Academic priorities 317

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The type of beginning statistics courses usually taught makes it almost impossible to ever learn statistical concepts. Certainly, decent concepts rarely appear.

To learn anything correct about statistics, one must already know probabilistic concepts, not how to calculate games of chance. One must have the idea of random variables and events, and to have the IDEA of expectation, not the means of calculation which are usually taught. If they have the concepts, I can help them; if they know how to compute t-tests, it is not very likely.

The teachers do not know basic math; they only know arithmetic, and anyone who thinks arithmetic is basic does not understand basic mathematics.

Nor do they know how to teach concepts at all. They only know memorization and routine, and if anything, these should come later.

The educationists have made it difficult for children to learn to think; only to write gobbledygook. I have seen essays by students at all levels, and I do not appreciate poor fiction, well written.

There is no reason why math teachers

Almost all of them, even if they have the degree. The programs for teachers are weak, and it is necessary to provide weak courses for them so they can get the state mandated hours. No individual university, other than perhaps Harvard or the like, can afford to have real standards, or it will lose students to the ones who are really bad.

-- This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University. Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University