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

scottaaronson.blog

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

#421

Post by aaplok »

hintymad wrote: post #240
FFRefresh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand how these people could consistently ignore facts. Case in point, I could earn way more than Scott Aaronson or had way more social privilege than him, but you'd think I'm crazy if I claim that I can be as good at maths or quantum computing as Aaronson.

That kind of arguments goes in favour of the CMS. If you assume that only a handful of geniuses can do maths then as a society it makes little sense to allocate resources toward something completely inaccessible to the masses. Designing the education system for Scott Aaronson to the detriment of everybody else would be a mistake socially and economically. That is how these people think, not some nonsense blank slate theory.

In reality it's not quantum computing that we're talking about, it's high school calculus and algebra. You don't have to be a hardcore blank slate proponent to believe that most people can learn it. And that is what these people don't believe.

It's important to consider the goals of this committee. They propose this reform because they oppose the blank slate theory. The current structure really isn't appropriate to most people. Because it relies on a wrong form of the blank slate theory. They offer the wrong solution in my opinion, because they end up going too far the other way.

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

#422

Post by hintymad »

paulcole wrote: post #302
mikebenfield wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so obviously false that I'm always amazed there are people who actually believe this. In _every_ activity I've ever participated in where I can observe many people's performance and progression - including powerlifting, bodybuilding, various ball sports, mathematics, chess, theoretical CS, software engineering, etc - it is transparently obvious that people's natural abilities vary dramatically. Although it's…

Thank you. I am quite stupid. Talent is real, but generally speaking, ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake.

I'm not sure what "generally" means here. In professional sports, my failure of not getting into any major league will be due to your lack of talent. In higher-level math, my failure of passing any exam will be due to your lack of talent. In chemistry, my failure of not being able to consistently reach precision of under 0.1% is due to my lack of talent (and trust me, I really tried and followed all kinds of instructions to the greatest details, or so I thought). In mechanical engineering, my failure of not being able to piece out a 3D model from a 2D schematics is due to my lack of talent. In medicine, my failure of not being able to memorize thousands of latin terms for all the bones and organs is due to my lack of talent. In biochemistry, my failure of not being able to internalize the energy cycle in human body is due to my lack of talent. But on the other hand, you didn't even use a computer until switching your major to CS when you were 20 yet you became the best student in every single class in a prestigious university. That's your talent. You studied world history until you were 30 years old, yet you switched to physics and somehow got Fields medal, that's your talent.

Not all failures are due to lack of talent, for sure. A blank statement like " ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake " in the context of our discussion is nonetheless a mistake as well.

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

#423

Post by danans »

rayiner wrote: post #399
danans wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries like Japan and Singapore went from being desperately poor (at a level unimaginable even to an inner city American) to developed in a couple of generations in the 20th century Those countries did so by making absolutely massive infrastructure and human development investments in their poor populations during their industrializing phase, very similar to what the US did for its previously poor white populati…

> Those countries did so by making absolutely massive infrastructure and human development investments in their poor populations during their industrializing phase, very similar to what the US did for its previously poor white population after the 2nd world war. Japan and Singapore aren’t Nordic social welfare states. They invested heavily in development but not particularly targeted at the poor. > The people who fac…

> Japan and Singapore aren’t Nordic social welfare states. They invested heavily in development but not particularly targeted at the poor.

Nor are they comparable to American inner cities.

My own anecdote about Singapore is an old friend who grew up very poor in Singapore (themself a child of impoverished rural immigrants laborers from India), but whose family received subsidized housing, transportation, and most of all, stability and security. If their family had arrived in Singapore as slaves, their outcome might have differed.

> Only if you pretend that white people in Appalachia are the same group as white people in Massachusetts.

Who is pretending that? Not me. I agree that they also have born the brunt of disinvestment and de-industrialization, and we are seeing the effects of that in the opioid and methamphetamine epidemics in those areas. It's interesting that we don't usually call it a culture problem with them though, like we do with black inner city communities facing similar challenges.

> That indicates that America’s problem is culture, not the availability of school psychologists.

It indicates a problem of economics and disinvestment. The psychologists are only there to manage the impacts of that disinvestment on society, not solve the original problem of lack of economic opportunity.

I'm also happy to reduce the number of school psychologists when teachers no longer have to deal with traumatized children disrupting and endangering their classes. Until then someone has to manage those issues, and as you stated, that's what we expect public schools to do.

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

#424

Post by [deleted] »

luca3v wrote: post #413
idoh wrote: post #120

SF CA resident, parent of two school age children chiming in. The direction with math seems pretty dismal, in that as of right now, everyone is singly tracked together for math through freshman year of high school. This results in children who have higher aptitudes[1] to not be well served by schools. The majority of people I know who have the means opt out of the public school system, which probably makes the proble…

I don't know if it's still there in the revision, but in chapter one of the earlier draft of the California framework it said, in a prominent place "we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents" Edit: in the new version it has been changed to "high-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated"

[deleted]

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

#425

Post by zozbot234 »

aaplok wrote: post #421
hintymad wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how these people could consistently ignore facts. Case in point, I could earn way more than Scott Aaronson or had way more social privilege than him, but you'd think I'm crazy if I claim that I can be as good at maths or quantum computing as Aaronson.

That kind of arguments goes in favour of the CMS. If you assume that only a handful of geniuses can do maths then as a society it makes little sense to allocate resources toward something completely inaccessible to the masses. Designing the education system for Scott Aaronson to the detriment of everybody else would be a mistake socially and economically. That is how these people think, not some nonsense blank slate…

They're working with a bizarro Blank Slate theory according to which every student should simply be learning their math by themselves, and if they fail it's their own darn fault, or perhaps society's fault, or anyone else's fault, but certainly not the teacher's fault. Because the teachers all have Education degrees, and that's what they were told in Ed School. So don't anyone dare "demean" their job by suggesting that they have actual work to do in properly educating their students.

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

#426

Post by majormajor »

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…

It's hard for me to square your claim that there's a dominant belief that all humans are blank slates of equal ability with the sheer volume of messaging I see in both government-sponsored and private media about embracing differences, follow your own goals, find your talent, etc.

I see a lot more stuff that would lead a kid to believe "it's ok that I'm not good in math" rather than "I could be good in math if I wanted to be."

Frankly, I think this is actually worse educationally than what you suggest.

We need to find more ways to reward effort instead of pre-existing ability (regardless of how that pre-existing ability is gained... the kid whose parents got him ahead of the curve through high school math and then bombs out after taking university-level Calculus is similarly harmed by the current system as the one who's shunted away from ever being challenged).

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

#427

Post by AlchemistCamp »

andrewprock wrote: post #356
7speter wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily agree with the proposal in california, but do all students need to take calculus in high school? What about solid coverage of algebra 2 and pre calc before higher education. Community college is a great place to take a calc class (or even a pre calc class) affordably. Source: took pre calc, calc and stat in community college after being signalled to that I was terrible at math throughout high scho…

No one is suggesting that all students take calculus in high school. What is being recommend is that no one take calculus in high school. Both of these ideas are bad, but only one of them informs the California Math Framework.

> No one is suggesting that all students take calculus in high school.

It’s very commonly taught in 10th grade in France, Germany, Singapore and Taiwan (where I used to teach). It’s not universal by any means but as far as I can tell, the idea that calculus should be delayed until university is a nearly uniquely American idea.

https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/calculus-around-the-wo...

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

#428

Post by majormajor »

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…

Do you disagree with the following re-formulations:

Some observable differences are due to social factors.

Some observable differences by certain groups are the result of past actions by other groups.

You should favor policies to correct for the result of past harms.

One cannot reasonably claim that no groups in the US are still disadvantaged today due to actions taken on a centuries-long timescale. It seems willfully unfair to stick your fingers in your ears and just say "I'm not actively discriminatory, so there's no need to try to mitigate things, everything is peachy."

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

#429

Post by nosefrog »

rayiner wrote: post #184
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…

> If it is well-intentioned, what was the intention... to dumb down math in high school? Bingo. It's well intentioned, but the intentions aren't to ensure that America can keep up with a rising China. It's shocking to me that people in California aren't more worried about this. About 15 years ago, I was talking to an engineer at Juniper/Cisco. We were joking about how Huawei had copied one of their router designs dow…

> affluent Virginia suburb, until I got into a top STEM magnet high school

TJ? :P

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

#430

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

luca3v wrote: post #413
idoh wrote: post #120

SF CA resident, parent of two school age children chiming in. The direction with math seems pretty dismal, in that as of right now, everyone is singly tracked together for math through freshman year of high school. This results in children who have higher aptitudes[1] to not be well served by schools. The majority of people I know who have the means opt out of the public school system, which probably makes the proble…

I don't know if it's still there in the revision, but in chapter one of the earlier draft of the California framework it said, in a prominent place "we reject ideas of natural gifts and talents" Edit: in the new version it has been changed to "high-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated"

Sounds like the author didn't have any.
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