A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math • Hacker News Board

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#61

Post by rmxt » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #30

venomsnake wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't schools financed by local property taxes in US. And the rich parents pay more in taxes and there is more resources in the system. Also well off parents could help school in other ways.

Accounting for local, state, and federal spending, most states spend more money per student in their poorest districts than in their most affluent ones: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2... . In California, the poorest school districts receive almost 14% more money than the richest ones.

That doesn't seem too surprising. In rich areas, kids are off going to their private tutors and private after school activities. In poor areas, the kids need the extra push that a significant portion of them aren't getting at home.

Plus, in the case of NYC, rich PTAs more than make up the difference between what the state provides and what the students receive.

http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2014/08/06/pta-2/

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#62

Post by hackercomplex » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

dzdt wrote: post #2

TLDR : American public schools suck but there is an increasing number of extracurricular math programs that help talented kids learn advanced problem solving skills. Mostly only well-educated and well-off parents get their kids into these programs. That kind of sucks, and there are marginal efforts to reach out to poorer students. But the real story right now is, if you have kids in public school, their math educatio…

At what point do you have to consider yourself an irresponsible parent if you leave your kid in public school while being able to afford homeschooling ? Are we rapidly approaching the point as a society where our public education feels more like daycare ? If that's not the case how do we measure it and where do we draw the line.

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#63

Post by dineshp2 » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #57

dineshp2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is lots of research which suggests that the USA is indeed lagging behind in STEM fields. K-12 does not prepare students well enough when compared to many Asian and European countries. The numerous research articles are a Google search away. Another indicator is the lack of sufficient skilled workforce in STEM fields in the USA. This forces many tech companies to hire from abroad.

To make a reasonable comparison to the United States, you'd have to lump a European country in with a third-world developing country to get the same level of racial and cultural heterogeneity. People always try to compare the US to Finland, when Finland has less population than New York City and the demographics of New Hampshire. Tech companies hire abroad because it's cheap, not because there is a real skill deficit…

I don't how you would take into account all possible factors to make a perfect comparison, but objectively looking at the research and data available on this topic, it's clear to me that the USA is lagging in STEM fields.

Some tech companies do hire from abroad because it's cheaper, but there is a real skill deficit in STEM fields and there are just not enough skilled people available to recruit. This has been openly acknowledged by the tech companies, universities and the Government.

The question is not whether the USA is lagging in STEM, it is what should be done about the fact that the USA is lagging in STEM fields?

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#64

Post by gilaniali » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC

Thirdegree wrote: post #33

j2kun wrote: post #5

I am continually surprised by how many emails I get from teenage students thanking me for writing my math blog. On top of that, I try to occasionally make it out to high schools to give guest lectures. I posted an example experience from one of these online [1] and I am usually looking for other opportunities to do this sort of thing. I think that if every math graduate student who is a reasonably good teacher took a…

Let me add one more thank you for that blog, it's one of 6 I have saved to bookmarks. I love it!

What are the other 5 bookmarks?

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#65

Post by anonymid » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:42 PM UTC

I was frustrated by this article because I find it taking for granted the idea that math is only accessible to a small group of people - 'talented, gifted, with an affinity for, confluence of specific abilities'. I find similar language around programs like the Russian School, Brilliant and quite obviously the 'gifted' programs.

Yet in this article they quote the following statistics:

- High achievement in math: US 9% to SK 30% - Ratio of high achievers affluent vs poor: US 8 to 1, SK 3 to 1

These statistics communicate to me that half of all students are capable of high achievement in mathematics. From my experience tutoring and visiting classrooms of various grade levels and demographics, most students are capable of the rich problem solving described in the article.

US education's biggest issue is social justice. We spend the least resources on the children who need it most. It's funny to me that the closing of this article suggests that it's time for the advanced mentors to step in to the public education scene. What would a group of people that cater primarily to the best-served students in the system have to say about how to help the worst-served? What would they know about the obstacles faced by poor children and parents; overworked, undertrained and unsupported teachers; and underfunded schools?

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#66

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

rmxt wrote: post #61

rayiner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accounting for local, state, and federal spending, most states spend more money per student in their poorest districts than in their most affluent ones: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/03/12/in-2... . In California, the poorest school districts receive almost 14% more money than the richest ones.

That doesn't seem too surprising. In rich areas, kids are off going to their private tutors and private after school activities. In poor areas, the kids need the extra push that a significant portion of them aren't getting at home. Plus, in the case of NYC, rich PTAs more than make up the difference between what the state provides and what the students receive. http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/2014/08/06/pta-2/

[deleted]

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#67

Post by recondite » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

HillaryBriss wrote: post #50

douche wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I think about it, public education is great training for a future of working in open-offices. You learn to accept that you have to wake up at an arbitrary time, spend eight hours getting very little productive done, whilst being bombarded with noise, interruptions, and politics, then if you want to make any real progress, you have to do it afterwards on your own time, outside the school/work day.

One can make the case that, in California, the higher education system was purposefully, consciously stratified along career and status tiers, as you described. Community college system = workers in the practical trades Cal State system = office workers UC system = technologists, scientists, managers Big name, elite, private universities = executives and high level politicians, the people who actually run society and…

Having attended school in California at a community college, UC, and finally an elite, private university I couldn't more agree with your characterization. I don't know how much I would agree with the claim that the stratification was purposefully constructed (I'd argue it's more of a reflection of American society writ large - i.e. successful parents have more resources to ensure their kids are successful), but otherwise this rings very true.

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#68

Post by JadeNB » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

fluxquanta wrote: post #48

Ntrails wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that the cool stuff isn't even always complex. It's little things, like going through how the quadratic formula is derived instead of just telling someone to learn it by rote. Explaining differentiation with a bit of the logic behind it instead of just teaching rules. But at the same time - I know I'd have/did enjoy that stuff but maybe 60% of my classes would have played up if a whole lesson was spe…

>It's little things, like going through how the quadratic formula is derived instead of just telling someone to learn it by rote. Explaining differentiation with a bit of the logic behind it instead of just teaching rules. Once you get in the mindset of deriving equations, rote memorization becomes insanely difficult, at least in my opinion. During my last year as an undergrad majoring in physics I got a 4.0 in quant…

> There was also the very embarrassing case of being called to the blackboard to complete a problem in an elective course on number theory only to draw a blank on what 9 times 7 was.

If it's any consolation, the great mathematician Alexander Grothendieck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck), when asked to supply a prime number (at some point in a lecture)—and being puzzled by the idea of actually naming a specific prime number—famously thought for a while before suggesting 57. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/57_%28number%29#In_mathematics)

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#69

Post by norswap » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

Ntrails wrote: post #25

j2kun wrote: post #5

I am continually surprised by how many emails I get from teenage students thanking me for writing my math blog. On top of that, I try to occasionally make it out to high schools to give guest lectures. I posted an example experience from one of these online [1] and I am usually looking for other opportunities to do this sort of thing. I think that if every math graduate student who is a reasonably good teacher took a…

The sad thing is that the cool stuff isn't even always complex. It's little things, like going through how the quadratic formula is derived instead of just telling someone to learn it by rote. Explaining differentiation with a bit of the logic behind it instead of just teaching rules. But at the same time - I know I'd have/did enjoy that stuff but maybe 60% of my classes would have played up if a whole lesson was spe…

Consider all the people who had the opposite experience though (I'm certainly not one of them however).

Re: A Group of American Teens Are Excelling at Advanced Math

#70

Post by JadeNB » Tue, Feb 09, 2016, 7:07 PM UTC

shmageggy wrote: post #28

The example problem they give is pretty neat, but they don't mention the (IMO) interesting part of it. After sketching out the answer, I was suprised that the height you gain is independent of the size of the underlying circle . That certainly suprised me, as my intuition was that the height you would gain would shrink as the underlying circle grew -- after all, you'd be adding a constant length to an ever growing va…

I think that this (common) reaction probably illustrates a kind of over-correction among experienced problem-solvers: the knowledge that not everything is linear (e.g.: if you add a bit to the area of a circle, by how much does the radius change?) leads to the assumption that nothing is linear (or, at least, nothing that would crop up as a math-circle problem).