[Maths-Education] ratios low and high

[David A Reid]

For a Canadian perspective (well, really MY perspective, but I'll
pretend to represent everyone else until someone complains):

1.  Here we always speak of the ratios the other way around:
Student:Teacher ratios.  And we say higher S:T ratios are bad, which I
THINK fits HK usage.

2. It would be silly to have a different way of comparing part:part
ratios (like student:teacher ratios) than for part:whole ratios (Like
1/28 of the people in this room are teachers).  Of course people do a
lot of silly things, especially with ratios.

David

Peter Cave wrote:

> Happy New Year to one and all. I have just read the following sentence
> (abridged) in a book:'Reducing staff-student ratios is a popular issue
> ...the lower the ration, the better the education ...'My question is
> not about the validity of the content!  Rather, it's about the use of
> the low/high language.  The above-quoted statement seems to me typical
> of British (English-language?) usage - 1:10 is a 'lower'
> teacher-student ratio than 1:20.  But when I discuss this with
> students here in Hong Kong, they always say that 1:10 is a higher
> teacher-student ratio than 1:20.  My Hong Kong Chinese colleague (who
> shares the students' point of view) suggests this is because they are
> seeing it from the point of view of the number of teachers (a higher
> number of teachers per student, rather than a lower number of students
> per teacher).  Would list members agree that this is reasonable
> usage?  Or should we always say that 1:10 is a 'lower' ratio than 1:20
> (whatever the issue - not just when applied to teacher-student
> ratios). Peter Cave
> M.A., M.Phil., D.Phil. (Oxon)
> Lecturer
> Department of Japanese Studies
> The University of Hong Kong
> Pokfulam Road
> Hong Kong
> Tel: (852) 2859-2879
> Fax: (852) 2548-7399
> petercav@hkucc.hku.hk

--
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Mailing Address:
David A Reid, School of Education, Acadia University,
Wolfville NS B0P 1X0 Canada
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Special Xmas bonus:
Pawl controlled cogwheel (7)
        -- 425 Across,
           Globe and Mail Christmas Crossword,
           December 24 2001

Prime 501 tenants given a good hiding? (11)
        -- Ooops, forgot when.  G&M, late 2001

Answer to previous:

Mean to assert one's seniority (7)
 -- 23 Across, Globe and Mail, November 21, 2001

Mean = AVERAGE
to assert = AVER
one's seniority = AGE