Lyrics copyright by Rob Carver
may be sung to the tune of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" (Schonberg and Kretzmer)
There's a skill that we've been teaching
Obsolete, yet it goes on.
Empty time with normal tables:
Once our friends, they should be gone.
With the software revolution,
Are the publishers to blame?
Extra pages in our textbooks
Filled with tables that are lame.
Throw those tables in the dumpster!
We can see a course reborn:
Students using their computers--
I can see them now!
The probabilities they had wrung
From a z- tabulation,
Add point five, or subtract
From one.
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.
We will thrive once they are gone
There's a quicker computation
With no pain that lingers on.
Phantom values in the columns
Throw those pages on the floor
Empty time with normal tables
Our students can learn so much more.
Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me
What Appendix A was for . . .
Empty time with normal tables
Where our students will hunt no more . . .