I hear Americans all the time telling themselves that they are bad at math. These are my friends and family. I tell people that I'm into math. >50% of the time the first thing someone says is "I'm bad at math."
Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
241–250 of 257 posts
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#242The key to math education is practice. Even drilling, maybe. Other fields deal with concepts more or less mapped to the real world. Physics is about real world, more or less (right until you get to quants, then the level of abstraction rises dramatically). Same goes for biology, and even computer science in general. There, you can rely on words, which usually convey meaning. In math, you can't rely on words. You'll n…
This comment suggests you did not read the article. The article directly contradicts your assertions.
In talking about how Japanese teaching methods are better than American teaching methods, it states: "Similarly, 96 percent of American students’ work fell into the category of “practice,” while Japanese students spent only 41 percent of their time practicing."
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ha ha. You have be kidding. It's widely known that Asian American and European American students outscore Latino and African American students. Nobody would contend that. For you to indicate that there is a very specific issue i.e. 'poverty' that is the 'driving factor' is wildly speculative and outlandish - a fetish of your ideology - and and the 'impetus' is upon you to prove it one way or another. My presumption o…
> Ha ha. You have be kidding. It's not ok to comment like this here. Several of your recent posts have crossed the line into incivility. Addressing people as "buddy", telling them about the "fetish of [their] ideology", etc.: all this is patronizing and rude. Please don't do any more of it on Hacker News. If you're going to engage in difficult topics, you have a responsibility to do so with extra respect, not less.
Uhm, no.
My comments were reasonable and thoughtful - if borderline controversial - and yet it was directly ad-hominem to call me 'racist' and the comments 'wildly speculative'.
I call you 'Buddy'? Someone (you?) called me 'racist'. Which is more offensive in reasonable discussion?
'Buddy' is a colloquialism, it's not offensive or attacking.
At the same time you offer no insight, rebuttal or points of your own. You're attacking people and chiding them 'not to speak anymore' - while I have no problem with any of the topical discussion.
Your attempt to shut down the discussion while not offering countervailing arguments to is exactly the antithesis of HN, in my opinion.
So if you have some relevant comments about education and potentially relevant factors, however speculative - do so. I'd suggest adding to the discussion instead of trolling and attacking.
This is not a 'safe space' wherein normal ideas are deemed unspeakable because someone, somewhere, might feel uncomfortable.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment is related to your muse starting with "I want to know why..." I'm simply pondering and looking for feedback from someone who is actually a teaching professional unlike myself. "There [my comment: Finland], as in Japan, teachers teach for 600 or fewer hours each school year, leaving them ample time to prepare, revise and learn. By contrast, American teachers spend nearly 1,100 hours with little feedback."…
My only comment would be that I find what your friend Scott finds. I don't teach middle school, I teach in college, so my day is more mixed than his. But my training was as a high school teacher and my wife is a high school teacher, and I do find that her routine is exhausting. I hear you about having little mental energy left. There are lots of intensely dedicated teachers but it is unreasonable to expect that they…
IMO a culture developed in the US in the past few decades - I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint when but it's been within my professional life in IT - that we should minimize any activities in a work environment that do not have a direct tie to revenue. The result is that professional development is all but non-existent unless you do it on your own time.
The US is scrutinizing its education system right now. Unfortunately, we're looking for simple answers and pinning blame on teachers when the problems are more systemic. My neighbor is a visiting professor from Germany. His wife is a teacher in grades 5-8 in Germany. My wife and I had dinner with them a while back. They made the observation that blaming teachers took place in Germany about 10 years ago. When all was said and done the problems were more systemic, they were corrected, and the system is considerably better now in their opinion. Hopefully we'll follow suit.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#245Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most math (and physics) programs, especially at higher tier universities, have not only a disproportionate number of foreign professors and researchers but also students . So it's largely people who had superior primary and secondary school math education teaching others who had superior primary and secondary school education. You can see this especially strongly in graduate programs, where US citizens can often get…
> There's just very little domestic interest in math and physics, despite both feeding into rather favorable job markets Oh yeah? What jobs are there for a physics PhD to do physics in that isn't academia? Government research lab? Military aerospace contractor?
Both quantitative finance and more general data science draw heavily from physics PhDs (you can see this if you look at job listings for these jobs; physics is almost always listed next to math in the list of desired PhD degrees). Depending on area there can also be a significant number of industry pure-research positions available; quantum information is a good example.
As long as you are willing to go into industry, you're looking at a 90-100k starting salary[1]. That's pretty damn good considering that in the US nobody pays for a physics PhD; the average TA stipend is around $30k with tuition and medical insurance covered. You also have a decent chance of getting a research assistanship to provide the stipend once you start working seriously with an advisor.
The high number of physics PhDs getting postdocs off the bat is driven by people who want to go into academia/research, not by a lack of industry options. Admitidely if you're dead set on going into research (especially right off the bat) you better be ready to play the same low-paid tenure lottery as everybody else, but if you're just looking for a good career a physics PhD is a pretty good bet.
[1]: https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employmen...
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 a…
I'm talking about contemporary migration mostly; although IIRC some migration waves in the 20th century were more about perceived opportunity as opposed to desperation.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
How is the selection bias relevant to the discussion? The fact remains.
Because the OP was laying this at the feet of ethnicity, which I feel (at least in many cases) is far from the only possible explanation.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not clear that capability was that much of a factor. As the scion of Scots emigrants from the 19th Century, at least the 20h century version of my family was made up of bright capable people but hardly brilliant.
It's pretty awful to read how people regarded the Highland Clearances, like this from the Scotsman : "Collective emigration is, therefore, the removal of a diseased and damaged part of our population. It is a relief to the rest of the population to be rid of this part." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances
DNA has made for the possibility of a much less nasty world.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went to a university that used to be a normal school. I am not sure the math ed. majors "showed little aptitude" ( they got better grades than I did ) nor curiosity, but they were quieter people.
I should clarify that these are the elementary ed students. I've personally taught students training to become high school math teachers, and they have been pretty good.
Yessir - my bad.