[Parallax]

If you consider McDonalds and Walmart gainful employment, just try getting a mortgage with what they pay.

Its getting harder and harder to get you riled up, Gary.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

Cristofor said:

BTW, my first name is Laurentiu.

It's not as contradictory as it sounds.

That it's not a huge contradiction is one of the precious things I learned while in US. But it still sounds funny when you contrast the ideologies in the simplistic terms in which they described each other back during the Cold War.

Capitalism needed a large population of docile but moderately educated
workers for this expanding industrial base.

I see what you are saying, but I'm not sure the communist goals were much different. They didn't need Nobel prize winners either. I'm wondering now if it's more of an Old Continent/New Continent change, where class activity was made more democratic, to encourage discussion vs. the authoritarian European teaching methods.

But the deficiencies you see in math instruction is just part of a
larger systemic problem afflicting the system as a whole.

I agree - I was just wondering whether looking at this particular aspect might provide more information about the rest.

---------- Post added 03-17-2010 at 04:27 PM ----------

This conversation is making me wonder if countries with better math/science education enjoy any superior macro-economic performance.

(Maybe you could argue that a higher mathematic awareness among the general public would have prevented the near-suicidal lending practices with which the financial sector took the world to the brink recently. But I don't know how to measure that and I suspect more than a few numbers-bright folks got snared up in that mess as well.)

On the first point, I could have easily told you that the answer is no - communism went bankrupt You can see how Russia is high in scores, but doesn't even come up on the income table.

On the second theory, it is interesting. There was a bubble in my country too, so the answer would be again that math knowledge didn't help much in averting that.

Maybe the education level is adequate for most students then, it's just that the brighter ones have to settle for that until they get to college, like in reeftool's story.

Its getting harder and harder to get you riled up, Gary.

Hey, I've got a beautiful daughter who's just started crawling, I'm way too busy to get riled up.

EDIT: Oh crap, there she goes again.

If you consider McDonalds and Walmart gainful employment, just try getting a mortgage with what they pay.

No. That career is for those who partied too much in school. Seems to be an abundance of them too.

[Nesster]

No. That career is for those who partied too much in school. Seems to be an abundance of them too.

Yeah, well now that the mortgage broker boom's over...

[Rupert]

Hey, I've got a beautiful daughter who's just started crawling, I'm way too busy to get riled up.

EDIT: Oh crap, there she goes again.

I only have boys....two sons and four grandsons, but even though my Dolly is no kin to me, I adore her at lunchtime every day where I eat at the SAK....a famous place here. I hope you spoil your daughter as much as I have spoiled my Dolly, they are wonderful, and so much better at manipulation than little boys! LOL!

From lunch yesterday......give me the credit card Mr Jim..........I want Ice Cream! She got it! Always does, and she is only three.......some poor guy is going to hate me one day, well after I am dead and gone....I have spoiled her plumb rotten.

Best Regards!

[Ratmagiclady]

Hey, I've got a beautiful daughter who's just started crawling, I'm way too busy to get riled up.

EDIT: Oh crap, there she goes again.

Heheh. You're going to need more memory cards.

School in the USA was laughably easy by comparison, even while I was ramping up my understanding of English.

Jussi, I suppose the school demands can vary a great deal everywhere, including the US. My better half (today an MD/PhD) was schooled here in Finland, but spent a year in Illinois as an exchange student in a private high school. She says that in the US they were studing for example in mathematics stuff that you barely touch over here. Like advanced matrix algebra that I encountered first at the University of Technology (that I attended before changing my major). Go figure.

[Ratmagiclady]

Jussi, I suppose the school demands can vary a great deal everywhere, including the US. My better half (today an MD/PhD) was schooled here in Finland, but spent a year in Illinois as an exchange student in a private high school. She says that in the US they were studing for example in mathematics stuff that you barely touch over here. Like advanced matrix algebra that I encountered first at the University of Technology (that I attended before changing my major). Go figure.

Well, some *private* schools can be quite good, actually, at least in some subjects. Some actually live up to the prestige, some are a joke, (just creches, religious indoctrination, and feeder-schools for rich kids, a la 'Go to a good school, marry someone of your class.' ) Some are a mixed bag, really, to all report.