Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Wrong on so many levels

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
List of Fail
  • Archamendes
  • Carried a box of sand.
  • "I believe there is merit ..."
  • "Take your students outside to write in the mud."
  • This guy is teaching college students.
  • Who believes in himself and has his writings for sale.
  • Archamendes? Seriously? Google broken? Oh, yeah, I remember, you think that education should be "Just in Time instead of Just in Case."  How's that working out for you?
He scratched in sand because it was available, easy to use and cheap. Papyrus was harder to get and vastly too expensive to scribble on. Don't even consider parchment.  I love the intro ... "It is believed ..."  Sorry genius, it is known. Basically, the man did a lot of thinking in his head, aided by scratching in a sandtable or on the ground (the guy would have loved paper).  There is no "merit in his method" because the sand isn't what made him who he is and the sand won't make your college students any better than they are, though it will probably make them worse.


and his name is Archimedes.


Sheesh.


"Burn The Textbooks, Shred The Worksheets, Teach Math." Yeah right.

2 comments:

  1. I saw a lecture given on archimedes just the other day and learned that the common bust that is used to represent archimedes is in fact a 4th century Spartan king named Archidamus. Even with this knowledge, countries still use this bust to represent Archimedes on stamps and books use it when speaking of archimedes. Now that I know this, it is going to drive me nuts everytime I see it in a textbook or on a stamp.

    Nothing much to do with this post other than not actually knowing who people are/were. Just interesting.

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  2. But, but, such instruction is authentic! Or insert any other impressive-sounding buzzword....

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