<p>Every once in a while one is faced with a scholarly article that yields a good laugh. </p>
<p>Here’s one that was written in The Educational Forum in the Spring 2003 by a tandem of scholars. William G. Holliday is Professor of Science Education at the University of Maryland at College Park. His research interests include science learning and teaching strategies, education policy, and narrowing the gaps between research and practice. Berchie W. Holliday is a retired high school math teacher and a textbook author. Her research interests address teaching and learning secondary school mathematics.</p>
<p>The scholars offered this explanation for the lesser results of US students on an international test.</p>
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<p>First, one might wonder about the qualification of a math teacher and a textbook author who thinks that 25 centimeters are about 12 inches (and not 10 inches.) However, while the conversion of centimeters to inches is trivial, the worst failure consists of not recognizing its complete lack of relevance in solving a MULTIPLE CHOICE problem where all the dimensions are expressed in the same measurement. The size of the box could have been expressed in inches or yards and it would not made a bit of difference.</p>
<p>This would be more comical if it was not so pathetic, because this tandem is not only respected enough to be published, but also permitted to remain in a position to educate students and lead them to a “better” future. </p>
<p>Come to think about, this might explain why most high schools textbooks are what they are and why the United States trails most industrialized nations in mathematical performance and barely edges third-world countries where students have to learn math with paper, a pencil, a bit of reasoning power, and competent … teachers.</p>
<p>I kept getting 73cm and thinking that I must be a moron, but the OP accidentally misquoted the measurements. There’s an image in the link…the ribbon should be criss-crossed both directions and the box is 12x8x3cm ;)</p>
<p>On the one hand, I agree with the OP…this is hilarious. On the other hand, it’s not totally ridiculous. A lot of kids get really bogged down and flustered with word problems, and a lack of [url=<a href=“Homework Help and Textbook Solutions | bartleby”>Homework Help and Textbook Solutions | bartleby]relevancy[/url</a>] is no help. Offered up as an excuse for a nation’s poor overall math performance, it does seems silly. But the idea of giving students word problems that they can actually connect with is a good one.</p>
<p>BTW in the original quote box in post #1, the dimensions were incorrectly given as 3 x 6 x 12 when the article had the box at 3 x 8 x 12. I don’t think that would explain 55 though???</p>
<p>A more interesting question to test higher level geometry would be to do the diagonal method of wrapping ribbon (across a corner of the front, diagonally down a side, diagonally across the back, diagonally up a side, diagonally across the opposite corner of the front from the first pass, continuing on until you meet at the starting point). It tests right angle math, square roots and more.</p>
<p>BTW, that was always my favorite way of wrapping ribbon when I was a kid… And it used less ribbon.</p>
<p>GoalieDad:
I suspect that MathMom’s answer in post#6 came from the following logic:
If the box has dimensions of Height x Width x Length (or H x W x L, for short) of 3 x 6 x 12 cm, then there are three possible ways to tie a ribbon around it.</p>
<p>1) Tie it across length & height. Total length = 2 (H+L) + 25 = 2(3+12) + 25 = 55
2) Tie it across width & height. Total length = 2(H+W) + 25 =2(3+6)+25 = 43
3) Tie it across width & height, AND length & height. Total length = 2(H+W) + 2(H+L) + 25 = 18 + 30 + 25 = 73.</p>
<p>Presumably, the picture showed just which of these threee options was used.</p>
<p>My goodness, Student615. Do you honestly believe that giving a word problem students can relate to is necessary? Personally, I give the youth of America a lot more credit … I think that they are perfectly capable of figuring out problems that are not relevant to their lives. As long as students are given the proper foundation in math, they should be able to solve any problem that is as straightforward as the one cited. Math is math … numbers are numbers. The key is to teach kids how numbers are used. Once they know that, they can apply their knowledge to anything … even to things they don’t completely like, understand, relate to, etc.</p>
<p>If we have to consider the “relevance” of everything we assign in school, we are going to have to reduce things to the lowest common denominator — I’m thinking Paris Hilton, Soulja Boy, television, fast food, and movies released on DVD. How many Big Macs does it take to gain 10 pounds? How many times would you have to do the Soulja Boy to lose those 10 pounds? How many episodes of Sponge Bob must you watch to equal the time it takes to watch 2 episodes of South Park? If Paris Hilton wanted to escape the paparazzi by catapulting herself past them, what force is required to send her 40 yards? </p>
<p>I think the real problem is that we are far too concerned with making things interesting or relevant. By high school, students should be capable of applying concepts to solve complex problems. I subbed in a 10th grade geometry class today. I introduced the formula for the area of a triangle (I am fairly sure they have had this in previous years, as well). The first problem asked them to find the area of a triangle with b=6, h=10. At least a quarter of the class didn’t know what to do! They weren’t being asked to wrap a box, for heaven’s sake! </p>
<p>My thought? If we can help kids understand the power of engaging their brains, they will find out that they are actually quite capable!</p>
<p>Oops, sorry for the typo (6 instead of the correct 8) - I typed the dimensions too quickly (as an edit) when I realized the image of the box would not show in the post and readers needed to follow the link to the article. The dimensions were not part of the original problem.</p>
<p>For us practical people, always choose the longest length which can never be the wrong answer. What type of fool would need exactly a measurement as a leftover? Right Moms? The question must have been written by a dad.</p>
<p>When I read that question, the metric system was not a problem at all. You could just leave out the unit of measurement and work with the numbers, it’s not like they add or subtract differently outside the US.</p>
<p>I witness the Asian academic miracle daily at work. The secret: go to school for 5 hours/day during which you only study English, Math, Science and Native language and then spend 4 hours per day cramming and reviewing exactly the same thing.</p>
<p>The miracle relates to the amount of time spent in core academic instruction as opposed to a broader curricular format. Not much of a miracle.</p>
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