RE: Do we have a culture of celebrating academic failure?
My own thoughts, I think a lot of people failed at arithmetic but may find out they are good at using math without realizing it. The math taught in highschool for the most part is outdated so I can agree with people who complain about that. At the same time programming is math, logic is the basis of all math, math is everywhere. Arithmetic is a specific kind of math which appeals to certain kinds of people, but for people who don't like arithmetic there are other kinds of math which don't deal with numbers.
If a person can handle propositional logic, then they can communicate with computers. Computational thinking relies on propositional logic, and basic algebra. Programming languages are all about abstraction. So if I were to talk to a younger version of myself or to a modern student I would tell them primarily to focus on learning logic and on computational thinking (particularly using abstraction). And of course this is all coming from a person who is a pedestrian level programmer to be honest.
References
I agree, and I want to add onto that thought. The schooling system here in America doesn't teach one how to think, only what to think (borrowed, second hand conclusions). There is no emphasis on the Trivium or Quadrivium, and so without imparting these invaluable tools to young minds in our country there is no gain in learning. Without knowing how to reason or how to apply logic and rhetoric on top of correct grammar what can one hope to learn. First we have to address the need for these basic skills and their absence in our schooling system.
We also have to focus our attention on reading comprehension as it continues to drop by leaps and bounds with every passing year. The kids these days refer to present tense and past tense as active voice and passive voice, and in math there are numerous examples of concepts being obstruficated in an very successful way in order to divide the parents and their schooling from the kids as well, and this is not isolated to math and literature, but goes over to sciences and social studies.
Therefore addressing symptoms such as praising ignorance won't alert the mind to the cause of those symptoms, as the root of these things lies in the continuous dumbing down indoctrination that has been happening for over 100 years through compulsory education at the watch of the educators of educators and their founding, who enjoy immovable positions, unchallenged and therefore secured in their salary year after year and the perceived obsolescence that is created with each new edition of school books that renders the old ones automatically useless, while driving the market for redundancy and printing of useless books. Until these educators and their nefarious deeds are exposed we will be left scratching our heads about problems such as the applauding of ignorance.
Yes I agree that there are broader educational failures entrenched and they need to be addressed as well. I just focused on one aspect of this in my satirical piece as I felt I could write a few pedantic jokes about it lol. This honestly makes it far more difficult for me to write and often comes at the cost of intellectual depth and clarity, and I hope smart readers such as yourself and @dana-edwards don't mind.
No, it creates the position to bring about a flurry of other topics to discuss and enriches everyone in that aspect, so don't take it as devaluing your post at all, it's still very pertinent and eyeopening.
The math in school might be outdated, but they are doing a much better job now of teaching toward different learning styles. I think that was a problem in the past. When I was in school, I never was very good at math, but I discovered that if I took extra time and a methodical approach, then I was able to understand it well enough to pass. And you're right about logic for sure.
Thanks for reading, I just realized I didn't have you followed despite voting a lot of your stuff when I come across it
Rectified =)
Thanks. I have reciprocated. :)
I agree Dana, that due to a plethora of social reasons maths is often taught in a very unpalatable way causing a considerable proportion of people who would other have been very competent in the field of abstract reasoning to develop a general distaste for it. I don't know if there's a simple solution to this problem, but my guess is it'll require education reform that better utilizes mediums like the internet.
My groundless estimate is that while there are some gifted programmers and computer scientists who shunned traditional maths at school, they wouldn't be overly representative of either group. My annoyance is with both those who proudly boast about failure in these areas and our general social consensus in accepting this as a norm. I fear that the true extent of the deleterious effects of this are being overlooked: it discourages younger people to try by building an image of coolness around underachievement.
I feel this is predominantly a Western value, and while it has the benefit of encouraging a wider pursuance of endeavors as well being more considerate to the feelings of those ill suited to abstract reasoning, I don't know if these benefits outweigh the costs or if there doesn't exist a better overall approach that can retain the best of both worlds.