How Counting and the start of Addition are the Same

We are trying to teach our daughter to go beyond counting, which she can do pretty well up to 26.

The essence of counting is relating counting to real concrete things. 

3 eggs and 3 blocks and three rocks are all the same number of things.

But once you have counting down moving to addition is straightforward. 

1+1=2

2+1=3

3+1=4

and so on. Kids pick up on the pattern pretty quickly. 

Quarks to Quasars, Powers of Ten

Quarks to Quasars, Powers of Ten: "This site is a study on the effect of adding another zero. Since I was young I have been fascinated and inspired by the essay 'Cosmic View' by Kees Boeke and the book The Powers of Ten, written by Philip and Phyllis Morrison and the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. The idea was to examine the relationship of the size of things from the atom to the entire universe. I have used these sources as a jumping off point for this presentation. The internet provides a flexibility unavailable to the linear structure of printed books."

The old powers of ten scaling. It shows you the power of math.

Neatorama � Blog Archive � The Origin of Everyday Punctuation Marks.

Neatorama � Blog Archive � The Origin of Everyday Punctuation Marks.

= was invented in 1557 by Englishmen Robert Recorde but took over a century to displace the curly symbol Descartes used who actually came later.

Current Chaos Manor mail

Current Chaos Manor mail: "A good friend, who was once on the school board (and the only totally sane SB person I've ever known) told me that 'We can't, in six hours a day, make up for what happens with the kids during the other 18 hours.' And yet, NCLB and the state level testing require them to do so, or pretend to do so, so what we get is a system that is rigged to show the 'results' mandated by these bad laws."

Hmm, interesting. To me and my friends and the people we know it is more like "we can't in 18 hours a day make up for what happens in 6 hours of school." Though in reality it is often less then an hour after homework, chores, dinner (prep, eat, cleanup), sleep and all the rest. Wasn't there a study not long ago showing most parent end up only spending 20 minutes with there kids a day?

Obviously there are goals in conflict here. 

Many parents say they want the best education for their children, but aren't sure what "best" is and don't have any time to figure it out, and looking at problem is like looking for a book in a library without a catalog, just too big of a problem. So they just go with the default the school has and try to get into the "good" schools but good isn't exactly defined either.

School bureaucracies  seem to try maximizing the amount of money they bring in. More money is more pay. Makes sense. 

A big problem is what is vitally important to parents in New York is completely irrelevant to parents in Idaho. A nationalized education system is just not able to work, much as we may hope for the best that way. 

Each local school should have a school board made up of parents with children in school. The results will be a lot more consistent that way.

The new age of ignorance | Review | The Observer

The new age of ignorance | Review | The Observer: "Angier's tipping point, the reason she came to write the book, was a decision made by her sister. When the second of her two children turned 13 the sister decided that it was time to let their membership lapse in two familiar family haunts: the science museum and the zoo. They were, the implication went, ready to put away childish things, ready to go to the theatre and the art gallery, places where there was none of this 'mad pinball pinging from one hands-on science exhibit to the next, pounding on knobs to make artificial earthquakes'. They had grown out of science."

This is the saddest things I have read  all year. It explains so much yet tells us so little.

Reason Magazine - Why Poor Countries Are Poor

Reason Magazine - Why Poor Countries Are Poor: "We still don't have a good word to describe what is missing in Cameroon and in poor countries across the world. But we are starting to understand what it is. Some people call it 'social capital,' or maybe 'trust.' Others call it 'the rule of law,' or 'institutions.' But these are just labels. The problem is that Cameroon, like other poor countries, is a topsy-turvy place where it's in most people's interest to take actions that directly or indirectly damage everyone else."

Maybe it is just me but there is a whiff of similarity to Cameroon and our school system. You can also see it other places like our health care system. There is something systemic about it that makes it worse. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy doesn't seem to explain it all to me either. Economic theory even expects people to be self-interested which should cause people to work together and make things better. But things continue to get worse.

If we don't have a word for it, its hard to talk about. 

Another way to solve a problem

• Accept the problem
  
• Ask yourself: what’s the worst that can happen?
  
• Gather some good knowledge.
  
• Try to figure out possible problem along the way.
  
• Ask for help
  
• Let go of the need to be right
  
• Come up with more than one solution
  
• Redefine failure
  
• Break down the problem into smaller pieces
  
• Use the 80/20 rule
  
• Use Parkinson’s Law
  
• Find the lesson or opportunity within the problem
  
• Actually talk about the problem and communicate clearly
  
• Create fewer problems
  
• Use the power of words to your advantage
  
• Keep your motivation up.
  

These are really good and sure beats Feynman's Method.