The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary: Scary Scenes from the Working Front Composed by Mike O'Leary (oleary@pegasus.montclair.edu) In an earlier rant on this web page, Andy remarked on just how poorly our schools are doing. I wish to present several brief examples of just how bad they actually are. First, I must explain that, while attending college, I am also working part-time in an arcade. As to be expected, there are numerous games where customers can win tickets which can be saved for prizes. The more tickets you have, the greater the prize you get. Obviously, this means a fair amount of math is involved. At this place, a large number of high-schoolers on summer vacation are employed. You would expect those that had been in the 9th grade and beyond to perform simple mathematical functions like addition and multiplication. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The way the ticket system is set up there, they are often totaled in groups of 30. So, two groups would be 60, three groups are 90, and so on. Too many employees were complaining about their inability to count by 30, that a sign listed the 30 times-tables was placed so that they would be able to reference it when dealing with customers. A former employee repeatedly gave excess change to customers (including giving $150 in exchange for a $100 traveller's check). He also required a manager's assistance when a customer handed him a $10 bill and requested half in quarters and half in dimes. A manager who was working with time sheets converted 1/4 hour to .14 hours and 1/2 hour to .12 hours. So why aren't these people fired? Because there's NO ONE better out there to hire. Schools ask students to learn far too easy math skills, then don't reinforce those skills, so the students forget them. This isn't calculus. This isn't even algebra. This is grade school math. People wonder why there are so many basic skills classes in colleges these days. Back To Rants and Commentary

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