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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

#561

Post by fphhotchips »

WalterBright wrote: post #490
xvedejas wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They now do have a remedial kind of class, "Math 1d", which is to be taken concurrently with Math 1a. I was placed into it after not trying very hard on my placement test, but they let me drop it when I told them I didn't need it.

> They now do have a remedial kind of class Sad to hear that. It suggests their admissions process has succumbed. When I attended, it was very rare for the admissions people to admit someone who couldn't do the work. I only knew one who couldn't.

Yeah, heaven forbid 17 year olds decide they want to take on a career in STEM later in High School. They must be real dummies. REAL engineers decide to be engineers as HS Freshmen and never waver from, struggle on, or doubt the One True Path.

Colleges should only admit those who pledge themselves to the Guild of Software Engineering at 13, so we can keep the noble profession of building CRUD apps in JavaScript free of riffraff.

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

#562

Post by jdkee »

cloutchaser wrote: post #108
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…

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…

Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut describes this quite well.

See http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

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

#563

Post by leaflets2 »

alach11 wrote: post #472
cryptonector wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. The alternative would be awful, no?

There are lots of people who advance agendas (whether in the office or in the government) that they think are best for their careers. Whether they believe the agenda is right or wrong is secondary.

Edit: moving.... Moved to here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176346

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

#564

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fphhotchips wrote: post #561
WalterBright wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They now do have a remedial kind of class Sad to hear that. It suggests their admissions process has succumbed. When I attended, it was very rare for the admissions people to admit someone who couldn't do the work. I only knew one who couldn't.

Yeah, heaven forbid 17 year olds decide they want to take on a career in STEM later in High School. They must be real dummies. REAL engineers decide to be engineers as HS Freshmen and never waver from, struggle on, or doubt the One True Path. Colleges should only admit those who pledge themselves to the Guild of Software Engineering at 13, so we can keep the noble profession of building CRUD apps in JavaScript free o…

Grandparent was talking specifically about Caltech. I don’t see how anyone can go to Caltech without knowing calculus, possibly even linear algebra. This school has tougher admission standards than MIT.

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

#565

Post by leaflets2 »

StopDarkPattern wrote: post #475
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…

And this is dog shit trash. Meant to destroy our freedom and statehood in general.

> Meant to destroy

I wrote sth along those lines here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176276

(Foreign state psyops -- I do not think so, just a thought)

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

#566

Post by leaflets2 »

innagadadavida wrote: post #205
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…

You are leaving out who is involved and what commercial interest will be benefitted from these policies. It is likely those commercial interests are the ones sponsoring and pushing these by finding sympathetic folks. The important thing to note here is- if you reduce the bar in high schools, a lot more students will end up in college - more money will spent, more loans will be written out etc.

> commercial interest

Or political interest?

I wrote sth about that here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31176276

(Namely, foreign state psyops? -- I do not think so, just a thought)

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

#567

Post by WalterBright »

whatshisface wrote: post #557
Spivak wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 theorems they prove in mathematician's calculus are useless for engineers, and they take time away from learning useful tricks for doing integrals, which if not that critical for a world with numerical methods, are crucial for solving problems on future tests.

I prefer to know where the formulas come from, to know when the formulas apply, when they don't apply, what their limits are, and how to adapt them to a specific problem.

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

#568

Post by seanmcdirmid »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #537
zozbot234 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Very commonly" in STEM-focused prep schools (i.e. the "academic" part of the tracked education system that's common outside the US). Which leaves you with very roughly the same percentages as the U.S. approach where Calculus is an elective course.

> roughly the same percentages as the U.S. approach where Calculus is an elective course I can’t speak with certainty about other places but this directly contradicts my experience living most of the past 20 years in Taiwan (and speaking with friends who taught mathematics in the public school system). Many, many people not on a STEM track learn calculus in high school.

My wife did the fine art/liberal art at a good mainland Chinese high school and didn’t really learn calculus, and definitely not later on in the fine art university she went to. I get the feeling that most Chinese students don’t learn calculus, but the ones that do are still slot (since China has a huge student population).

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

#569

Post by leaflets2 »

cryptonector wrote: post #448
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 think they truly believe they are doing the right thing. The alternative would be awful, no?

I've sometimes wondered if these anti maths things, could partly be psyops by a foreign nation state that wants to long term damage STEM in the US.

I really don't think it is. And if it was, it'd be only partly, since apparently lots of this is coming from people inside the US.

But what if there're foreign state controlled FB groups that try to manipulate people in the US, spreading these anti maths ideas? I'd be surprised but not super surprised.

Still, if you were Putin or Xi, why would you not want to damage STEM in the US? And even if you didn't start these ideas in the first place, why not try to amplify them, once they already exist

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

#570

Post by wardedVibe »

chadash wrote: post #247
wardedVibe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 schoo…

One of the major problems is that most of the high school teachers are themselves not very familiar with math, and are more educated in the very different problem of corralling children.

To be fair to your friend, 90 years ago they probably could've had a productive career in applied math as an expert computer. There was a point when calc tricks could get you a PhD, but those days are gone.

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