Just as you don't really understand how a CPU works until you've programmed in assembly, you don't really understand math if you haven't done hand-computation, at least up to a point. If your approach to any math problem is "plug it into Mathmatica" you will never be able to creatively apply basic concepts to more complicated problems and you will never have any sense of whether the answers it provides are "reasonable."<p>That said, tools like Mathmatica are here to stay, and the argument that we need to spend more time teaching the use of these tools as an aid to exploring and understanding fundamental concepts is probably correct.
A good portion of this problem would be solved in the long(er) term if we pursued a 3-track plan. First, cut back on the amount of bureaucracy running the school systems. Whenever state cuts roll around, you never hear about office administrator's getting cut. . .just teachers. Where I live, we have an absurdly high ratio of administrator to teacher ratio and when cuts come around the teachers go first. The more overhead we've got, the less we can spend on teachers to retain the people who actually teach.<p>Second, give the schools more autonomy to choose curriculum and meet the needs of their students. Instead of standardizing the curriculum across the state and federal level--shoehorning every student, no matter their educational needs into one specific mold--give the schools more latitude to meet their students needs. Give the teachers some room to choose what they teach instead of having them teach straight to the standard of learning tests.<p>Finally, end teacher tenure and promote/fire based on merit. Good teachers who teach well should get raises and encouraged to stay teaching. Teachers who stink (I know I can think of several off the top of my head my classmates and I universally agreed stunk) should be let go and replaced with new teachers. Overtime, this builds a a stronger cadre of motivated individuals with an incentive to do well teaching instead of having protection from the all powerful teacher's union to
I believe that there are currently more significant problems than those mentioned in the (very good) TED talk---how do we stop the continued trend of denigration of teaching and the profession in general? The current populist idea of blame all of the teachers for the nightmare that administration gone insane is, is not going to lead us unto the future. It will lead us back to a time of ignorance and idiocy.
This has been submitted many times in the past few months, with the same point and counter-points rehashed endlessly. Do a search for Conrad Wolfram to see what I mean.<p>I'm not going to repeat my arguments. For some people he's right, for others he's very wrong.