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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

#541

Post by cortesoft »

pishpash wrote: post #206
acomjean wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in the "middle" tier math program in high school. But around sophomore year I wanted to get more into science/engineering but you can't switch tiers or catch up to those ahead of you, no matter if you're making extra effort and doing well. It was frustrating. In my case I got a letter about summer school at a local university. So I pre-calced over summer school to get moved into calculus in high school. It hone…

Many public schools take local college credits. There is always a path.

Yes, but these alternatives are much harder to find for students who already aren’t the best at navigating the school system. Requiring students to figure all of this out is going to reduce the number of students who benefit by quite a bit.

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

#542

Post by Spivak »

WalterBright wrote: post #492
Angostura wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I laughed, and said that such a course should be named "Pretend to Learn Calculus". Was that based on actual knowledge of the course content?

I read the course description, although that wasn't necessary. The title gave the game away. It's like "Flight School for Artists". There's no such thing.

And yet people don’t feel the same way about “Calculus for Engineers” despite it also being a ridiculously dumbed down course full of rote memorization of formulas, “procedures,” and “strategies” with the bare minimum of hand-wavy theory. Compared to the courses for maths students it’s just as much pretending to learn calculus.

dae STEM has got to be one of the most exhausting memes on the internet. Hell, I’m 3/4 of the letters and even I find this aspect of our culture insufferable.

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

#543

Post by cortesoft »

dahfizz wrote: post #519
cortesoft wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so what would your approach be to address the issue of huge groups of kids underperforming what they are actually capable of? I feel too often the people who play the 'woke nonsense' card think that we should just allow the current failings to continue, and any work to help struggling groups is wrong.

> what would your approach be to address the issue of huge groups of kids underperforming what they are actually capable of? Huh? Are you suggesting that removing upper level maths classes helps kids achieve their potential? If the current system is untenable, then I would force all students to have one "tutor" period. Everyone has to take a tutor period, so the social stigmatization you're worried about it not a fac…

> Huh? Are you suggesting that removing upper level maths classes helps kids achieve their potential?

That is the purpose, but I agree that I don’t think it will work. I am saying we need to keep trying, and not dismiss any attempt to fix the issue as woke nonsense.

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

#544

Post by mr_toad »

klodolph wrote: post #339
rayiner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In the 1960s, it was the USSR. In the 1980s it was Japan. Now it's China. I'm not trying to suggest that the US is fine and we shouldn't fix anything, but if you look at the world by comparing test scores and grade levels in mathematics, you're going to come to some very warped perceptions about what is important. I'm speaking as someone passionate about STEM education, who got a B.S. in mathematics. The whole situat…

> The whole situation is warped. The USA accounts for 4% of the world population, and 40% of the top 100 universities in the world. That's fucking weird.

No it isn’t. The best researchers want to go to the best universities and the universities are ranked on research performance. Its a feedback loop.

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

#545

Post by cortesoft »

dahfizz wrote: post #528
cortesoft wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't we agree that both extremes are wrong? While I agree that it is wrong to assume there is no such thing as innate human ability, and it is wrong to assume everyone can achieve equally, you seem to be arguing the opposite; that there is nothing that can be done to improve achievement for those who are struggling. This simply isn't true. There are things that can be done to improve the outcome for students, and we…

> There are things that can be done to improve the outcome for students, and we should continue to work to try to improve the success of all students. How would you suggest we do this? Without a dramatic reinvention of our education system, you have to fill a room with N students and 1 teacher. If you want that teacher to be maximally effective at "improving outcomes" - how do we do that? The proposal here is to grou…

I don’t know how we do it, I am not an education expert. I am simply saying we should keep trying new ways to try to help lower performing student improve until we find one that works. We shouldn’t just give up and write them off as being unable to improve.

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

#546

Post by caddemon »

idoh wrote: post #452
kodah wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can respond to your footnote. I went to a Catholic school that split us up into separate tracks for maths specifically in grades 4-8. I was in the upper level math class for a year before they moved me. I had a teacher who celebrated and encouraged bullies, slapped children with a ruler, and threw a chalkboard eraser at me from the front of the classroom because I appeared to be falling asleep. When my grad…

First, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that teacher and that it caused you problems for many years down the line. I'm trying to figure out how this relates. It sounds like you had a bad experience with tracking, and there is a fundamental issue with tracking where some amount of people will have bad experiences, but ultimately you were able to achieve your potential anyway, so why make the experience bad with…

Eh I don't think things working out in the long term necessarily invalidates the criticism, we have no idea how OP would have turned out if in a different situation. I'm sure most people that should have been in fast track math but didn't have an option for it still figured shit out long term, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have benefited from better math education.

It sounds like the implementation of levels was especially bad in the OP's case though, so I agree it isn't really a good anecdote to argue against leveling entirely like California is doing. It's throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

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

#547

Post by caddemon »

kodah wrote: post #479
idoh wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with that teacher and that it caused you problems for many years down the line. I'm trying to figure out how this relates. It sounds like you had a bad experience with tracking, and there is a fundamental issue with tracking where some amount of people will have bad experiences, but ultimately you were able to achieve your potential anyway, so why make the experience bad with…

My lack of success in that math program was due to a "bad experience" (I chuckled a little at that phrasing). The fallout of which had social implications, made me entirely disinterested (if not hostile?) to maths, and followed me for years. Point being, separating our classes had little to nil positive impact (for me) in the long run, and the decision of which class I was in failed to address the foundational proble…

"not everybody is born with math skills" isn't the argument though. The argument is "not everybody has the same math skills". It's a multidimensional and continuous thing, but it's not exactly feasible to teach that way, so some approximation is involved.

It sounds like that was implemented very poorly in your case. You yourself said "I was immediately bored in our lower maths class". I don't see how the solution to this is to make everyone take the lower math class. Certainly there is some middle ground between the California plan and what you experienced.

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

#548

Post by ghostInTheSSH »

dionidium wrote: post #284
pfisherman wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people try to make “blank slate” into a binary thing. Can people not have varying degrees of physical and neural plasticity? Perhaps some people are more like blank slates and can adapt more readily than others? Maybe plasticity changes with age?

There's almost no opponent of the blank slate theory who thinks societal factors never matter. There's only one side that takes a hard-line dogmatic view on this issue and it's the blank slatists.

Blank slatists?

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

#549

Post by gnicholas »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #288
300bps wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

masking the need for more resources. Want to know the one resource that schools can never give students? Parental involvement. It also happens to be the #1 variable in success for students. If parents aren't checking their children's grades on a daily basis, asking what they're studying, staying in frequent communication with teachers and the school, there is nothing that is going to replace that. My oldest son was o…

You also have to be careful about "well performing" school districts for a similar reason. I live in one such district and most of the parents I know have a regular, dedicated tutor for each of their kids. The teachers expect a lot because of this. Good luck if you can't afford such help.

When my kid was in kindergarten, half the class had an outside tutor. I learned this the next year, when a parent offered to share her tutor with us.

This concept is strange to me; when I was growing up, a "tutor" was someone who helped kids who were behind. Nowadays the word seems to also refer to an outside coach who helps kids get ahead.

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

#550

Post by WalterBright »

Spivak wrote: post #542
WalterBright wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the course description, although that wasn't necessary. The title gave the game away. It's like "Flight School for Artists". There's no such thing.

And yet people don’t feel the same way about “Calculus for Engineers” despite it also being a ridiculously dumbed down course full of rote memorization of formulas, “procedures,” and “strategies” with the bare minimum of hand-wavy theory. Compared to the courses for maths students it’s just as much pretending to learn calculus. dae STEM has got to be one of the most exhausting memes on the internet. Hell, I’m 3/4 of…

FWIW, I feel the same way about "Calculus for Engineers". Even though I'm an engineer. It just screams "dumbed down". I want the real thing.
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