Wow, that site allows really racist comments. That can't help their messaging.
What was racist about the article exactly?
'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
51–60 of 510 posts
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#52Argh this grinds my gears. It’s the education SYSTEM that is wrong. We are working with a 150 year old way of educating kids that does not apply to our culture today. Kids aren’t going to work on the farm or in a factory. They need the math!!! For courses like algebra, etc. kids need support at home from parents. When that support isn’t available (for whatever reason), don’t water down the content for goodness sake.…
I mostly agree with you, except on one aspect. We cannot rely on support from parents, the system we design needs to be thought of with parents out of the equation because in the case of the most vulnerable of kids they will not have parents that can help them. Special tutoring needs to be a part of the system, outsourcing the work will make things cheaper but it will complicate things for those struggling. Kids in n…
Honestly, it doesn’t really work without the parents. The issue is that the biggest problems with schooling discrepancies are poverty. Kids can’t eat, need to take care of siblings or their own kids or go work two jobs, have no homes, don’t get medical care, have no internet, etc.
There is no way to really fix those problems by changing the school system. You can have bandaids, like providing free food at school, but that’s fixing the problem at the wrong level.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#53Has any child ever gotten better at something they don't have to do? It seems the practical effect will be to simply place these children farther behind and never catching up. SFUSD does not appear to be run by intelligent people, however. I don't say that as some Internet slur. I mean that as a descriptive term. Should you disagree, it is worth watching this 2 min video of a meeting from one of their committees http…
>Has any child ever gotten better at something they don't have to do? Nope, and it's compounded by the fact the vast majority of academical math is irrelevant to life unless and until you make your way into a path of life that requires some of it. Math education is fundamentally flawed because it attempts to teach irrelevant factoids in a manner that explicitly avoids teaching the hows and whys. No wonder most people…
>> Has any child ever gotten better at something they don't have to do?
> Nope
It happens all the time. You think people are born being great at Mario Kart?
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#54It sounds like they tried to set up a large one-size-fits-all program. This might be a good time to bring up Lockhart's Lament , which imagines what artistic education would look like if we treated it like math. https://archive.org/details/AMathematiciansLament Nobody with decision-making power in a school district likes the answer which this paper proposes: very small class sizes.
I would expect small class sizes to be considerably more expensive.
Yeah, that's why people don't like it.
The essay's thesis is that math is an unusually useful art form that we typically teach by diktat. Students are asked to memorize formulas, but they would learn more effectively (and have more fun) if teachers could work closely with them to derive and understand the solutions. Or better yet, encourage and guide them to find their own interesting formulas and patterns.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#55math is just the beginning of these backwards policies. public schools in california have been removing advanced classes in the name of “equity” for years. the racial enrollment in those classes did not reflect the racial enrollment of the school. the result? parents moving kids to private school. at the school nearest me they kindergarten enrollment is dropping. they are likely going to only have a a single class in…
>the result? parents moving kids to private school.
as someone who went through the public school system in California during a time where classroom sizes hovered between 35-50 students under a single teacher, I have a hard time thinking that won't bring at least some benefits to those that aren't being put into private schools.
Don't get me wrong, as a delinquent/mischievous/criminal youth I loved it; the dating pool was huge, parties everywhere, drugs abound -- but I never received any kind of decent scholastic education until college.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#56Meanwhile, I experienced one of the most unique job interviews at an autonomous driving company just this last week. It was 45 mins of math. Questions ranging from simple algebra to probability theory to physics. And I was applying for an embedded systems position. Boy was I glad that I was good at that kind of math.
What is that supposed to prove? Any type of engineer or mathematician could pass that interview and still not know anything about coding.
I imagine the idea is that coding is easy to teach on the job, but the fundamental logic and analytical skills aren’t.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree with you, except on one aspect. We cannot rely on support from parents, the system we design needs to be thought of with parents out of the equation because in the case of the most vulnerable of kids they will not have parents that can help them. Special tutoring needs to be a part of the system, outsourcing the work will make things cheaper but it will complicate things for those struggling. Kids in n…
Or use school funding to pay students who volunteer to tutor the previous year. In addition to being a continually renewing supply of teachers, it provides an income stream for those who might really need it and financially incentivizes academic excellence.
Or use school funding to pay students who volunteer to tutor the previous year.
why pay students to tutor? make tutoring younger kids part of the curriculum. teaching a skill is the best way to practice and internalize the skill for yourself.
montessori is already doing this very effectively.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#58It's interesting how path-dependency makes these things seem like controversial reforms, while nearby districts have always done it this way. In Berkeley, for example, there isn't any course called "Algebra I" or II. Through 8th grade there is just math, with no differentiation. Then for 9th grade you can test into an advanced track, and people take either Math 1/2/3 or Advanced Math 1/2/3. In senior year any of thes…
i had no idea that's where this came from
i've reviewed multiple resumes from people in cali for east coast jobs and noticed fresh grads who went to great schools wrote down 'advanced math' on their resume and i thought it was so strange for it to be that vague that i definitely overlooked quite a few of them because other people named courses more clearly
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#59Argh this grinds my gears. It’s the education SYSTEM that is wrong. We are working with a 150 year old way of educating kids that does not apply to our culture today. Kids aren’t going to work on the farm or in a factory. They need the math!!! For courses like algebra, etc. kids need support at home from parents. When that support isn’t available (for whatever reason), don’t water down the content for goodness sake.…
>Kids aren’t going to work on the farm or in a factory. They need the math!!! As someone who fucking hated and still hates academical math: No, kids do not need math. Not in the sense as taught in schools, anyway. That is a straight waste of precious time. What kids need is broader context and guidance for what math is, how it applies to the world around us, how we can use it, and why it's important. Fuck quadratic e…
I’m sorry you had a poor experience with math in an academic setting. I agree that this is what kids need, the problem with this particular failing of just nixing Algebra is that we’ve not actually innovated in the way we communicate the ideas and techniques used to solve problems.
Perhaps the biggest failing with academic math is that it is geared towards a subset of students who can suspend curiosity in order to memorize equations and learn precisely the place to apply them. These are often the students who dislike word problems because it causes them to actually think about the work they are doing. That is to say, I don’t hold contempt for these students as they are just optimizing their academic experience - there is no room for actual rational thinking with how math is taught.
My point here is that everyone loses: those who want to bring rationality and purpose into math are left behind because they cannot keep up due to pesky curiosity and those who can parrot equations and mechanically solve trivial problems are lured into the false sense of deep knowledge their grades would suggest. We need to do better for our students but nobody in a position to enact change actually cares enough to do the legwork in revamping how we teach and communicate mathematics or any other subjects for that matter.
Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Has any child ever gotten better at something they don't have to do? Nope, and it's compounded by the fact the vast majority of academical math is irrelevant to life unless and until you make your way into a path of life that requires some of it. Math education is fundamentally flawed because it attempts to teach irrelevant factoids in a manner that explicitly avoids teaching the hows and whys. No wonder most people…
>> Has any child ever gotten better at something they don't have to do? > Nope It happens all the time. You think people are born being great at Mario Kart?
Are you implying playing Mario Kart isn't a must-do for a child? I would argue that as far as they are concerned, it is: It's fun.
Must-dos fall under those dictated by our surroundings (eg: life, work, etc.) and those dictated by ourselves (eg: it's fun, it's for a greater purpose, etc.).
Math education falls under neither.