Sennheiser HD660S Speculation

Im an 18 year old sophomore rn and I have absolutely no idea how everybody doing so well academically while doing extracurriculars and worrying about their careers. My year is either full of ambitious af people or older people. A lot of my friends are of legal drinking age...

 

As an engineer who has also run a non-profit dealing exclusively in children's mathematics for the past 20 years, the "discovery math" (as they call it up here in Canada) infuriates me.

I get the point Skyline is making. Yeah the concept is there, but the implementation sucks because the scope is too big and too sweeping. I firmly believe that it is a "missing the forest for the trees" situation. Now, a whole ton of the stuff we say about pedagogy blah blah blah is really moot if they'd just stop shoving 35 kids into a room with no TA's and trying to integrate all the special needs children as well. If you want your kids to learn, they need to be in an environment where the teachers can give them proper individual attention and have the proper resources to do their job.

I don't disagree with showing kids multiple ways to solve a problem. However, there is also the very real problem of paralysis by choice. Give them too many options and they won't know how to even begin. They need drills on one or two set methods, and then the teachers and TA's should have the time to walk around the classroom and recognize which students are struggling with such'n'such particular methodology and target that specific kid with an alternative way to solve.

Kids desperately need to spend more time drilling the basics, because speed and simplicity builds confidence even if it means they get bored of it.

One of the most significant problems I am also seeing in recent years is that no one knows how to write anything down anymore. It's not a big deal in junior high when you can solve most algebraic things in your head, but by the time you hit your last two years of high school the problems have become too large. The brain is an amazing device, but it can only do one thing at a time. It cannot hold information and do recall at the same time it does calculations (I'm speaking in broad strokes here). Rigorous drilling is what teacher kids how to write things down in the most efficient and clean/legible manner. Once they do that, it frees up the brain to do the actual processing. I'm not saying creativity isn't valuable, but there are very time tested methods that work because they've been devised and cranked out for ages that are most likely going to be better than whatever novel way little Timmy decides to approach the problem. Drill those basics first, let the problem solving come later.

But of course, we now have had a whole generation of new teachers who got screwed over with poorly implemented common core shenanigans and who don't understand the material and are afraid of it, who are now teaching yet the next generation and now it's the blind leading the blind.

Ugh, I've been at this over two decades and it's just getting worse and worse. The new system doesn't work, but they get a couple poster kids who love it and all seems right with the world, except for the other 85% who got left in the ditch.

 

I disagree with a lot of your post, but think this is dead on.

Which goes back to my earlier point. Someone that is mathematically trained sees the big picture, which makes them better able to make judgment calls about what is working, what is not, and the best approach to take with each individual student. Differentiation is key. Flexibility is key.

But an elementary teacher that is afraid of math and doesn't understand basic algebra is unable to do this effectively. They get obsessed with each individual textbook approach (the trees) and can't see past or around this.

Any system that is fixed and one-size-fits-all isn't going to work.

But, it's not all gloom and doom. Teachers are learning and processes are being refined. As a teacher I can tell you that the quality of students I receive isn't tanking. There were problems before just as there are problems now. Nothing is new under the sun and all that...

Let's stop all this sensationalist talk about 85% of kids not getting it, etc. Deep breath...

 

So I go to bed and wake up to 17 alerts? Glad to be of help Marv. The thread was dragging a little. Just so folks understand, my post was not meant as a commement on CC. (I do have issues with its implementation among other things). It was triggered by some behavior issues some of my colleagues had to deal with this week. Not so much student behavior, but parent behavior. So as not to start another series of "speculations". I'll just leave it there. Hey, at least we know a little more about folks views on education, but still not much more about the HD660S. Hopefully that will change soon. The saga continues.........Have a good weekend!

And yeah, I am an old fart. We had slide rules when I was in high school. Now that's critical thinking.

 

I think every kid would benefit from having mean Asian parents. As a little kid, my Dad forced me to learn basic arithmetic (adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers) before I even started school. I would say "taught," but it's not quite accurate. I hated it because I couldn't go outside and run around until he was satisfied I really knew what I was doing. I just remember crying and being furious that I couldn't figure it out. But eventually it clicked. It sounds weird, but I could do this before I really knew how to read.

Over time, I internalized that voice of criticism and disapproval. So as I got older, it became second nature to force myself to learn new things on my own. I would be just as pissed and disappointed if I couldn't figure something out as my Dad was when I was a kid. Today we might think of this type of parenting as some form of child abuse. And if I have kids, I wouldn't employ the same methods. But damn it if it wasn't effective.

How do you instill those traits in kids (grit, being pissed at things you can't figure out, determination, persistence) without resorting to the methods of mean Asian parents? I'm not sure there is a good substitute.

 

It's called growth mindset. The difference being that, rather than being pissed about not being able to figure something out, you perceive it as an opportunity for growth.

But yes...grit, determination, persistence. All of that.

We opened up our school year in our math classes by having our students discuss/analyze the following story. Then we had them discuss what we could learn from this and to create a student-made list of the norms in our classroom. It was very worthwhile.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning

 

Alright, this thread is going too far south, it needs an actual relevant update:

 

I feel like I am the person you people have been describing. I do very well without studying. I get the concepts great. I mess up on the simple stuff. I can't even do fast multiplication in my head. 7*8? I don't know. I know 6 and 8 is 48, so 7*8 would be 56. 13*12? No idea. Give me paper or a calculator. Maybe I should work on my basics...

 

Having been released 10 years after the Orpheus, doesn't that rather make the hd650 a downgrade of the he90 and 60 ?

 

I see you have had the growth vs. fixed mindset in-service as well. Interesting stuff.

 

Haha, well...our department has pursued it on our own.

As department chair, I do all I can to ensure that our efforts are pursued willingly and not forced on us by the district.

But yes, I do believe in it. The biggest problem at our school is that students are ashamed when they don't understand. So, they shut down and hide which only compounds the problem. We're trying to address it head on.

 

And thus, all SBAF HD650s we're immediately sold, and the used market for 580s and 600s shot through the roof.

Really would like a pair of 600s to play with, though. Always preferred them to the 650s until I heard the newer production 650 paired with a Jot or Valhalla.

 

For background: The program I run deals very specifically only in the math realm, so my views are skewed as such. We are also based heavily out of the Asian community. It started out this way, we don't explicitly advertise there, but it is what it is and most of our students come through word of mouth. The Canadian system is also going to be different than American, etc etc.

The first half of your post goes back to the preramble of my rant, which is shrink the classes and give teachers the training/resources necessary so they can spend time with the students and identify their needs. So much of the crap we squabble over is almost irrelevant in the face of that.

As for my 85% comment, well, referring specifically to my home town/province, we used to be near the top for student performance in Canada, and currently I believe we are at the bottom. They tanked it badly these past twenty years. While there are certainly a lot of kids who do just fine, the average is far below what it used to be. Mental math abilities are not nearly what they used to be. Calculators are a huge crutch that kids lean on and they panic without them. They are trying to "teach" intuitive methods before the kids have developed/practiced the pure crunch power necessary to even perform the intuitive methods. In my direct experience and observations, the new math curriculum has lost more than it has gained.

 

Have to applaud you agreeing to be a department chair. I was chair of science for 10 years, then tried admin for a few years. Teaching works best for me. Yes, kids shutting down when they don't get it right away is something we are trying to deal with too.

 

Want mine? Haven't changed the asking price either!

 

You forgot about drawing a diagram of your reasoning when your done.