Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 09, 2024

Not in the USA so much. Japan on the other hand…………

Lazy textbook writers? Word problems are just a way to distinguish folks who can abstract away the words from those who have to be given the problem unobscured by irrelevant labels… so it doesn’t really matter whether they’re about trains or cars or sailing ships… Jane and Judy or Ravi and Mustafah… oranges or socks: It’s the numbers that matter here, not who or what is being numbered.

Suburban NY kids

I have done train traveling.

Train the children in the way they should go.

I always liked the steam trains, like Castles and Halls and Granges and Manors, since I grew up with them!

A few years ago I was designing a race car where I sat next to the engine to reduce polar moment of inertia. That was the only time I had to solve two equations at the same time since high school.

Had Caulfield traveled to England with me in the later 50’s he would have enjoyed the railroads. They were just as pictured in many movies of the time. Compared to the cattle car config of US trains they were a joy to ride. He could have run the long side aisle, looked into the compartments through the aisle windows. Even opened a window to get the breeze. And he could have given the conductor a hard time, which seems to be his métier.

Um – in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia there are plenty??

I traveled by train from L.A. to Cleveland when I was 7 (with my mom).

One trip on AMTRAK would have the kids going into a fetal position at every train problem.

People hate word problems because it requires them to discover the question they then need to answer. The thing is, word problems are how you demonstrate how math works in the real world. The trouble is that the word problems are rarely things the student cares enough about to want to find the question they need to answer.

Train travel appears to be gaining popularity according to all the ads I’m seeing.

There will be no trains when you are in Algebra class Caulfield just some letters.

And they have better math scores, too.

Lots of kids with family along the east coast.

I subwayed to and from high school for four years.

But that’s just the point. School helps you learn new things by making you confront situations you haven’t before – by putting your brain in situations it doesn’t find itself in every day. Without having to grow and expand our horizons, how can we expect to solve even bigger challenges once formal schooling ends?

Show me a kid who lives in a city with a subway.

The USA is way past train travel! We have moved on to the superfast method of mass transportation called… uh, wait… nevermind.

I saw an article protesting how math was racist because too many of the word problems deal with issues that “minority kids” never come across; like plane travel, automobile trips (the article said they tend to travel by bus), possessing more than 10 apples, etc. I considered the article racist because of the way it equated poverty with minorities. (Weirdly enough, one example of a “racist word problem” involved crewing. I have never seen a problem involving crewing and if I never saw “Oxford Blues” would not even know what it meant.)

But I still do not understand how swapping out the mode of transportation with a different one suddenly makes the problem more “relatable” and thus “easier”. I never had any issue and the only forms of transportation I ever took before I was an adult were cars and school buses; unless you count the theme park rides, but they never went anywhere but in circles.

The F train left the 57th street station at 4:05 pm. …

An ox cart leaves Dallas at 2 bells going 1 league per hour….

So, here’s a funny train problem from Staten Island.

Every once in a while you’re getting off the SI Ferry and you hear the very strange announcement that, unfortunately, due to construction all trains will be departing on time.

Now, if you’re not from Staten Island, go ahead and explain it: Why is this a bad thing they have to warn us about?

(If you don’t want to do the work, the answer is “because the boat doesn’t always run on time”. The announcement is that the SIR will leave with or without you!)

No trains in northern Michigan. Mid-state is as far north as they go with passengers.

Sounds like story problems need updating. We all know that is overdue.

Now he’s done it! There are a lot of children with experience with train travel. My grandson being one, prefers that mode of transportation.

I never liked story problems. “If the Hampstead Local is traveling southbound at 42 kilometers per hour, carrying 142 passengers, and the Hilgard Express is traveling northbound at 98 kilometers per hour, and is painted green, how many apples can Mary buy if pickles cost ten pounds the hundred?”

Seems like every “Frazz” strip lately is more of a lesson than something to cause a chuckle! That’s what I want! (Please!)

There have also been complaints about kiddie stuff disproportionately having to do with farms.

And we continue with another bad assumption…

Take the PATH to 33rd or WTC, catch a D train uptown or a 2 train to Queens, tokens, transfers and hubs, trains are a part of every city boys life from an early age.

Double duty: learn math and something about trains.

First off, every kid has had some sort of train toy, and trains are well-represented in children’s books, cartoons, and videos, so I reject Caulfield’s premise. It’s not necessary to have ridden a train to understand a math example. Their value is in the constraints they operate under: fixed routes, fixed speeds, and thus relatively deterministic answers to math word-problems.

My first train set plugged into the wall, had a small variac to control the engine’s speed, and a gazillion 3-rail segments in various shapes and conditions because they were handed down from my uncle. I graduated to the more authentic HO-scale once I had the dexterity to manipulate all those tiny fiddly-bits, and fabricated a 4′×5′ permanent layout platform for three systems running on different transformers. My grandmother donated my uncle’s massive Erector Set to me after he left for college, so my layout had quite a few working structures and gizmos. I was an adult before I ever rode on a train, but I knew all about switches, sidings, signals, and a fair amount about electricity by the time I was ten. But interest in all that came to a screeching halt shortly after that same uncle came home from college with his Piper Cub …

Caulfield, just ask around. I bet there are kids in your school who have taken the train to Chicago.

Sorry for the kids, then.

Pluma, South Dakota, to Seattle, Washington, 1949 at age four. A couple of dim memories.

A kid that lives near the Loop…

Even the text for my modern physics course had problems with trains approaching the station or each other at near light speeds.

Third boxcar, midnight train.. destination, Bangor, Maine…

All kids love Thomas the Tank Engine.

My oldest two grandkids live in Portland, Oregon. They have ridden various trains since they were little. 1) Portland has light rail trains that go all over town. They also have streetcars. We have ridden both with them. 2) They have ridden various tourist railroads. 3) There is/was a wonderful railroad at the Portland Zoo.

I am not sure what else they may have ridden, but they know & see Amtrak trains to Seattle etc and the family travels to other cities where there are trains.

Brightline has built a successful new passenger train from Orlando to Miami. They are now building a true high-speed rail line from Las Vegas to metro LA. It is to be operating in time for the 2028 LA Olympics.