The Chinese Beatles
Tian says: Regarding the “Bizarre anti-Beatles pamphlet located”, I have found an old “Meet the Beatles” album cover in Chinese.
1. Notice all the band member’s eyes? They have been changed to make them look more ‘Asianized’ (and in John Lennon’s case, more stoned).
2. The phonetic translation of the band name “beatles”, actually means “disheveled hair” in Chinese.” (Reposted)
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19*19 multiplication table
I was in Korea this Spring Break and I noticed one of my younger cousins was memorizing a 19*19 multiplication table. I don’t know about North America, but when I was in Korea, I had to memorize 9*9 multiplication tables almost religiously. I wasn’t the most mathematically gifted student and I didn’t particularly like memorizing in general, so it was especially tortuous for me. So I sympathized with the youngsters of today who had to memorize 19*19 tables. A lot of people agree with me.
19*19 table seems to be a bit of an overkill, even in the educationally competitive country like Korea. A lot of people think that children are tortured enough with education as it is. Keep in mind, a lot of these kids are 1st and 2nd graders. Plus, memorizing more will just reinforce the notion that math is blind computation rather than concepts to be grasped and applied. The proponents of the new mulitiplication table argue that 19*19 table allows for faster computation and higher levels of confidence among students.
I think faster computation is a perk, but not a necessity. If you pursue math long enough and far enough, faster computation comes with the territory. As for higher levels of confidence, if it helps the students feel better about themselves because they have a slight edge over other students or because they can finish problems faster, then sure, go ahead. But if the 19*19 tables become widely used, which seems to be the trend, then the average speed of computation will settle at a higher level than before and the new tables will just be another tool to edge out people who are not inclined towards memorizing long list of numbers and more interested in solving problems creatively.
