Which State Is South of Arkansas?

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Which State Is South of Arkansas?

This really happened, in a geography class I took, long ago, in an Arkansas elementary school.

Teacher: “Which state is south of Arkansas?”

Me: “There are six: Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.”

Teacher: “No, Robert, that’s wrong.”

Me: “No, YOU’RE wrong. I’m right, and I’ll prove it.” I then got up, walked to the large classroom map of Arkansas, and ran my finger downwards on the map, six times, along the arrows you see above, while shouting, “South! South! South! South! South! South!” It’s true: from some point in Arkansas, you can travel, due South, into some part of any of the six adjacent states.

The teacher called my mother. Her response? “What’s the problem? He was RIGHT, wasn’t he?”

On Calculator Use and Abuse

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Calculators are important tools.

Well, so are guns.

Everyone acknowledges that, if guns are going to be used at all, certain safety precautions are essential. While it generally is not a matter of life and death, the same thing is true of calculators.

I have seen — multiple times — students multiply or divide some number by one, using a calculator, and then be genuinely surprised when they got the same number with which they started. I have also seen a bright student calculate the mass of an atom, and get an answer larger than the mass of the earth. When I informed him of this, his reaction was predictable: “But that’s what the calculator says!”

These are examples of calculator abuse. Aside from avoiding errors, such as the “planetary atom,” it’s also important not to abuse calculators because such an act is insulting to one’s own brain.

Some people treat calculators as if they are omniscient and infallible. They aren’t. They’re small, simple, narrowly-focused computers. The human brain is also a computer, but a far more advanced one. The calculators are our tools, not the other way around.

Here are some tips to prevent calculator abuse:

1. Know how to do arithmetic without a calculator. If you don’t know, learn.

2. Use calculator-free mathematics when appropriate. If you need to know what six times eight is, for example, it insults your own brain to consult a calculator. Don’t do it!

3. Calculator-free mathematics is not to be called “mental math,” for the simple reason that ALL math is mental. Also, if you ever meet anyone claiming to have invented that insipid phrase, kick that person immediately.

4. If you have contact with children, promote the use of calculator-free math to them. This is most important, of course, for parents and teachers. It is no service to a child to raise them to be dependent on a calculator.

5. Finally, when you do use a calculator, don’t be too trusting of the little thing. Check your answers, constantly, by using estimation. Say, for example, you’re multiplying 109 by 36. That’s “a bit over a hundred” times “a bit under forty.” Since forty hundreds is four thousand, the answer has to be in the ballpark of 4,000 — and if a calculator disagrees, the calculator is wrong, probably because a human pressed at least one incorrect button. You will press incorrect buttons on occasion — we all do — and it’s important to have a method in place to detect such errors. This estimation-method is both simple and effective.

All these principles boil down to this: be smarter than your calculator. They aren’t actually very intelligent, so this is neither difficult, nor unreasonable.

An Alternative Explanation for ADD and ADHD

Posted on 30 January 2013 by RobertLovesPi

ADD and ADHD are being treated, mostly in children too young to give informed consent themselves, with powerful, addictive, dangerous stimulants. How dangerous? Children have died because of such drugs as Ritalin and its relatives, all of which are amphetamines (feel free to check that with Google). Amphetamines are, of course, commonly known as speed. A large experiment is being conducted with many of America’s youth, with no control group, and woefully inadequate safety protocols.

The ADD/ADHD genes have not been found, nor has the virus, bacteria, nor parasite. Either the cause of ADD and ADHD is very good at hiding, or there simply isn’t one. Serious consideration is due to whether the term “disorder” actually applies to these conditions.

Consider this alternative explanation to the “disease model.” Humans evolved with certain characteristics related to paying attention, which is an obvious survival trait. One can try to pay attention to the myriad things going on, which I call a “wide focus,” or one can tune out most things to focus on one particular thing — a “narrow focus.”

I naturally have a narrow focus, and it takes considerable effort (and is exhausting) to widen it for sustained periods. There’s evidence on this blog: all those geometrical patterns I like to make require intense concentration, for substantial periods, on a single activity. If ADD is real, I have its opposite.

By contrast, those who have a wide focus are more likely to notice, say, an approaching attacker than I am. Therefore, wide-focus attention is an even better survival trait that merely paying attention, or at least it has been for most of human history. Noticing lots of things, though, makes one naturally distractable, and that doesn’t mesh well with the expectations modern schools have for students — so a lot of students end up labeled and drugged, simply because they are more adapted to certain un-schoollike environments than is the average person. The natural environment in which our species evolved is, of course, nothing like school. If I were alive in the Stone Age, that wouldn’t remain true for long; some sabre-tooth tiger would easily catch me while I was drawing triangles in the dirt with a stick.

The people with a wide focus aren’t sick. There’s nothing wrong with them — except that a characteristic of theirs is not liked by many in education, who then encourage parents to turn to the medical profession — simply to alleviate conflict, in many cases, despite the very real risks to the students who are drugged, often against their will.

Evolution is a natural part of the universe. School, on the other hand, is a human invention. If there is a mismatch, as there often is, where, then, truly lies the disorder? In the students . . . or in the schools themselves?

On “Mediocracy”

Posted on 16 January 2013 by RobertLovesPi

I have actually heard two different high school principals say, to assembled students in one case, and a faculty meeting in the other, that “mediocracy” was not acceptable, nor what we should want as a school, from our students, blah blah blah. Use a non-word like that, and you’ve lost me as a listener, possibly permanently.

Clearly, the fact that two different principals (neither at my current school, by the way) in central Arkansas did this same SNAFU means it is likely that someone nearby is teaching this to people, spreading the idea to replace “mediocrity” (a perfectly good word) with “mediocracy.” They’re probably doing this at a nearby teacher school, er, I mean, “College of Education.”

This got me wondering about possible definitions for “mediocracy.” One comes to mind very quickly, and that is a system of government: rule by the mediocre.

Oh, wait, we have that already, and have had it for as long as I can remember. I guess we are willing to accept mediocracy, at the federal, state, and local levels, and in all branches of government.

Sigh.

¿Es usted normal?

Posted on 29 November 2012 by RobertLovesPi

It took some time for me to figure out that things are seriously screwed up. One of the early indicators involved this question, and the reaction to my answer to it, which was asked to me in Spanish class, 7th grade.

The exercise was simple. A list of adjectives appeared in the textbook, and we were going down the row, with the teacher asking each student, in turn, “Are you [adjective]?” in Spanish, and then the student answering, also in Spanish. Previous students had declared whether they were or were not tall, funny, popular, etc. It didn’t take long to figure out the pattern, and that I would soon be asked, yes or no, if the word “normal” described me.

I didn’t have any trouble with the question itself — the answer seemed quite self-evident — but I did want my translation to be ready. And so, it was.

My turn. “¿Roberto, es usted normal?”

My instantaneous reply: “No, yo no soy normal.”

I wasn’t particularly paying attention to the other students up until this point, but this changed quickly, amidst the hysterical laughter which ensued, with things like “You aren’t normal?” being shrieked, with glee, above the general hilarity. Another such comment I remember: “Well, what are you, then?”

I knew damn well I wasn’t like any of them, nor did I want to be. The drive to fit in, be one with the crowd, conform — however you want to put it — has always been missing from my personality. What’s more, I’m delighted that it is. I’m not a slave to the opinions of others. I’m not normal now, any more than I was in 7th grade.

To me, “normal” implies the following: typical, ordinary, average, and boring. If I had nothing different about me — no “abnormal” traits — then what would be the point of my existence in the first place?

I was genuinely surprised by this in the 7th grade. It doesn’t surprise me any more when things like this happen, having had decades to get used to the “normality police,” who seem to be everywhere. This experience, way back in the 7th grade, was eye-opening for me.

So, over 30 years later: no, yo no soy normal. Nor will I ever be. What’s more, I still don’t understand why anyone else, then or now, would want to apply the word “normal” to themselves. This is a mystery I doubt I will ever solve, for I do not even come close to understanding it.