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Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#81

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

jomamaxx wrote: post #39
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots. One could argue that for whatever reason, many of the professors, researchers and postdocs at those schools learned math in other countries, but, if these lists are to be believed, the US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world. So two questi…

"Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education?" Because preeminence of top tier institutions (which are kind of global centres anyhow) - has absolutely nothing to do with teaching math to the commons. Here's a hint: +++ Americans don't suck at Math +++ There's a very un-PC but very large elephant in the room that people won't discuss. + European A…

> European Americans actually do better than Europeans

Europeans in those statistics include all ethnicities living in Europe - e.g. about 1/3 of students in Germany are not ethnically German.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#82

Post by hkmurakami »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #49
rdtsc wrote: post #26

> Without the right training, most teachers do not understand math well enough to teach it the way Lampert does. My high school math teacher majored in math and then got a certificate in teaching. She wasn't a teacher who was told to teach math among other classes. She knew all the advanced stuff (beyond what a high school curriculum required), she was excited about it, she could explain things in various ways, give…

I don't know of any country where teachers are considered as elites. The reason your mother took that as compliment is not because teacher is a high social class occupation, but because being good at english is considered a great skill in many countries. If you really had to compare, in most cases people would feel more flattered to be mistaken as a doctor (or an engineer who works at Google than as an elementary sch…

Afaik teachers are held in the same regard as doctors and lawyers in Scandinavia.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#83

Post by JetSetWilly »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #51
jomamaxx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education?" Because preeminence of top tier institutions (which are kind of global centres anyhow) - has absolutely nothing to do with teaching math to the commons. Here's a hint: +++ Americans don't suck at Math +++ There's a very un-PC but very large elephant in the room that people won't discuss. + European A…

> European Americans actually do better than Europeans - on average. + Asian Americans to better than Asians - on average. + Latino Americans do better than Central/South American Latinos + African Americans do better than Africans. I've always heard this explained as a sort of "selection bias". Since immigration to the US (particularly for university education) is often seen as desirable, the people who manage to pu…

> I've always heard this explained as a sort of "selection bias". Since immigration to the US (particularly for university education) is often seen as desirable, the people who manage to pull it off tend to be above the mean.

I think this is an explanation that could only be come up with by the descendants of those who have emigrated.

Thinking here in Scotland, the people who emigrated were not necessarily the most able or genetically superior somehow. Often, they were simply the most desperate. People who were cleared off their farms by landowners, people who had no other options available to them but to roll the dice and go abroad to Canada or Australia or the USA.

Most folk don't want to emigrate, certainly not in the 19th century. It is a last resort that you do if you are out of options. But perhaps the most capable and able have other options to take advantage of?

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#84

Post by jonathanstrange »

mathattack wrote: post #14
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots. One could argue that for whatever reason, many of the professors, researchers and postdocs at those schools learned math in other countries, but, if these lists are to be believed, the US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world. So two questi…

We do a great job with the extreme students. The top 5% of private and public schools in the country produce more than enough folks capable in mathematics. It's the rest of the country that struggles. There are a lot of reasons why the US does well in Universities and poorer up until then relative to the rest of the world: 1 - In much of the world, the school you get into matters more than what you did there. (The lo…

Spot on. The US education system is fairly elitist. It supports the top 5% and neglects the lower scoring pupils. That way (and with imported brains), the US can maintain a high level at academia while at the same time affording a fairly bad average education level of the total population in comparison to some other industrialized countries. The university system is also very elitist through student fees, Ivy League schools, academic societies, etc.

That's why it's such a weird contrast for us egalitarian European schmucks when we get to know US colleagues in academia, who are extremely professional and well educated, while watching the daily news makes us think that the majority of US citizens must be mentally retarded and suffers from chronic lead poisoning.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#85

Post by dagw »

hkmurakami wrote: post #82
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of any country where teachers are considered as elites. The reason your mother took that as compliment is not because teacher is a high social class occupation, but because being good at english is considered a great skill in many countries. If you really had to compare, in most cases people would feel more flattered to be mistaken as a doctor (or an engineer who works at Google than as an elementary sch…

Afaik teachers are held in the same regard as doctors and lawyers in Scandinavia.

Nope, at least not in Norway or Sweden. Or possibly only in the sense that non of those professions are held in particularly high regard. And they certainly aren't paid like doctors of lawyers.

Sure if you ask people, they respect teachers in the abstract sense that they're people doing a very tough job for very little money, but it's hardly a career people aspire to, and certainly most teachers I know will admit it was their second or third choice that they kind of fell into.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#86

Post by dagw »

Frogolocalypse wrote: post #22
anexprogrammer wrote: post #13

Everyone believes they are bad at maths, so they are. It applies just as much to the UK. My youngest believes this strongly, yet when we were quizzing, or helping with homework, she didn't seem to find it too hard, just believed it so. She certainly didn't get those beliefs from home! Looking at my kids maths lessons, especially in late Junior, so much effort was spent to actually hide the maths that I wonder they le…

> Everyone believes they are bad at maths, so they are. Everyone? I love math.

I love math too. Even have a Masters in it. Still wouldn't say I'm particularly good at it, certainly not as good as many of my classmates.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#87

Post by lordnacho »

jomamaxx wrote: post #39
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots. One could argue that for whatever reason, many of the professors, researchers and postdocs at those schools learned math in other countries, but, if these lists are to be believed, the US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world. So two questi…

"Why doesn't the preeminence of the US math knowledge appear to seep into the primary and secondary school education?" Because preeminence of top tier institutions (which are kind of global centres anyhow) - has absolutely nothing to do with teaching math to the commons. Here's a hint: +++ Americans don't suck at Math +++ There's a very un-PC but very large elephant in the room that people won't discuss. + European A…

So basically a Simpson's Paradox?

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#88

Post by rprospero »

sjg007 wrote: post #62
increment_i wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could not agree with you more. Another thing I've noticed anecdotally is that many of the math teachers in the secondary system in North America do not have a broad understanding of math themselves. Math is given the most rote treatment of all the subjects, and I suppose this is understandable given the abstract nature of math. But students are never told why they should care about abstractions in the first place, wh…

Not sure how math helps you deploy instagram clones. I mean set theory, logic, computable functions but that's a big stretch.

I would argue that every instagram filter is merely a linear algebra problem.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#89

Post by lordnacho »

hkmurakami wrote: post #82
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of any country where teachers are considered as elites. The reason your mother took that as compliment is not because teacher is a high social class occupation, but because being good at english is considered a great skill in many countries. If you really had to compare, in most cases people would feel more flattered to be mistaken as a doctor (or an engineer who works at Google than as an elementary sch…

Afaik teachers are held in the same regard as doctors and lawyers in Scandinavia.

This seems unlikely. Perhaps in Finland. But the Danish teachers that I know have complained about the collapse of respect for the job as well as the system for as long as I've known them.

Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?

#90

Post by jacquesm »

ctrlalt_g wrote: post #41
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #3

It's an interesting question when you consider that in at least two university mathematics department rankings[1][2], the US holds 7 of the top 10 global spots. One could argue that for whatever reason, many of the professors, researchers and postdocs at those schools learned math in other countries, but, if these lists are to be believed, the US does have the richest mathematics knowledge in the world. So two questi…

I once heard an anecdote that might describe some of what's happening. In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear. The European Allied soldi…

> In the trenches of WWI, when it was time to fight, soldiers would have to climb up a ladder onto a battlefield. The problem was that German snipers could see the tops of the ladders. The Germans would keep their rifles fixed on where they knew the enemy would emerge and simply shoot them down once they saw helmets appear.

> The European Allied soldiers were so disciplined that they just kept climbing up the ladders and getting killed one by one, following their orders to their deaths. The Americans saw this and said, "fuck that, I'm not climbing up there."

Wow, that anecdote explains American supremacy better than anything to date. /s

Without a citation I'm going to have to call bull-shit on that one, I'm just trying to imagine their CO standing there with an ever mounting heap of corpses at the bottom of the ladder and not once thinking 'this doesn't seem to work'.

Some googling does not turn up any evidence for your story either.

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