re: #376 blueraven

Of course they have a right to an opinion. On any subject. Now, that opinion may not hold much sway, but everyone has the right to one.

No not at all, if you express the wrong opinion about how to crack a chest in surgery, and act on it, someone dies.

Unless you are a thoracic surgeon you have no right to an opinion on that.

I don’t either. I never went to medical school. We also don’t have a right to an opinion on how to design an airplane. Or successfully plant a field.

Some things require certain knowledge to do. Some things need to be done right or people die.

It is a fact that we can not all be experts at everything. That means that in certain cases, we only have the right to learn what we can and otherwise shut up.

Some people will never have an aptitude for math, LVQ. That is a fact. Just as some couldn’t draw a decent picture if there life depended on it. We are diverse; that is our greatness, not our weakness.

Uhh ok great. I make no claims about anyone’s moral worth and mathematical aptitude is not the only measure I have. Rainman would not make a good president either.

However, unlike history and literature, mathematics is singled out as a basic educational boogy man that is somehow OK to be rock solid illiterate in. That is not OK.

That said, I would love to see our education system overhauled. We need to stop teaching to “the test,”; stop dumbing it down and expect more from out students. We need to pay teachers what they are worth. We need to spread what works in education and get rid of the things that dont work. We need more math and science teachers. If we dont do something, our children will not be able to keep up with the rest of the world. Especially countries that value education a lot more than we do.

Now we are talking the same language.