This seems like a good place for a thought i had yesterday. I was driving home and watched a younger woman, no older than 20 take a corner fast and sharp on the sidewalk. She was on one of those electric scooters you can rent. My first thought is how fun that would have been at that age. Then i really started thinking.
Here was this young woman pretty sure at driving age but vehicle prices are out of control. So owning even a beater may be too much for many. I had a scooter very similar but you had to push it everywhere. The deference is, I was eight. I think what I’m trying to find the words for is their privilege of a motorized scooter came at a price they’ll never even understand.
These poor youth think they have it easy with there motorized scooters and chatgpt for answers. Truth is there are benefits to some things, maybe history will show I’m being an old fuddy duddy but I know i would still rather afford a cheap car than have rentable scooters.
Maybe like my teachers before me they will only be half truths. My teacher was right, I don’t carry a calculator on me at all time. The supercomputer the size of that old calculator, that just so happens to also have that function? Well, its never far.
Despite being from a time before the internet, pocket calculators and smart phones, (my first “calculator” was a slide rule), I’m as quick to adopt and master tech as I find a need for it. I like shiny new tech.
But as someone who also spent a few years teaching math in a my local and very rural school, I was not very generous with the use of that super computer in your pocket in my classroom. The reason being I wanted you to get your fingers dirty and greasy playing and manipulating those numbers yourself. I wanted to you develop a personal relationship with them and have at least a basic idea of the how and why they work.
Modern tech is great if you already have an understanding of how things work and can simply view it as a tool. But modern tech pretty much prevents people from developing the basic understanding of the how and why things work. And we are all dumber for it.
Thank you for making your students do that. I’m sure it made them miserable at the time but I guarantee they are better for it.
In college I had a similar experience with statistics. I had to run a factor analysis by hand start to finish, calculating standard deviations, means, and all the other crap, showing work over 3 pages to get eigenvalues and all that. It sucked, but dammit if I dont have a WAY better appreciation for how it works now than I ever would have otherwise.
Hey I’m one of the youths in their 20s who can’t afford a car because America devolved into a third world country by the time I aged into adulthood. I bought my first car, 3 years ago and it broke down within a few months, then I bought a car with my partner so we would have wheels. We are divorced now. No car and I only have an ebike so I’m thankful for the transportation I do have, at least I don’t have to ride the bus
Thats rough. I wish i could say it will get easier but after 40 years I’ve noticed it doesn’t. I truly hope you get ahead. It’s not easy out there right now. Cheers mate.
This seems like a good place for a thought i had yesterday. I was driving home and watched a younger woman, no older than 20 take a corner fast and sharp on the sidewalk. She was on one of those electric scooters you can rent. My first thought is how fun that would have been at that age. Then i really started thinking.
Here was this young woman pretty sure at driving age but vehicle prices are out of control. So owning even a beater may be too much for many. I had a scooter very similar but you had to push it everywhere. The deference is, I was eight. I think what I’m trying to find the words for is their privilege of a motorized scooter came at a price they’ll never even understand.
These poor youth think they have it easy with there motorized scooters and chatgpt for answers. Truth is there are benefits to some things, maybe history will show I’m being an old fuddy duddy but I know i would still rather afford a cheap car than have rentable scooters.
Maybe like my teachers before me they will only be half truths. My teacher was right, I don’t carry a calculator on me at all time. The supercomputer the size of that old calculator, that just so happens to also have that function? Well, its never far.
Despite being from a time before the internet, pocket calculators and smart phones, (my first “calculator” was a slide rule), I’m as quick to adopt and master tech as I find a need for it. I like shiny new tech.
But as someone who also spent a few years teaching math in a my local and very rural school, I was not very generous with the use of that super computer in your pocket in my classroom. The reason being I wanted you to get your fingers dirty and greasy playing and manipulating those numbers yourself. I wanted to you develop a personal relationship with them and have at least a basic idea of the how and why they work.
Modern tech is great if you already have an understanding of how things work and can simply view it as a tool. But modern tech pretty much prevents people from developing the basic understanding of the how and why things work. And we are all dumber for it.
Thank you for making your students do that. I’m sure it made them miserable at the time but I guarantee they are better for it.
In college I had a similar experience with statistics. I had to run a factor analysis by hand start to finish, calculating standard deviations, means, and all the other crap, showing work over 3 pages to get eigenvalues and all that. It sucked, but dammit if I dont have a WAY better appreciation for how it works now than I ever would have otherwise.
Hey I’m one of the youths in their 20s who can’t afford a car because America devolved into a third world country by the time I aged into adulthood. I bought my first car, 3 years ago and it broke down within a few months, then I bought a car with my partner so we would have wheels. We are divorced now. No car and I only have an ebike so I’m thankful for the transportation I do have, at least I don’t have to ride the bus
Thats rough. I wish i could say it will get easier but after 40 years I’ve noticed it doesn’t. I truly hope you get ahead. It’s not easy out there right now. Cheers mate.