Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 220 posts

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#111

Post by wfo »

CalChris wrote: post #9
baldfat wrote: post #6

I think we teach Calculus wrong in a deep fundamental way. We should incorporate more high math concepts earlier into education BUT people are always afraid of anything past 4th grade math! "A minority of students then wend their way through geometry, trigonometry and, finally, calculus, which is considered the pinnacle of high-school-level math. But this progression actually “has nothing to do with how people think,…

Berkeley EECS grad. I didn't go the device physics route but I used calculus about twice in 4 years except in physics classes.

Berkeley lets you skip learning asymptotic runtime analysis of algorithms if you're doing EECS? Weird.

FYI: infinite sums are calculus.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#112

Post by sn9 »

krschultz wrote: post #77

I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, meaning I took 3 semesters worth of Calc and 3 more semesters worth of differential equations. So I'm not one to hate on math or calculus specifically. But I think high schools should focus more on statistics. Statistics is relevant to more fields than calc. It matters a lot more in business and in all the jobs where you use calc you will also have to use statistics.…

Is it really a question of focus, though?

At my high school (Texas public school), Calculus and Statistics were both optional AP courses.

You can usually choose whether or not to take whichever combination you want. Some people took neither. I took both.

If high schoolers had to take one advanced class, I think it should be discrete math. Keeps their algebra skills sharp, introduces them to proofs, and still introduces them to basic probability. Obviously the availability of this offerring makes this impractical at the moment.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#113

Post by madengr »

"Instead, students who took high school calculus often find they have to retake college calculus, or even pre-calculus. Many flee to the humanities."

Well no sh!t. I find it funny that people who aced calc in high school get their ass handed to them in college.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#114

Post by microDude »

FT_intern wrote: post #67
ivansavz wrote: post #18

I think linear algebra is a much more valuable and general-purpose math tool. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to teach linear algebra topics "properly" to high schoolers, but even a half-assed linear algebra would be more useful than calculus. The connections to geometry, general systems thinking, formal math methods, and countless applications of linear algebra are just the kind of thing students need to get t…

Thinking in matrices and vectors is much more complicated and abstract than calculus.

I disagree. Especially, if you combine it with a graphical tool like Matlab or the Python libs.

Take a lower triangle matrix multiply it by a vector, and "boom" you just explained causal convolution. Wash and repeat for several other topics.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#115

Post by shostack »

hprotagonist wrote: post #65
baldfat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had the pleasure of pushing many female students into taking calculus but my success rate was about 50%. Each one of my children's friends LOVED STEM and were thinking about going into engineering. All of them said that they were the only girl in the class and were intimidated and the other said it was REALLY boring. Calculus should be easily made fun just exploring the actual concepts in real life similar to…

As it happens, my teacher was female. She was a firm believer in "teach to the test", "do these exercises and follow the magic rules of differentiation, shut up and just do it don't ask why it works". That's not my jam.

When teachers' performance is judged based on test scores, it makes sense where that sort of unfortunate mentality comes from.

What gets measured gets managed.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#116

Post by asdf333 »

krschultz wrote: post #77

I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, meaning I took 3 semesters worth of Calc and 3 more semesters worth of differential equations. So I'm not one to hate on math or calculus specifically. But I think high schools should focus more on statistics. Statistics is relevant to more fields than calc. It matters a lot more in business and in all the jobs where you use calc you will also have to use statistics.…

One issue is statistics can be super boring if taught incorrectly. I am an engineer too, loved probability but found statistics to be 'shoot me in the head' boring.

the class really needs to be taught well for people to understand it. also. i think it should include probability too.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#117

Post by johan_larson »

krschultz wrote: post #77

I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, meaning I took 3 semesters worth of Calc and 3 more semesters worth of differential equations. So I'm not one to hate on math or calculus specifically. But I think high schools should focus more on statistics. Statistics is relevant to more fields than calc. It matters a lot more in business and in all the jobs where you use calc you will also have to use statistics.…

Yes, stats. Also logic.

If we can't have better math instruction, let's at least have more relevant math instruction. Calculus is very useful in some disciplines, like physics, but startlingly useless elsewhere. Cool, yes. But useless.

More here: http://short-sharp.blogspot.ca/2015/11/grade-12-math-somethi...

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#119

Post by posterboy »

krschultz wrote: post #77

I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, meaning I took 3 semesters worth of Calc and 3 more semesters worth of differential equations. So I'm not one to hate on math or calculus specifically. But I think high schools should focus more on statistics. Statistics is relevant to more fields than calc. It matters a lot more in business and in all the jobs where you use calc you will also have to use statistics.…

>Statistics is relevant to more fields than calc

Until calc is needed in the statistics. On which level do you even compare this, space or time complexity? I mean, are you saying, the complexity of the sum of the stochastic in use exceeds that of calc?

I think you gave an unfounded statement, without proof. i'm guessing you are biased to think statistics is harder, because you were less exposed to those classes and now you have remorse. If it was the other way around, you'd want more calc.

The way curricula are laid out, I'm getting the impression it is not so much about what is taught, school is rather a benchmark of abilities and a day care.

Re: Do the math: too much calculus? (2012)

#120

Post by analog31 »

elihu wrote: post #106
AstralStorm wrote: post #17

Personally, I have always wondered about the prominent position trigonometry and geometry get. As it is typically taught, it is the most useless thing, the time spent there would be much better spent on algebra, calculus. From basic theorem of algebra flows trigonometry and a lot of number theory, while from calculus with some linear algebra flows geometry. The rationale is probably history.

For a lot of people, geometry is their primary or perhaps only exposure to proofs. Not that everyone needs to understand proofs in their day-to-day lives, but it's a good mental discipline to at least be exposed to, and geometry proofs are fairly straightforward and relate to things that many people will have a good intuition to convince them that the thing proved by each correctly-constructed proof is really true. A…

From what I can tell, proofs are gone. I got my daughter all excited about geometry, by promising her that she could do proofs. The curriculum was almost exclusively focused on problem solving based on remembering formulas. She went ahead and did all of the proofs anyway.
Post reply on HN