come
into the hands of "ordinary people", and I actually bought one for my 13th
birthday.  <http://www.datamath.org/BASIC/DATAMATH/ti-2500-3.htm>  (Hey, us
math geeks gotta start early, you know.)  This was also the last year that
they tought how to use the slide rule in math.  Soon thereafter, the school
implemented a "no calculators during tests" rule, since it was considered
"cheating".

By the time I got to college, the entire attitude had changed.  Calculators
were no longer a problem, as the professors were more interested in "do you
know the proper formula to use, and how to use it" rather than if you knew
how to do long division.

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| Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |                             |
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