When it all went wrong

[james_davis_nicoll]

From a previous comment on my LJ:

I thought there was a significant contingent of politicians who feel most of the developments since [The development of agriculture/the Industrial Revolution/The Great Depression/Women's Lib/Etc (Pick one)] have been mistakes and that if only we could set the clock back, everything would be fine.

Or at least better than it is.

A Canadian example of a When It All Went Wrong (WIAWW) moment is the Avro Arrow, something that many Canadians are still bitching about (Mind you, Canada is a nation with a province whose motto is "Je me souviens," but none with the motto "No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk"). In fact, my father used to complain bitterly about the cancellation of the Arrow and not only was he not Canadian (until just before he died) but I don't think he was in Canada when the decision was made and he didn't work in aerospace. Complaining about the Arrow decision unites Canadians in one great mopey If Only.

Ken MacLeod chooses Sputnik as a moment when everything went wrong.

Is there any chance someone could offer up some links for Ken to use in his alt-history of space development that don't require him to cite a James P. Hogan essay? Yes, I saw the disclaimer in MacLeod's essay.

Comments

[amend-locke.livejournal.com]

Come on guys, I'm not saying anyone should have pre-emptively surrendered to the bigots. And now that battle has been joined, I'm all in favour of shoving evolution down kids' throats - and, indeed, taking the culture war to the enemy. Ecraser l'infame, and all that.

As for New Math, I think it's entirely reasonable to say that its introduction (in the UK, which was what I was talking about) fucked up a well-tested traditional math curriculum, particularly because it was taught by the same methods as the traditional math curriculum, i.e. rote learning enlivened by unpredictable resort to violence. That's how it was taught to me, anyway.

[florbigoo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure new math is to blame for anything. Traditional mathematics education had piss poor results. Eighth grade certificates and rote algorithmic algebra, geometry, and trig in the upper grades were not the fuel for high-level baccalaureate achievement. If you look at historical trends in numeracy and training in higher abstract skills like algebra and geometry, you see very little change in highest level of math training achieved (in the US, which has the same institutional gradgrindism as the UK). What New Math was part of, and what was the beneficial effect of the Sputnik shock, was the move toward opening up secondary ed to college level curricula - ie Advanced Placement.

I will totally agree that New Math is worse than useless when taught by idiots, but nobody learns anything from idiots. And number and set theory is very useful for hm setting the stage for analytical thinking later on, with algebra, trig, and geometry. Much of the base-number stuff, modular math, factoring, et cetera is to get the kids to do things with numbers that aren't strict computation. That gets the kids beyond thinking of numbers as grist in a problem.

[florbigoo.livejournal.com]

I'm a New York City high school math teacher, and I'm familiar with both the curricular evolution and the achievement trends.