American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#321

Post by jrumbut » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

thechao wrote: post #270

ptero wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal experience is that it wasn't just hours. Those who liked math spent a lot of time on it after classes. Those who didn't, avoided extras and still did OK (they would not go to top universities, but the base would be OK, with some practice, if they decide to go to a mid-level school). The biggest difference for me in school was a consistent, well thought out program (one for the whole country) and books. A…

You’re describing an idea adjacent to “mastery” schooling; it’s the natural method people tend to use when self-taught; it’s also how some online schools, like Khan Academy, use to teach. Both of my kids earn “allowance” (extra screen time; robux; etc.) by doing Khan Academy courses. Watching how unevenly they pick up topics — there’s no rhyme-or-reason to the speed they pick up even “close” skills — makes me think t…

The only thing mastery schooling taught me was empathy for people whose learning style doesn't fit the style used in a classroom.

It's hard to understand the the connections between and motivations for concepts when you are learning everything about a topic before moving on. I prefer the style described above, of learning the basics then moving on and circling back when more advanced aspects are needed.

Clearly different styles work better for different people.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#322

Post by platz » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

gfaure wrote: post #43

platz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying you're in the cohort that was kumon-schooled and ended up loving math.

Correct, but it was despite Kumon, not because of it.

so you say. if you were in a study done by researchers, they wouldnt care what you thought the cause was and would only report the correlation.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#323

Post by failuser » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #288

failuser wrote: post #283

Also the number of people who need advanced math is so small in USA, so it’s more of a hobby than education. And people who need advanced math need more probability theory and statistics than calculus. In China, on the other hand… I might be extrapolating.

In my view math is not so much about you needing it. It's about developing abstract thinking, reasoning, logic. It's in the same boat as sports. You will never need to run 100 yards with a ball in your hand, except for the sport itself. Yet we still do sports to train and stay in shape.

It does, but again, those skills are not valued that much in USA. I don’t like it, this is reality. Sports classes provide nowhere enough physical activity to stay in shape though. Ideally a country ruled by citizens require a high level of knowledge and reasoning ability. In reality people vote for aristocratic cliques in a way often determined by their birth.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#324

Post by univalent » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

My kids 8 and 7 go to the Russian math after school program in Cupertino. So far, there's nothing 'Russian' about it. Its just regular math.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#325

Post by caffeine » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

StellarTabi wrote: post #319

dougSF70 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow American Math doesn't have the same connotations. I am witnessing public schools take math out of the curriculum at elementary, middle and high schools. It is a wasted opportunity for young people to learn the beauty of math.

Wait, why I have been hearing non-stop astro-turfing about "CRT in schools" in the last 6 months and I've never heard once about math being taken out? This sounds really serious, is there more I can read about Math being removed from public schools?

These are the same thing. The policy is to remove educational disparity. Naturally force flows along the path of least resistance - rather than raising everyone up, which is hard, we are simply removing anything difficult from the curriculum, which is much easier (at the expense of actually educating anyone, a goal that nobody cares about much any more).

The easiest way to make equality is to multiply both sides by zero.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#326

Post by udev » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

Lots of comments asking what is "Soviet/Russian Math" actually like, and how is it different.

I was lucky to get an education in three systems (Soviet Math, Romanian Math School (influenced by both French and Soviet Math school), and finally in a world top 40 university in North America.

I would summarize the Soviet/Russian Math/Physics approach like this:

  - understanding of the mechanism/intuition behind the equations/methods is paramount
  - teachers are astute at spotting students who memorize blindly, and will intervene to correct that
  - while rigorous about notation, the mathematical representation always comes after understanding, not before
  - the progression of teaching (order how material is introduced) is very well thought out
  - the old soviet textbooks are generally less verbose than North American ones (less fancy), but high quality in their expression, typesetting, and ESPECIALLY (!!!) the quality of the exercises
  - the Soviet Math textbook exercises are something to behold: they have funny/memorable setting (like jokes), they are short and easy to express, the numbers are chosen in such a way that the result will be a nice whole number, or pi, etc. Basically as a kid you can read one of those problems, lay down, close your eyes, and work on it in your head.

That being said, I did like some of the aspects from the so called "Western Math" (in my case Canadian university):

  - teachers are more approachable, more friendly
  - textbooks can be gorgeous (nice colorful plots, etc)

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#327

Post by TheMightyLlama » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:03 PM UTC

thinkingemote wrote: post #180

boomskats wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Serbian and moved to the UK when I was 10. A lot of this is a bit hazy now, but I really clearly recall my bewilderment during the first class-wide 'mental arithmetic' tests in year 5 where I thought the whole class was playing a prank on me. In Serbia I remembered doing quadratics and even touching on differentiation in the afterschool classes, but over here in the UK they were expecting me to take 20 seconds to…

As a Brit, I was never any good at mental math at school, I still cannot do that hardest one without a calculator. But later on, I swam like a fish in water in geometry, trig, logic and loved algebra and moved from the last of my year to one of the top. I was doing integration etc a good two years before it was being taught in the higher classes. These skills are good for programming and computers. There was a limit;…

I'm in exactly the same position at the age of 40. I've attempted to memorise the times table to no avail. It seems to me one of those things that you need to know cold. And then from there you can look at other things.

To me mathematics is a thing of beauty I just find I havent found the right handle to grasp it with.

I ask myself what would be the order in which one could most easily absorb the material. Does it really start with rote learning?

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#328

Post by bsanr2 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

tsimionescu wrote: post #91

nostrademons wrote: post #14

My college had a decent-sized contingent of Bulgarian & Romanian international students. The difference in their math abilities upon entry was striking. While most of my American-born classmates struggled in discrete math, linear algebra, and vector calc, my Bulgarian friend was like "I learned this when I was 9." They were frequently tapped as TAs by the professors, because they understood the material on a level th…

While this is partly true, and a point of national pride (I'm Romanian), it's also important to realize that this is the positive end of a very unequal system. If you have the good luck of having a good teacher, and enough material conditions to focus on learning, school will leave you with quite a good array of knowledge, especially in Maths and sciences. However, the majority of people don't have this luck, and the…

>It's also important to note that there is widespread, normalized abuse in the teaching system, especially towards children with poor grades, or who are just poor. Things like yelling, demeaning, even spanking and hair cutting (for male students with longer hair, especially)

Americans will be appalled, without realizing that these are common hazards for poor, and especially black, students to face. In many cases, these tactics aren't even used for punishment, but as preemptive control measures (especially the hair-cutting).

It continues to surprise me how many parallels there are between the Eastern European and Inner City American experiences.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#329

Post by b112 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #240

b112 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's happened in Canada, is that curriculum is designed to teach to the weakest student in a subject. This is thought of as being fair, of helping, for of course everyone is intellectually equal. Thus, those who can accel, are denied their future, for those which will leave high school, and never touch (for example) advanced math again. Equality comes from recognising our differences, and enabling best outcomes for…

> What's happened in Canada, is that curriculum is designed to teach to the weakest student in a subject. No, the curriculum is not watered down to meet the needs of the weakest students. Canada tends to align its curriculum to that of other western nations. On the other hand, when you're talking about math there is a bit of an issue where the background of teachers is mixed at the elementary level and students are n…

Maybe your province isn't too bad yet, but these things tend to spread:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-sc...

With no advanced/honours tract, you have two choices.

Subjects too difficult for a large portion of the class, or everyone gets education tailored to the least capable students.

Clearly, they aren't removing advanced classes, then suddenly failing 1/2 the class...

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#330

Post by aj3 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

lotusmars wrote: post #301

sega_sai wrote: post #210

It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous, and is probably used as marketing tool nowadays by some schools abroad. I have graduated from one of the top physics/maths high schools in Russia, and yes we had great math education there, but that was an outlier. Outside a handful of schools the math education is pretty dismal. And even in the good math schools there are different ways of t…

> What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classe I've been studying in a "respected" Soviet / early post-Soviet school. These classes were super elitist and had a huge disconnect in their level from what you were taught in regular classes. I was a straight A student and was shut off very quickly. The problems were enormous in their difficulty and teachers had ze…

Eh, I've studied in a "respected" post-Soviet school as well and can't related to this at all. Teachers were awesome and passionate, had really thorough understanding of math (and physics, and chemistry), without any hint of elitism.

It's almost as if there are good and bad math teachers (in all countries).