🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <29306.2B2B0A06@puddle.fidonet.org> Sheila.King@f315.n103.z1.fidonet.org (Sheila King) writes:
>To: Stuart W. Marlatt
>
>In a message to a student who asked about an explanation of imaginary
>numbers you said:
>
>-> Complex analysis is also a means by which all those bizarre integral
>-> solutions you see in the back of your calculus book may be derived.
>
>I think you were replying to a high school student who is not anywhere
>near taking calculus (<grin>)
>
>Sheila
>coming to you from Diamond Bar, CA (in Los Angeles County)

Sorry about that - sometimes I forget where I am. (In fact, although
I follow this newsgroup, I'm not currently actively involved in
education (from the distribution side, anyway). My wife does teach,
so that is my k12 interest.

A related question, however. How many high school students _do_ take
calculus? We had a intro-calc class in my school (I didn't take it -
didn't make the cut), but I get the idea that many schools don't offer
this. In contrast, many of the foreign students I have had the priviledge
to know during graduate school seem to consider calculus a typical
high school math course.

I read a quote recently (and forget who said it), from an early 
educator (circa 1350?) who considered arthimatic to be rather advanced
for the general public, and that while it should be offered in schools,
only the 'cream of the students' would take it. Of course, we now
see it taught from kindergarten, at some level, and most students get
algebra, geometry, and maybe some trig. Is the day coming when the
majority of students will get a taste of calculus before leaving
high school?


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The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;                           
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.                                      
  --T.S. Eliot,  Gerontion                                                
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s.w. marlatt, <><  &  *(:-)               Prov. 25.2
University of Colorado:                   marlatt@spot.Colorado.edu  492-3939
National Center for Atmospheric Research: marlatt@neit.cgd.ucar.edu  497-1669
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