LETTERS: QUESTIONS WERE BASIC

To the editor:

KFVS-TV again reported on the education of high school students. The second report stemmed from questions asked of Central High School students. The students' consensus seemed to be that the questions asked of them were in essence trite, inappropriate, unimportant -- or, as one student phrased it, "off the wall." Some of the teachers' responses were that they felt they were being reproached for poor teaching. There were those who thought that the questions were appropriate and that the poor responses reflected some serious problems in the educational system.

It would seem that the students were asked questions which were not difficult nor inappropriate, nor was specialized knowledge required to produce the correct responses. Much of the knowledge needed could have been derived from the daily news media. All one has to do is read the headlines. That is the large print you see on the front page of the newspaper, which hardly requires extraordinary ability to glean the pertinent information.

Mathematics of daily living is basically arithmetic. Most daily problems should be solvable without too much thought. Granted, from time to time higher levels of performance are required. Hand calculators may not always be available. One student seemed to minimize the importance of arithmetic, adding that what was really important was the person's ability to find the derivatives of mathematical functions. I would submit that most people do not even know what a derivative is, and it is obviously something not essential to activities of daily living for most people.

Grammar is still important. See how far you will get in a job interview with poor language skill, written or spoken. This frequently is the signature by which you will initially be judged by others. To use an old adage, the first impression is frequently the lasting impression.

The important answers to life's truly difficult problems will be learned by most in the Institute of Advanced Life, whether or not we want to or intend to at this moment. As teen-agers, we tend to become a bit arrogant in our perceived knowledge, presuming to know a lot. We may, in fact, know a lot, but at that point in life for most it's a lot about very little in the overall scope of things, because that knowledge is limited by time, space and experience. Experience is probably the most important factor in gathering utilitarian knowledge as well as academic knowledge. As someone once said to me, "10 years' experience still take 120 months." Few real problems an individual will encounter will lend themselves to textbook solutions.

Just as when we are young novices we know a lot about very little, as we progress to the end of our lives we discover that we know very little about a lot. The personal experiences of many from all strata of life will attest to this fact. Just ask some of us, and we will humbly affirm it.

RICHARD E. MOORE

Jackson