I got this link from my dad, who teaches graduate-level math and physics. It was going around the faculty in his department, who were universally horrified (but sadly, not shocked) by it.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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working for the schoolboard i dont need this to tell me the education system is messed up. But this is very funny.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Verizon needs to learn math. Their idiocy is astounding.
This guy needs to learn advocacy.
He keeps bringing up extraneous issues and he keeps talking about dollars. He should have stopped trying to convert the rate to dollars. And he should NEVER have talked about them quoting "point zero zero dollars" and NEVER calculated the total in dollars.
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OK, so I listened to about 4 minutes of it. Anybody feel like giving me a summary of how it turns out? Does he get his bill resolved?
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Not in that call. If you google "Verizon dollars cents" (no quotes) you'll find a blog on it. He got a credit, but they never really admitted wrongdoing.
quote:yet another thing lacking in our education system.
And rhetoric used to be considered one of the necessary parts of a liberal arts education.
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I'm flabbergasted that the guy will admit that there is a difference between 0.5 dollars and 0.5 cents but can't carry that over to 0.002 dollars vs. cents.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: And rhetoric used to be considered one of the necessary parts of a liberal arts education.
It's still a necessary part of a liberal arts education, it's just that most kids nowadays -- myself included -- didn't get a liberal arts education. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:I'm flabbergasted that the guy will admit that there is a difference between 0.5 dollars and 0.5 cents but can't carry that over to 0.002 dollars vs. cents.
This underscores the inadequacy of the customer's attempt to solve his problem. He was trying to teach math - which, if successful, would have solved his problem - when he should have been trying to get them to agree with the correct answer.
If I recall correctly, he never did an example with half cents. When the third person answered that a half cent was "point zero zero five" he should have immediately asked her how much 5 things at half cent each were. Then he should have had her type it in the calculator.
It might not have worked, but it might have. The problem is that at no point did he carry them step by step through the process with their understanding at each step.
quote:It's still a necessary part of a liberal arts education, it's just that most kids nowadays -- myself included -- didn't get a liberal arts education.
It's not included in most things called "liberal arts" today, either.
By the way, the reason I'm focusing more on this part of it is that the math-related failings are incredibly obvious. Not much needs to be said.
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I hate math, myself (and it returns the favor completely), but even I got that one right away.
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I'd feel more sympathetic for the guy if he wasn't such a condescending ass on the phone call. That said, I can't comprehend how the supervisors can go from saying there's a difference between 1 cent and 1 dollar to saying there's no difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars.
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I checked out the blog, and it also says that he started recording the conversation after a supervisor came on the line. Personally, if I'd already had a couple of phone conversations and a lot of time trying to explain this concept to CSRs and/or supervisors who just don't get it, I doubt I'd be as patient as he was.
On the other hand, I would have resorted to a letter since verbal clearly wasn't working. With a letter, in my mind, it'd be a lot easier to get the point across.
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1.) He did not focus on his goal, which was to get someone to say he only owes 71 cents and to have his bill fixed.
2.) He did not use the introduction of each new person as a chance to make an ally. He started off each new phase by presenting the defenses to anticipated arguments rather than welcoming them, expressing confidence that they would clear this right up, and trying to prevent them from having a personal stake in the opinion of the previous representative. Note that he asked them to do the math and then attempted to correct them. Good technique for a teacher who wants them to remember the lesson. Bad technique for an advocate unless he can be sure they will form the correct conclusion. And he knew they wouldn't.
3.) He was condescending, which makes #2 impossible.
4.) He used rhetorical techniques to emphasize the wrong thing. Repetition is useful, but he repeated "hundred-fold" too many times. He should have been emphasizing, over and over and over, that 35,000 * .002 is 71 cents.
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Agreed he only brought up the lack of conversion from cents to dollars twice but both times he did it he only mentioned it instead of pointing out how they erred.
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The stories I could tell from tutoring math at a community college ... It amazed me. Disgusted me. Made me so freaking glad I was homeschooled.
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quote:Originally posted by Dr Strangelove: The stories I could tell from tutoring math at a community college ... It amazed me. Disgusted me. Made me so freaking glad I was homeschooled.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I tutored English and social sciences, plus a little math, at the community college level for several years, and I've got the same kind of stories. I had people come to me who had graduated from high school...recently and with good grades...and still didn't know how to use a library, didn't know what a five-paragraph essay was, and had never been required to write any kind of research paper. At all. Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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People who graduated from my public hs definitely had the basics down. Unfortunately, that was not true for kids the next town over.
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quote:Originally posted by Ecthalion: if you really wanted a solid foundation though most of it you had to learn or do for yourself.
I'm old (I was in high school in the early/mid 1970s), so much of my public school experience might not have anything to do with what goes on now. However...with the exception of never being taught formal grammar, my elementary school education was quite good. I found, though, that in junior high and high school, and especially in high school, I mostly had to do it myself if I really wanted to learn anything. Most of my teachers were quite disengaged from the process (could just have been my schools; I have no way of knowing what other schools and teachers were like), and I went through whole semesters in high school where I only had one or two assignments in all my classes put together. But even then, I still didn't escape high school without having to write at least two or three papers.
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quote:Originally posted by Ecthalion: if you really wanted a solid foundation though most of it you had to learn or do for yourself.
I disagree that this is always the case. I had excellent teachers who were very much involved in my learning process.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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^^ There is a small box at the bottom right of the screen and the top right that says, VoD, click on it and a small screen should load the video. I saw this video in high school biology class and my class all cracked up when we saw this video. Though admittedly only I was brave enough to go to the front of the class and demonstrate why the moon had difference phases, and though I knew, I had trouble expressing the idea. I am quite certain how it all works now
Still its one of those, "That leaves me alittle unsettled about American education systems."
edit: I first heard the word, "Curlicue" in this video, and I don't think I have EVER heard it used since.
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Sorry for double posting but I really think this video is very informative about how we have misconceptions, where they come from, and how hard it is to dispel them. I am very impressed with the teacher for being willing to let her classroom undergo that much scrutiny, she seemed very willing to address the problem rather then getting mad that it exists.
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An educated person begins an argument by stating the problem, then stating his/her proposed solution / goal of the argument. The whiner did neither. Instead he began by attempting to get the listener to agree that "point oh oh two dollars is different from point oh oh two cents." I shut down his recording, ie I "hung up" on him immediately after his second restatement. I've already heard the 7X13=28 routine.
The recording proves only that customer service representatives hafta (over)politely deal with complete&utter dolts.
posted
unfortunately trying to explain something 3-5 times to 3-5 different people who are really supposed to know the difference between a dollar and a cent would make anyone annoyed and so i dont put too much blame on the person recording.
I tried to explain the seasons to my mother and was not successful at showing it untill i grabbed a globe and a few other objects. This leads me to belive that part of the problem with educating people in science is that it relies heavily on drawings and not much on experimentation.
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Heather's thing about light bouncing isn't as crazy as they imply. When it's winter in the southern hemisphere, some of the light is bouncing off of the top of the atmosphere, and some more of it is broken up by the atmosphere because of the angle. Also, distance from the sun doesn't cause the seasons, but it does affect the climate.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Heather's thing about light bouncing isn't as crazy as they imply. When it's winter in the southern hemisphere, some of the light is bouncing off of the top of the atmosphere, and some more of it is broken up by the atmosphere because of the angle. Also, distance from the sun doesn't cause the seasons, but it does affect the climate.
I seriously doubt Heather KNEW about those instances of light bouncing, but lets give her the benefit of the doubt. Distance from the sun effects the climate not even marginally. Its almost completely unnoticeable.
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I'd bet she did. Given that some of her other misconceptions were clearly from stuff she had read but not completely understood, I'd guess she was pretty well-read.
She must be about my age. I wonder where she is now! It would be cool if she's a science teacher.
posted
I hate the school system in California specifically. My cousin is in second grade and she just moved from Mexico to the U.S. Her teacher wants to send her to first grade because she isn't fluent in english.
All I can say is WTF. The girl is having language difficulties, she's not retarded. I hate the fact that our governor, which I don't like, got rid of the bilingual program.
I think we need that program.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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There are a lot of fast food managers (at Popeyes, in Louisiana, specifically) who are also really bad at math. I order the same meal every time I go there, and every time I try to substitute an extra biscuit in place of the included side order. About half of the time they allow it. When they don't, I ask to speak to the manager and I try to get them to explain how it makes good business sense not to allow me substitute, especially when I'm replacing a more expensive (and lower margin) side with a cheaper (and higher margin) item. The conversation usually ends with me like this -----> Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion: I hate the fact that our governor, which I don't like, got rid of the bilingual program.
I think we need that program.
Agreed. But while I dislike the Governator, wasn't it his predecessor who killed bilingual education?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I went to a public high school. The opportunities for learning advanced material were much better there than at the private school in the area, which I attended for part of elementary and junior high. I don't know whether it was good for the low-to-average student, but for the advanced students, the classes were incredible. The first two years of college were easy in comparison.
I have no idea how the people in the recording managed to not understand the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents. It seems pretty obvious to me.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The problem is as follows (as summed by my father): To the average American, anything less than a dollar is automatically in cents.
It's the whole can't-deal-with-fractions problem writ large.
So $.99 = 99 cents $.50 = 50 cents $.02 = 2 cents (and many people will try to call this .02 cents) $.002 = .002 cents
And all too many people don't see the inconsistency (and therefore the rather significant error). As of a week ago, multiple people who verified Verizon's rate were being quoted ".002 cents" -- presumably because the Verizon reps doing the quoting are still seeing $.002 on their screens.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Altáriël of Dorthonion: I hate the school system in California specifically. My cousin is in second grade and she just moved from Mexico to the U.S. Her teacher wants to send her to first grade because she isn't fluent in english.
All I can say is WTF. The girl is having language difficulties, she's not retarded.
What does that have to do with it? If she can't handle the material of second grade, then she belongs in first grade. The cause is not relevant.
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I answered wrong on one of those questions myself, although I had bits of the right answer running through my head. I knew about the indirect light, I know about the axis tilt, but I had more than one science teacher tell the class that the season WAS caused by an elipitical orbit.
I also got a little bit mixed up about the phases of the moon, but only because i confused them with eclipses at first.
And I was a good science student. Not great, because I hate math, but pretty darn good in other aspects of science.
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That is an absurd simplification, aspectre. The issue was pushed heavily by the governor, endorsed by him, and he attempted to push it through the legislature. Unfortunately, our state legislature has a nasty habit of dumping politically uncomfortable issues on the voters, instead of doing the job they were elected for.
quote:I had more than one science teacher tell the class that the season WAS caused by an elliptical orbit.
I have actually calculated the difference in respective distances due to the (very slight) elliptical orbit with at least one physics class. It's pretty small, relatively speaking.
Of course, the best evidence that it can't be the orbit is the fact that the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have opposite seasons simultaneously.
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The climates of the two hemispheres are affected by Earth's distance from the Sun. Due to the inverse square law of radiation, Earth currently receives ~6.4% more sunlight when it is closest to the Sun than it does when it is farthest from the Sun.
The NorthernHemisphere's SummerSolstice and the SouthernHemisphere's WinterSolstice occur when Earth is (nearly*) farthest from the Sun, and the NorthernHemisphere's WinterSolstice and the SouthernHemisphere's SummerSolstice occur when Earth is (nearly*) closest to the Sun.
Hence the NorthernHemisphere experiences a milder climate than it would if its summer were to occur during the Earth's closest approach to the Sun and its winter were to occur during Earth's farthest separation from the Sun; and the SouthernHemisphere experiences harsher swings in its climate.
posted
The anti-bilingualism proposition was pushed through by right-wing radio-talkshow hosts and Republican fundraisers&politicians after the Republican anti-bilingualism bills failed in the Democrat-controlled California legislature on nearly straight partyline votes.
quote:Originally posted by aspectre: The climates of the two hemispheres are affected by Earth's distance from the Sun. Due to the inverse square law of radiation, Earth currently receives ~6.9% more sunlight when it is closest to the Sun than it does when it is farthest from the Sun.
The NorthernHemisphere's SummerSolstice and the SouthernHemisphere's WinterSolstice occur when Earth is (nearly*) farthest from the Sun, and the NorthernHemisphere's WinterSolstice and the SouthernHemisphere's SummerSolstice occur when Earth is (nearly*) closest to the Sun.
Hence the NorthernHemisphere experiences a milder climate than it would if its summer were to occur during the Earth's closest approach to the Sun and its winter were to occur during Earth's farthest separation from the Sun; and the SouthernHemisphere experiences harsher swings in its climate.
But see I seriously doubt people are being taught, "The earth is at one time closer and at another time further from the sun and that explains about 6% of the weather fluctuations we have during the seasons. About 94% of the climate change can be attributed to the earths faulty rotation." And then only retaining the 6% factor.
I really think people are not being explained the significance of the earths faulty axis.
IMO they are being taught,
1: The earth revolves in an ellipse around the sun
2: At one point in the year the earth is closer to the sun and at another farther because of this elliptical orbit.
and finally a common sense principle misapplied (to an extent)
3: The closer you are to an object that emits heat the more heat you will experience, ergo the seasons, just as the closer your hand is to a flame the hotter it feels.
The fact the earth has a faulty axis is noted but it is not presented as the cause of the seasons.
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"...trying to explain something 3-5 times to 3-5 different people...would make anyone annoyed..."
I don't know if the complainant tried to explain anything. I "hung up" on him. All I heard was him trying to force the listener into accepting his proposition while giving no context whatsoever. Without knowing the context, I wouldn't agree with someone saying "The sky is blue, right?" cuz s/he might conclude with "So you agree that there is no sky at night."
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Er, how is our tilted axis "faulty"?
It results in Shabbos coming in way too early in the winter, and going out way too late in the summer. I call that faulty.
I hereby declare the creation of the Foundation for the Elimination of Axial Tilt.
FEAT will lobby to have enormous, slanted tubes built at the poles, and surplus nuclear weapons from the Cold War detonated in them in such a way as to fix the problem of axial tilt, and ensure that Shabbat begins and ends at a reasonable time all year 'round.
No more bright sunlight at 7pm when I'm trying to get my daughter to go to bed in the summer, and no more leaving work at 5pm in the dark.
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