July 28, 2018 Saturday
Bedtime Story
On Education
Any subject that is taught today is
completely bereft of its historical development simply because of lack of time
and the tremendous amount of knowledge we humans have amassed thanks to our
ability to record information and develop over it.
Each generation has to spend more and more
time just to catch up what has already been discovered, invented, documented
and published.
More than that, the best years of the minds
are perhaps wasted in the preparation for examination most of which demand rote
learning and vomiting rather than critical thinking and inventiveness.
It is my personal theory that the chief
reason for such kind of modern education system is overpopulation (which is a
very controversial subject since most human apes are creatures of emotions and
driven by their biological imperative rather than rational thinking).
To accept that too many of us is the reason
for most of our troubles is first of all hard to digest and the very first
reaction is to brush it aside; and even if acknowledged, it is virtually
impossible to alter our behavior to any meaningful effect; apes addicted to
tobacco and nicotine will easily get my argument.
We are, after all, biologically programmed
to generate families around us both for our physical and psychological needs.
Because of overabundance of average apes, our
education system in general and examinations in particular have become a
technique of elimination rather than education or selection.
And of course, the primary role of
education of differentiating right from wrong, good from evil and generation of
curiosity and critical thinking I can say for sure is absolutely lost since
neither the educators nor the parents would hardly inclined into making these a
priority in the education of their children.
The entire focus is on employability and amazing
of wealth.
And so with this kind of milieu around us
subjects are introduced to us and our children in neatly arranged and crisp
format.
Just like everything, algebra is taught in
a very neat and sterile manner starting from its axiomatic definitions of its
structure and then going on to establish their properties.
Yet, historically no science and specially
mathematics develops in this manner.
Most of the current algebra developed very
disparately and then later acquired a common theme and then presented to
current students in a refined manner as if everything was tailor made from
them.
One of the most important threads, as I
said earlier, was the quest to the solutions of polynomial equations higher
than four.
Most educated people with basic education
of mathematics are pretty apt at solving linear equations of the first degree.
The algebraic equations of second degree
are known as quadratic equations and come in forms such as
ax2
+ bx + c = 0 where a ≠ 0
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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