201–210 of 257 posts
Can't read article, paywall or adblock or something. Is it because our popular culture ridicules being good at math as nerdy? Is it because almost every american can name at least one sports or pop singer who makes multiple millions but probably has never even heard of a mathematician let alone be able to name one. The root cause is we don't value math as a society. Until we do, we won't spend the effort needed to fi…
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 Europeans in those statistics include all ethnicities living in Europe - e.g. about 1/3 of students in Germany are not ethnically German.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_achievement_among_dif...
I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience with actual students, with ones who have a real knack for the subject and would learn it despite what any teacher did, and with ones who waver. There proves to be a better way, which the article describes in various ways, including as "sense-making." One of the pro…
> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the co…
There was a time, for example, that NPR and PBS provided informative information to me, but as I grew I began to realize that I knew what they were going to say before they said it and that further growth required better information sources.
Some of it is cultural: Americans don't want their kids to have too much homework, in many cases they don't want to help with homework or are unable to; they want a silver bullet. Some of it is lack of qualified teachers, and part of that is the way public schools are funded from the local tax base--do it cheaply as possible. Some of it is political pressure to dumb things down so that students can be graduated from…
"Americans don't want their kids to have too much homework
this wasn't the case for me. i'm american. maybe you're wrong?
Some of it is cultural: Americans don't want their kids to have too much homework, in many cases they don't want to help with homework or are unable to; they want a silver bullet. Some of it is lack of qualified teachers, and part of that is the way public schools are funded from the local tax base--do it cheaply as possible. Some of it is political pressure to dumb things down so that students can be graduated from…
"Americans don't want their kids to have too much homework
this wasn't the case for me. i'm american. maybe you're wrong?
I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience with actual students, with ones who have a real knack for the subject and would learn it despite what any teacher did, and with ones who waver. There proves to be a better way, which the article describes in various ways, including as "sense-making." One of the pro…
Do you have an opinion on math-circle inspired schools like Proof School[1]? To me it seems obvious that this is the direction that math education should go in for kids who are passionate about math. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_School
However, the top 3-5% of the American kid is going to be just as good if not equal to their Chinese counter parts.
In China, education made all kids above avg regardless if you are below or above intellectually. In America, an idiot is going to be an idiot, and a genius will take that step to be a genius.
I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience with actual students, with ones who have a real knack for the subject and would learn it despite what any teacher did, and with ones who waver. There proves to be a better way, which the article describes in various ways, including as "sense-making." One of the pro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the co…
> I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying. I'm curious... did you read the article in full? I'm not saying you're wrong but it would be funny if you didn't read it as well :) One of the things I like about Scientific Am…
You could look into how your local public school system teaches. Taking to the people who teach there, for instance, is helpful. Expressing support for an NCTM-like approach, if you find you do support it, would also be great.
> Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions.
I understand and as a person who teaches math, and teaches teachers too, I feel the same impatience.
I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Train teachers in the details of doing the job, as an engineer or doctor would be trained in details.
The thing is, that's what the folks described here are doing. Have they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)
I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience with actual students, with ones who have a real knack for the subject and would learn it despite what any teacher did, and with ones who waver. There proves to be a better way, which the article describes in various ways, including as "sense-making." One of the pro…
> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the co…
You set the ratio at 1:2 which I would not take even odds against. If you'd said 1:20 I'd think about it depending on how strictly "in full" were defined and how we decided to operationalize it.