[Gllug] Algorithm question

[Matthew King]

John Winters <john at sinodun.org.uk> writes:

> Matthew King wrote:
>> "Adrian McMenamin" <adrian at newgolddream.dyndns.info> writes:
>>
>>> Lots of interesting answers, all prompting me (or not) to renew my 25 year
>>> dead knowledge of matrix mathematics (always wondered why the Cambridge
>>> maths O level taught all that when it never appeared in any maths done at
>>> A level or University - now I know).
>>
>> My bastard of an idiot of a GCSE maths teacher decided it wasn't
>> important. Instead we did months (and I mean MONTHS) of quadratic and
>> simultaneous equations, for which I have yet to find a use.
>
> Your bastard of an idiot of a GCSE maths teacher probably didn't have
> any choice in the matter.  There is a lot of really irrelevant stuff
> in the GCSE maths syllabus, but I don't know of any current GCSE maths
> syllabus which includes matrices.  Unfortunately our hands are really
> tied - you have to teach the stuff which is on the syllabus, and
> there's so much irrelevant stuff on the syllabus there isn't time to
> teach any interesting-but-not-on-the-syllabus bits like we'd like to.

I asked him about it. There was plenty of other stuff in this and other
subjects taught which was not on the syllabus. He just wasn't a very
good teacher. If he were, he'd at the least have given me [links to]
some good reference material to learn it on my own. If he'd taken the
time to talk to me he'd have known that I didn't (ultimately) give a
stuff about the curriculum or the exam and that I just wanted to learn
cool stuff.

Basically what I didn't like wasn't his "I'm not going to teach this" -
there are a lot of children in classes, all different - but his "You're
not going to learn this" attitude.

Like most other teachers there, including the head[s], he was only
interested in league tables and forcing us onto them whether we wanted
it or not. There were good and bad teachers at school, unfortunately
some only recognisable as such in hindsight, but he was definitely one
of the latter.

It's a shame that the decent teachers weren't teaching any of the
subjects I found interesting or useful. Like IT, which last I heard was
still scrapped.

Matthew

-- 
I must take issue with the term "a mere child", for it has been my
invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely
preferable to that of a mere adult.
                                           --  Fran Lebowitz

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