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

Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 684 posts

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#491

Post by varjag »

oiunqorucwonieu wrote: post #472
missosoup wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

> I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. I know nothing about your history, but usually moving to a new country means you are now an immigrant and by definition have less privilege than before, even if you can't immediately notice it. Another hypothesis is that you left an elitist good school in russia and joined a not-so eli…

Absolutely. There are plenty places in Russia where you totally going to be bullied for academic performance. Also the plagiarism/cheat culture is rampant throughout the country, from elementary and up to postgrad.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#492

Post by tgflynn »

missosoup wrote: post #268
lsh123 wrote: post #80

Disclaimer: I graduated from one of the top math high schools in Moscow in early 90s, I have MS in Math from Moscow State University, and a half finished PhD from the same place. I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible. Either country doesn’t really require much to finish school and many kids just do the tests without understanding what is going on. What separa…

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

One thing I noticed in the US is that there seems to be many wasted years in mathematics education. Between learning long division (maybe 4th grade ?) and algebra which I didn't get until the first year in high school (9th grade) I don't think I really learned or was taught anything of significance.

EDIT: My recollection is poor, long division and the associated concepts like fractions and decimals may have been later and spread out over more years, but I'm sure there were at least 2 to 3 wasted years in my mathematics education.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#493

Post by bluGill »

superfx wrote: post #464
nervousvarun wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that way anymore. That's even "propagated" to movies (see the scene in 21 Jump Street where they go back to high school and unsuccessfully try to persecute smart kids). But as an American someone in their mid-40s...can anecdotally say it was definitely true in the 80s-90s. It's a senseless/strange phenomenon that definitely existed but seems to have naturally died off. Guessing it's related to the increasing…

Would you mind linking to the 21 Jump Street scene? I'm very curious. As an American nerd in my late 30s, I definitely recall being relentlessly teased as a kid. I don't have kids of my own now and so I don't really know how and if things have changed, but if true this would be a very positive development!

All out kids are relentless teased by the popular ones. You have observer bias to what you were teased about, but if you look you will see many out groups teased about different things. You will often find kids in the in group not teased despite having the same characteristics.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#494

Post by bluGill »

b0rsuk wrote: post #404
missosoup wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

US has American Football, jocks, and cheerleaders. This is something notably absent elsewhere. When you watch a hollywood high school move, this strange obsession jumps at you. In Poland the word "nerd" is difficult to translate. It has no direct equivalent.

Don't mix up movies and reality. They are often based in reality, but movies exist for entertainment and that often means exaggeration of the truth for effect.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#495

Post by sacks2k »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #331
paganel wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the major factors is this weird anti-intellectualism culture that just doesn't exist in Russia. It was the same thing in Romania, at least in the '90s, when I went to school/high-school. It was always strange to me seeing all those American movies of the "nerds"/geeks getting persecuted by the "cool" kids, it certainly didn't happen to kids in my school and I'm pretty sure it generally didn't happen to kids…

> It was always strange to me seeing all those American movies of the "nerds"/geeks getting persecuted by the "cool" kids, it certainly didn't happen to kids in my school and I'm pretty sure it generally didn't happen to kids generally around the country. In the United State there is an extreme anti-intellectual bias among conservative middle and lower class whites.

"In the United State there is an extreme anti-intellectual bias among conservative middle and lower class whites."

On the contrary, progressives in the US outright reject factual information and statistics and instead focus on political correctness and feelings.

There are many anti-intellectuals on both sides.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#496

Post by b3kart »

qaq wrote: post #319

It's not just textbooks. The whole approach was different. You would be regularly called upon in class to do a problem on the blackboard. You would be graded on the spot publicly. There was no participation trophy type stuff. Teacher could easily make fun of you for not knowing something etc.

Sounds like a recipe for producing a handful of brilliant scientists and a generation of traumatised students.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#498

Post by [deleted] »

agumonkey wrote: post #12

I can only assume but culture makes things very different. I often said that French abstract algebra books stopped me from learning for 10 years (after many serious attempts). One book from Garreth Williams unlocked 80% of my issues. The shocking part was the approach. It was very operational, you calculate, you manipulate concrete data. In French books it's all theorems and concepts. Learning curve to make a Haskell…

[deleted]

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#499

Post by ausbah »

PeterStuer wrote: post #211

We had a very famous MIT professor on a 6 month sabbatical at our lab in the early 90's. He remarked on the difference between US and our institution in Belgium being that here you can just assume undergrad students would be fluent in basic math subjects, whereas in the US (in this case MIT) you would have to explain even very basic math. Now 3 decades later we are also at a US level as math has in general been compl…

I don't think just plopping all the subject material in front of a student and expecting everyone to immediately "get it". Some people may have the intuition to read a group of definitions or a proof and suddenly understand the higher level concepts gluing everything together, but that certainly doesn't work for everyone.

Anecdotally, having a textbook that explains a concept via examples without jargon and informative pictures, then throwing all the definitions and proofs at me has been much more helpful to my understanding in multiple subject areas.

I'd also throw "extremely wordy passages" in there as well because having something repeated & reframed multiple times has help me understand something from multiple perspectives - and remind me of a previous definition at a crucial point in the text.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#500

Post by blaser-waffle »

chopin wrote: post #483
iateanapple wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing well at your subjects in AU got you labelled as a nerd. As a Chinese student who studied in Australia for a few years I think you just misunderstand the culture. Most of the popular kids got good grades and were not labelled as nerds. And the nerd kids didn’t really get good grades either. I think Australians are very practical focused (maybe this is what you mean by anti-intellectual?). For example the frien…

Not being profound at statistics should be a strict no-go for anyone practicing medicine. Many great discoveries come from linking different disciplines. I hope there is more to live than just a career. I am very grateful for the broad spectrum I've been given.

I need my doctor to have a basic understanding of statistics. I don't need them to have a profound knowledge of anything except their professional specialty.

Chances are they took a basic Epidemiology class -- or a class that had it as a component -- and covered "Stat for medical workers." And that should be enough.

Post reply on HN