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How Old Is The Shepherd?
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Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#22This would never happen if there was a laptop in every classroom. (EDIT: Sarcasm alert -- see my response below before you downvote me) EDIT: Just watched the video. Scary.
This would never happen if there was a laptop in every classroom. Yes, the superior abstract reasoning that the computer imparts would definitely solve this! (I'm also fairly skeptical of this finding). From the article: The “How Old Is the Shepherd?” question was popularized by an essay written by Professor Katherine K. Merseth in 1993 and was based on research by Professor Kurt Reusser in a paper presented at the 1…
Part of the problem with this question is that many students today don't know what a "shepherd" is. Perhaps this is also a failure of education, but it isn't a failure of math education. It would be better to say a "farmer" owns these animals, since most children would have heard the word "farmer" at some point in their lives. Or maybe it would be better to say "your neighbor" has so many cats and so many dogs but then the kids would probably just guess some advanced age because crazy cat ladies.
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#23I thint there is an unfortunate temptation to look at the students and think "how stupid are they?", but I wonder if the issue is more about familiarity of tasks. If students are going along solving word problems that always make sense, they have zero practice in identifying which questions are well posed and which aren't. It may not be that they're bad at reasoning through word problems, so much as they aren't used…
> I think there is an unfortunate temptation to look at the students and think "how stupid are they?" I don't see any evidence of that in the comments on the original article or here. All of it seems to be focussed on the process of education and the habits it forms and the psychology of teacher/student (or more general authority figure) relations.
Yeah, I wasn't calling anyone out. Or if I was, I was calling out my first reaction.
But the point that I still think is an issue is that we don't know how much of the effect is about what the students _understand_ as much as it's about how they see the situation they are in. What incentives are there, and what is the student actually thinking?
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#24We can learn from Descartes, Aristotle, and others to develop a curriculum teaching children how to think and process. The idiots that run this country do not want that. It's about the curriculum. We can develop the world we want by teaching the next generation.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#25Let's assume the shepherd graduated high school at 18 then bought 2 lambs and a farm. He was nice to his sheep so didn't breed them until 2 years and not after 7. The average litter size is 2 and the average age is 11. Let's assume an even number of male and female sheep. At year 2 he'll have 4 sheep (2 original and 2 new lambs). 2 more at year 3 and then 4 at year 3 (the first litter can now breed). At year 7 the original sheep stop breeding.
The shepherd is about 30 years old after he has passed the 125 mark. The dogs didn't matter. (Some story problems throw you a red herring.)
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#26I just asked my 2 yr old this same question. He just responded with "yellow!" /facepalm
Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer!
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#27I think many eighth graders would be sophisticated enough for some dimensional analysis if it were presented in the right way. It's hard to imagine students who had been taught that, making these sorts of mistakes.
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This would never happen if there was a laptop in every classroom. Yes, the superior abstract reasoning that the computer imparts would definitely solve this! (I'm also fairly skeptical of this finding). From the article: The “How Old Is the Shepherd?” question was popularized by an essay written by Professor Katherine K. Merseth in 1993 and was based on research by Professor Kurt Reusser in a paper presented at the 1…
Part of the problem with this question is that many students today don't know what a "shepherd" is. Perhaps this is also a failure of education, but it isn't a failure of math education. It would be better to say a "farmer" owns these animals, since most children would have heard the word "farmer" at some point in their lives. Or maybe it would be better to say "your neighbor" has so many cats and so many dogs but th…
Really? I don't see that as being part of the problem. I have no idea whether it's true or not, but suspect it depends largely on socioeconomic status and geography.
Even if the children aren't familiar with the term "shepherd", it still comes down to the fact that they do not have enough information to answer the question and still attempt to perform some sort of calculation with no reasoning of why they are doing it.
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#29I remember back in my first year engineering physics midterm, it was 13 multiple choice questions and each question had a "there is not enough information given" option. I guess that's why everyone at my school calls it the rite of passage to university.
Re: How Old Is The Shepherd?
#30Let's assume the shepherd graduated high school at 18 then bought 2 lambs and a farm. He was nice to his sheep so didn't breed them until 2 years and not after 7. The average litter size is 2 and the average age is 11. Let's assume an even number of male and female sheep. At year 2 he'll have 4 sheep (2 original and 2 new lambs). 2 more at year 3 and then 4 at year 3 (the first litter can now breed). At year 7 the or…
A certain amount of inbreeding of livestock is OK, but your hypothetical shepherd is asking for problems. b^)