kitchen table math, the sequel: C-a-l-cu-lus AP, hardest class in his-to-ry

Thursday, August 7, 2008

C-a-l-cu-lus AP, hardest class in his-to-ry

New words for a song stuck in my head.

3 comments:

concerned said...

Thanks for the entertaining video!!

Just one comment/observation:

The student indicates at the beginning that he is choosing between trig and calculus for his math class...

I've never encountered a district that didn't have trig as a prereq for calculus. This student must have worked very hard to receive a 3 on the AP Calc exam without ever having taken a trig course.

Tex said...

Poetic license?

SteveH said...

Exxon has some commercials for the Olympics that talk about education and preparing kids to go into science or engineering. They show pictures of happy kids and teachers doing a lot of hands on stuff, like letting a child shake the hand of a robot. Woo hoo! Inspiring! Ironically, the last image of the commercial shows an integral floating across the screen.

They would be much better off telling parents that if their child isn't on track with algebra in 8th grade, the chances for being a scientist or an engineer are very greatly reduced. And, if you can't handle calculus, you can start thinking about a fal-back degree. It doesn't matter how well you can program a robot.