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An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

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Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#241

Post by throwaway894345 »

apetresc wrote: post #145
throwaway894345 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about abruptly changing standards, we're talking about holding kids to existing standards for which our society is already calibrated. I don't think your analogy applies (also, are Chinese schools really so much more rigorous than American schools, or is this assumed based on performance of Chinese immigrants?).

Yes, they really are. Look up example questions for the Zhongkao (national high school entrance exam) or Gaokao (national university entrance exam) and ask yourself how North American students at those respective stages would fare.

I'm not necessarily surprised, just curious. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#242

Post by hintymad »

sacrosancty wrote: post #229
wonnage wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so... 2. This follows from #1, if we rule out nature then it must be nurture. Also, you must not be a parent if you'll accept "some kids are just dumb" as an excuse 3,4. Replace "oppression" with "competition". I think it might sound better to you. But the conclusion is the same. You want to prevent winners from accumulating an advantage, eliminating all others…

1. So the country is founded on a lie or you misread that founding principle. Those compound advantages you're talking about are good things that we want people to have because they help them do more good for society. You seem to want to handicap them in the name of fairness. Where does that thinking end when you realize that the founding assumption (1. above) is false? Disfiguring beautiful people to prevent them ac…

I thought the OP was being sarcastic.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#243

Post by paulcole »

FFRefresh wrote: post #166
kurthr wrote: post #27

From the original letter: While well-intentioned, we believe that many of the changes proposed by the CMF are deeply misguided and will disproportionately harm under-resourced students. Adopting them would result in a student population that is less prepared to succeed in STEM and other 4-year quantitative degrees in college. The CMF states that 'many students, parents, and teachers encourage acceleration beginning i…

I don't doubt that the people crafting these proposals care. I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. I personally think it's just increasingly popular, mistaken moral beliefs that inform these types of proposals. Some of the underlying beliefs: 1. Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability 2. Any observable differences between humans are merely the result of social factors 3. Any observable diff…

> Blank slate - All humans are of equal ability

This is generally true.

People can find extreme examples that “disprove” this but they’re generally wrong. Most things people do aren’t that hard and people have the ability to learn to do them — they either choose a different path, have fewer choices, or just don’t care.

And yes, before you ask, this includes computer programming.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#244

Post by dfdz »

0000011111 wrote: post #141

Why can we do both? 1. Make it possible for HS students who are interested in Calculus to take the course under the instruction from a college profess on the high school campus. That way it would be set up for students to get college credit for the class and they would not need to travel to a college campus or deal with the AP exam system. 2. Make it possible for HS students who are not interested (Yet) or at all to…

> 249,871 High School Mathematics Teachers in USA [1]

> 5,972 Math Professors in USA [2]

1. There are simply not enough college math professors for this to work.

[1] https://www.zippia.com/high-school-mathematics-teacher-jobs/...

[2] https://www.zippia.com/math-professor-jobs/demographics/

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#245

Post by wonnage »

mindcrime wrote: post #225
wonnage wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so... 2. This follows from #1, if we rule out nature then it must be nurture. Also, you must not be a parent if you'll accept "some kids are just dumb" as an excuse 3,4. Replace "oppression" with "competition". I think it might sound better to you. But the conclusion is the same. You want to prevent winners from accumulating an advantage, eliminating all others…

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so... Is it? Saying "all mean are created equal" has a lot of interpretations, of which many valid ones do not include "all men are born of equal ability in every regard." Given that some people are born to grow up to be 5'4 and weigh 100lbs and others are born to grow up to 6'7 and 320lbs, it should be clear that not everyone is "equal" at least in terms of the…

No post body was provided.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#246

Post by heavyset_go »

zozbot234 wrote: post #133
cwkoss wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is calculus an important highschool goal? I feel like I may have benefited more if that time was spent on statistical literacy than calculus. I encounter stats very often in my adult life, calculus style problems are rare and I don't remember the formulas offhand, so end up just looking up what I need.

Stats requires calculus; you can't even define a probability distribution without some pretty advanced notions of real analysis. Discrete math, linear algebra etc. are viable alternatives.

Colleges have varying levels of stats classes for different majors, and not all of them require rigorous understandings of calculus. The ideas and principles presented in those classes are still important for people to learn, even if they are unfamiliar with, or haven't mastered, calculus. It's possible to teach those principles in high school, as well.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#247

Post by chadash »

wardedVibe wrote: post #95
texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #13

Ultimately the solution is better STEM foundation at the very very early ages. Universal pre school would probably be very useful. Empirically [edit: n = 1 or 2], it seems that drilling basic arithmetic and then multiplication tables early in pre K and earlier elementary will give students a better intuitive math foundation to do algebra very well. That would enable everyone to go into more advanced classes at the sa…

As a math PhD with dyscalcula, I'm very skeptical. I was nearly held back as a child because of poor arithmetic performance, and really only started to be above average when we started on algebra. Poor arithmetic isn't that uncommon among the mathematicians I know.

I love this.

On a similar note, I have a friend who majored in math at Harvard. He once told me that he came into Harvard being arrogant because in high school he was always at the top of his class in math. He enrolls in his first college level math course thinking he's got this, but he soon realizes that "higher math", which is largely proof-based, is a completely different subject than what he learned in high school. A month in he bombs the first exam. He went to the professor, who is originally from Italy, and explained his situation and how he was a star in high school. He responds in a thick Italian accent "that was not math, that was computation. In this course I teach math".

The math you typically learn in high school is very important, but I wish that we did a better job of explaining to high school students that what they are learning is completely different from what "real mathematicians" study (although I do think that computation is quite important in engineering, for example).

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#248

Post by ralph84 »

pessimizer wrote: post #139
cloutchaser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is the intention is to be able to say that the framework benefits disadvantaged people. But like almost any policy like this all it does at best is pull down people at the top, at worst pulls down everyone making the situation worse for everyone. You can have separation of education by ability, and progress, or you can have equality, and everyone being pulled down to the same low level. And suffering for eve…

> You can have separation of education by ability, and progress, or you can have equality, and everyone being pulled down to the same low level. This seems a little off. What we're talking about (and what it seems like you're defending) is directing more resources towards the most gifted. It's fine to believe that, but it's an argument to give the most to those who have the most. Nobody is pulling anyone down, and co…

How is it directing more resources to allow students to take courses at their level? It's not like you have to pay high school math teachers a higher salary to teach calculus. Your typical public high school in California has 1,000+ students. With that many students it's not going to be hard to find 20-30 students to register for a calculus class. It's not like you're running a special private class just for a few gifted students.

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#249

Post by wonnage »

abfan1127 wrote: post #231
wonnage wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is kind of a founding principle of the country, so... 2. This follows from #1, if we rule out nature then it must be nurture. Also, you must not be a parent if you'll accept "some kids are just dumb" as an excuse 3,4. Replace "oppression" with "competition". I think it might sound better to you. But the conclusion is the same. You want to prevent winners from accumulating an advantage, eliminating all others…

a founding principle is not everyone is of equal ability. The founding principle equality of opportunity. The government won't hold you back because you are a (peasant|lower caste|other arbitrary decision). i.e. Everyone gets to go to school, but not everyone learns the same (qualitatively or quantitatively).

Don't you think the government deciding you're not fit for going to college would fall into this problem?

Re: An update on the campaign to defend serious math education in California

#250

Post by umvi »

Just my opinion but... is Calculus an important high school goal? I took AP Calc in high school, got a 4 on the exam. I did Electrical Engineering in college and took college level math through differential equations. And yet... a) I've never used calculus once in my STEM career, b) looking back I realize I never really understood calculus back when I was in high school and college.

I came to that realization a decade after college when I was digesting 3Blue1Brown's series on Calculus for fun and had it finally click. Before then I was basically a Chinese Room that was able to solve calculus problems via pattern matching (i.e. "oh, this problem fits the shape of these rules, etc.") without really understanding how calculus works.

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