Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2010/08/09

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Subject: [Leica] Was Today is 8/9/10 Now Metric
From: images at comporium.net (Tina Manley)
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:57:54 -0400
References: <mailman.1031.1281366127.66617.lug@leica-users.org> <SNT121-DS23E6CD8AE5B021C17CCC87D4940@phx.gbl>

I totally agree that conversion doesn't work.  You need to start thinking in
metric - just like with a foreign language.  Don't translate -  think in the
other language.  Metric makes so much more sense.  I use it whenever I can -
of course, in the darkroom and with photography, metric is the only
language!  I wish more of my cookbooks used metric, but so far, it's only
the "foreign" ones that do.

Tina

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Aram Langhans <leicar at q.com> wrote:

> Ah, to be metric.  I sure remember the ill-fated attempt in this country to
> "Go Metric".  I had just started teaching in this little town in 
> Washington,
> Odessa.  I was teaching 6-8th grade science.  The law gave all kinds of
> money and materials to schools to teach the kids metric.  The school looked
> around at the staff and classes they had and asked, "Hmm.  Who should we
> give this task to.  I know.  Science teachers.  They use metric anyway."  
> So
> the task was mine.  But they also looked at all the materials that were 
> send
> and saw that there was a "lot" of math involved, so the said the math
> teachers could assist the science teachers.  Let the fun begin.  The
> materials, or at least the ones that I got, were all conversion based.  
> Lets
> teach our kids how to convert from the English system to the Metric (or
> should I say SI) system.  I looked at that and said, forget that.  They 
> will
> never learn it that way.  So, the math teacher and I devised an immersion
> curriculum.  For 15 minutes each day (at the start.  It expanded as time
> went on), we started talking in just "metric".  We would hold up objects 
> and
> ask what length, volume, mass, etc. they were.  Just "Think Metric".  We
> went on metric field trips around town, walking about and asking how far
> that was, sizes, masses, etc.  The kids were really learning the metric
> system.  Of course, after they left our classes, they were back in the
> English world again.  It didn't take many years and the school district 
> said
> stop.  Too bad.  I felt we were really making progress and the students 
> were
> bilingual in measurement.
> This country has always been afraid of change.  From things as benign as
> metric to civil rights.  If I remember correctly, when Canada changed, they
> just said this is the way it will be and did not teach how to convert. As
> Nike says, Just Do It.  Change all the signs, order forms, product labels,
> etc.  Just Do It.  Mass confusion for a bit, but if you have to, you will.
> Of course, any politician who votes for something like that would not be
> reelected.
> So, as a scientist and science teacher, I just plug along an in my class,
> we Just Do It until it is second nature.
>
> Aram
>
> Aram Langhans
> Semi-retired (retarded?) Science Teacher
> & Unemployed photographer
>
> "The Human Genome Project has proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself
> would ever have dared dream."   James D. Watson
>
>  Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:07:57 -0400
>> From: Rei Shinozuka <shino at panix.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Leica] Today is  8/9/10
>> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
>> Message-ID: <4C5FEF9D.40406 at panix.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>>
>> On 08/09/2010 03:34 AM, Jeff Moore wrote:
>>
>>> While I don't want the world to be boringly culturally homogeneous,
>>> there are some things we should all just get with the program on:
>>>
>>>
>>>   - Use the metric system, dammit.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Metric?  We might as well dissolve the NFL and watch guys in shorts
>> maneuvering black and white Archimedean Buckyballs using only their feet.
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> But any American born in the 1960s should remember this:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metric_Marvels
>>
>> The article closes:
>>
>> "Ultimately, /The Metric Marvels/ failed to convince Americans to
>> convert to the metric system. ... Americans largely ignored governmental
>> attempts to push them in the direction of metrication, and the USMB [
>> (U.S. Metric Board <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Metric_Board>) ]
>> was eventually disbanded in 1982 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982>."
>>
>> -rei
>> (the ugly american, whose favorite lens is the 1.97 inch noctilux)
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>


-- 
Tina Manley, ASMP
www.tinamanley.com


Replies: Reply from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] Was Today is 8/9/10 Now Metric)
Reply from jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore) ([Leica] Was Today is 8/9/10 Now Metric)
In reply to: Message from leicar at q.com (Aram Langhans) ([Leica] Was Today is 8/9/10 Now Metric)