John H. wrote in
:

In the public high school in which I taught, kids were taking
Multivariate Calculus, normally a 4th semester calculus course. They
didn't have to be lawyers kids, or wealthy. They simply had to work.



I taught Electronic Technicians in a technical college, not exactly the
cream of the crop, in SC for 8 years. The high school graduates from
the local high school were about 7th Grade, 6th month in the social
promoted school system back in the 70's. We had to test them upon entry
and had an entire department of remedial education to bring these 18-
year-old grade school students up to a level so we could, at least,
communicate with most of them in simple English and help them learn
basic arithmetic so they could stop counting on their fingers doing
simple computations.

I was called into the school president's office where I was confronted
with a full bird colonel USAF, flight commander's wings and all. "What
have you done to my son?", he wanted to know. "My son has flunked every
math course he ever took. The other night he comes to me watching TV
and wants to buy a SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR! I spilled my Scotch all over
my shirt!" I told the colonel we had no time for math for math's sake
at TEC, so concentrated study on real life mathematics, not theoretical
math the high school tried to spoon feed them with...without showing one
PRACTICAL use for it.

Case in point is a capacitor in series with a resistor across an AC
source. If you add up the AC voltage across the cap to the AC voltage
across the resistor in series with it, like you would in a DC circuit,
you get MORE voltage than the source. How can that be? The students
tried it themselves in the electronics lab, FIRST, then came to me in
the classroom unable to figure out why this PRACTICAL measurement was so
wrong. AT that point, and not before, we set the electronics books
aside and started learning aircraft navigation, field surveying and,
very quietly so as not to panic them, (tiny type here) trigonometry,
necessary to figure out what voltages to expect and measure the phase
between voltage and currents and how to correct it (resonance). Trig
had MEANING when I got done. Stealing the surveying equipment from the
civil engineers was lots easier after a few years to measure off the
property, flagpole, angles of the sun, etc. We even ended up in the
dark out behind the auto shop near midnight to measure our lat/long
with.....gasp....a sextant! Trig takes on a whole new meaning when it
has a REASON...instead of "We study Trig because the state board of
education educrats tell us we have to pass this requirement to get a
diploma." I stole this trick from the Navy who used it on me when I,
not a great math mind, needed trig.

Spherical trig wasn't needed, but when you get 'em cranked up you can't
stand to just drop a hammer on them and say "we don't need that for this
course", so that was part of the clandestine navigation course.

The colonel was a great contact, by the way....He was a constant source
of new aeronautical charts I used to backdoor teach a little trig to the
masses...(c;

I did it for 8 years before I came to the realization TEC wasn't going
to pay me enough to be very comfortable. I made $7200 on a 12 month
contract in 1972. By 1979, I was all the way up to the breathtaking sum
of $14,600...OVER DOUBLE my salary 8 years earlier. I quit and took a
job at triple that back in the defense industry working in a calm, cool,
airconditioned calibration lab without all the pressures.

Teaching kids was wonderful, even adult kids. I loved it. Working with
the vast array of professional educrats to get to teach kids is like
being sent to Hell by an angry god....very painful and unavoidable, no
matter how you try...