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Welcome to Dr Metric "This website is a superb illustration of the problems children have coping with imperial units when they have learnt metric at school". Every Year in the UK, we send over 600,000 young people into the 'real' world, many totally confused by measuring, one of the most fundamental skills that they will all need during their working lives. In large part, this is caused by the continued use of imperial units alongside metric units. If you don't believe this, please watch the Flash movies below (Two Journeys, The Issues and It's worse than I thought!) and I hope you will think differently in future. ** I give you the arguments of why we need to complete the metrication process from the educational viewpoint so that your children can get the very best from the educational system. I demonstrate the obstacles we place before our children every day - most children in the world are not even aware of these. Why the fact that British children are behind in mathematics is not due just to general malaise about mathematics in society. How a generation and a half of children and young adults have struggled with measurement, a core activity in the mathematics syllabus. ** How to change your outlook as a parent/teacher towards the imperial/metric problem. What you can do to remove as many imperial units from the lives of you and your children as possible to give them the very best chance of succeeding mathematically at school and in the adult world. Why tens of thousands of trades people are using measuring instruments that are difficult to use and out of date. How to create a 'demand' for metric only measuring instruments in this country and the arguments to use. ** I tell you the best present you can buy your children (and it costs less than £15 from your local office stationery store). I detail seventeen terrific activities your children can undertake in your own home that will greatly enhance their knowledge of the metric system and mathematics in general. Written in a humorous and easy to understand style (e.g. What to say if you meet a British bobby at 4 a.m. on a wet, dark morning!), this section will really enhance their understanding of the subject . All the necessary background mathematics is included. There are suggestions for extension material. Suitable for all primary and early secondary pupils. Fighting the continued use of imperial units can sometimes seem a lonely task. The newsletter gives you the support you need and a chance to email me if you have any points you want clarified or just to have a chat about how it is all going. Finally, don't worry - we won't bombard you with stuff and we certainly won't be giving your email address to anyone. When you subscribe, first of all you will receive a confirmation email just to prove it is you who has asked to join and then another which will be the first newsletter with the link to the Parents' Handbook pdf file. On every email there is an unsubscribe button, so you can cancel at any time. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This website is dedicated to studying the problem from a young person's point of view. If our children are to succeed in mathematics and all that follows from that, there is really only one solution:
But it is worse than even I thought for two reasons: a) Because children learn metric units at school and parents continue to use imperial units, families cannot even do simple sums at home such as, 'How much taller is dad (5 ft 7 in) than Julie (1.34 m?)?' or, 'How much heavier is mum (8 st 4 lb) than Peter (35 Kg)?' b) Most mathematics in the Primary school syllabus is related to measurement in one way or another, so it is difficult to achieve a good understanding of the subject without a good knowledge of the basics of measurement. These particular problems are covered in the move below 'It's worse than I thought.' These Flash movies explain all the main points. "Your 'Two Mathematical Journeys' presentation should be required viewing for all school teachers who teach measurement in the modern pre-metric countries. Your cogent analysis of UK measurement confusion will serve as a warning to future US planners that metrication, once begun, must be total; i.e. it must involve all members of society."
Summary sheets showing the extent of the damage caused by continued use of imperial units (pdf). It does not matter whether you are a parent, grandparent or other relative of a young person; whether you are a teacher or other educator or trainer; whether you are an engineer, scientist, grocer, shop owner, doctor, nurse or, indeed, any other adult. We should all be aware of this problem and doing what we can about it. Our young people represent the future of our country and I am sure you will agree we should not be letting them down in this way. Our pupils are at a great disadvantage compared to over 96% of youngsters in the rest of the world (the USA being the one main exception). All these other children only ever see and use metric units. They are succeeding where our children are often failing.
Every time you use an imperial unit to give your height, weight, baby weight, a distance or speed, it's a nail in the coffin for our children's education and ability to measure. The main problem that this website seeks to highlight is that what children and young people see around them in their everyday lives does not correspond to what they learn in school. We live in a metric world in which almost everything except the fabric of old buildings has been designed and manufactured in metric units, but youngsters see measurements on road signs in imperial units and television and radio programmes (even science programmes), sports events and commentators, and many others still making common use of imperial units. Even our own body weights are mostly given in stones and pounds, despite the fact that the 'stone' is a totally redundant unit in every other field and the 'pound' almost is. Baby weights are given in pounds and ounces, even though babies have been weighed at birth in metric units for at least thirty seven years! In my opinion, as a teacher of mathematics at many levels for over thirty years, this is seriously holding back the development of our youngsters' mathematical education. (If you do not agree and believe you have a counter argument, please click on counter arguments countered) Revealing Soundbites: Mrs Taylor (Seamstress)
Our first campaign is to convince people to give their height, body weight and birth weight in Metric Units. What you can do to help: 1. Find your height, body weight and baby weight in metric units, learn them and use them. Encourage other people to do the same. Please don't be embarrassed to do so and don't be put off because some people you meet refuse to listen. Keep working on those you feel can be converted. You may find this document helpful (it gives conversion tables and a page for recording your family's measurements): Conversion tables (pdf) 2. Direct people to this website and, if you are able, put a link to it from your own website. 3. Send emails to the producers of radio and television programmes, telling them you support the metrication cause and would they please ask Dr Metric to appear on their programmes. 4 Sign up below for our newsletter so you can keep in touch with how the campaign is going. 5. Stop being a member of the silent minority. Many people continue to use imperial units for their own body measurements simply because everyone seems to. You can spread the word when you have a few moments simply by asking someone their height and when they say 5ft 11 inches, ask them if they could do you a favour and be 1.80 metres from now on, please. Keep a simple conversion table in your pocket or handbag. 6. Contact your children's mathematics teachers and ask if they could make sure that all the children know their own birth weight and current height and weight in metric units. 7. If you have anything to do with slimming clubs, ask them if they could work in kilograms from now on and show them how much easier it is to imagine the weight someone needs to lose or has lost by thinking of each kilogram as a large tub of margarine. They could even take photos of their clients holding (or, in extreme cases, standing next to) the number of tubs they have lost. Have a go at doing that with stones and pounds. 8. Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI) by dividing your body mass in kilograms by your height in metres and by your height in metres again. Eg. Jane's body mass is 69 kilograms and her height is 1.67 metres. Her BMI is 69/1.67/1.67 which works out to be 24.74. Round this to the nearest whole number and the answer is 25. It is generally accepted that a BMI of between 20 and 25 is great. Over 25 and you are considered fat and over 30 and you are obese. Now try the same calculation using stones, pound, feet and inches! N.B. if you wish to do this with young children, they generally have lower BMIs than adults. 9. If you have youngsters at home and they support the metric cause and really don't understand what imperial units are all about even though they see them everywhere, get them to spread the word too. They have ways of using modern technology that us old 'uns haven't even come to terms with yet! Now, how about subscribing to our newsletter and downloading the Parents' Handbook pdf document (40 pages) as described above. Don't worry - we won't bombard you with stuff and we certainly won't be giving your email address to anyone. When you subscribe, first of all you will receive a confirmation email just to prove it is you who has asked to join and then another which will be the first newsletter. On every email there is an unsubscribe button, so you can cancel at any time. I look forward to hearing from you and good luck with spreading the word. Alan Young (Dr Metric) For those who would like more details of progress so far with the metrication process, here are a couple of websites that you might also find very interesting: |
