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'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

joannejacobs.com

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Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#501

Post by eternityforest »

40yearoldman wrote: post #253
praxulus wrote: post #32

I live in Seattle, not San Francisco, but we have some similar issues with our schools. I'd really prefer to send my son to our local public schools, but if they aren't challenging him appropriately then my wife and I obviously aren't going to just give up on his education. We'll either pay for extracurricular enrichment like the person in this article, move to a wealthy suburb, or send him to a private school instea…

> That's a much worse outcome from an equity lens Bingo, that is the issue, everybody is worried about equity. You can't have it, we need meritocracy, equity is just cruel and unusual punishment to future. It is a recipe for driving society to the lowest common denominator. You should demand proper education or your money back. (Side note, this is what we will get 10x with free college, and the guaranteed loans have…

Without some level of equity, what exactly is the point of meritocracy?

A pure meritocracy wouldn't prioritize curing rare diseases or ending poverty, and might not reduce suffering as much as a more equitable society, even if that equitable society has less raw talent and education, so obviously there's an optimal point.

That optimal point may be a function of the current state of tech, as more and more of the stuff people need education for is done by AI.

It's not like they're ever going to have zero high achievers, even without school at all there's always going to be a few genuises.

On the other hand, the better AI gets, the less anyone outside the top 1% actually needs math, because AI may be able to do most of what an average person could learn without unrealistic amount of effort way beyond their motivation.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#502

Post by eternityforest »

akomtu wrote: post #101
Dalewyn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

How otherwise are you going to develop abstract thinking? There's a huge boulder in front of you and you need to hire a truck to move it. But to do that you need to know the weight of the boulder. How do you measure it? Or there is a very tall tree you need to cut down, but if the tree is too tall, it might fall on your house. How do you measure its height?

Math is great, but examples like that are pretty unconvincing. The real value is in solving new problems that nobody has encountered before.

I'm not good at math, so I have no idea what I'd use it for. I'd probably get a high end tech job working with advanced stuff, and whatever I was doing there would be stuff that made no sense to someone who doesn't already know math.

It's exactly the kind of leap of faith that young people seem to be uninterested in.

People have figured out by now that they will always have a calculator 99% of the time, and probably won't need math in the remaining 1%, Google can tell you how to do niche stuff that doesn't come up a lot, and lots of the stuff you use math for also requires specialist equipment, so you'll probably just hire someone.

Perhaps if we had more of a DIY culture. But even then, I do a lot of DIY work and almost never encounter math, because I've got FreeCAD.

And even though I'm vaguely aware of they Pythagorean theorem, I doubt I'd use it to find the height of a tree, I'd draw it as a sketch and use a constraint solver, actually seeing the triangle on the screen would make it a little clearer if there was a mistake, and it's one less calculation to mess up.

Or, I'd just use the height feature on the laser measurement tool.

I do have friends who use math in real life, but I rarely see them do anything they couldn't do with an understanding of what software can do, rather than an understanding of the actual physics.

And yet everyone seems to say they are very happy to have learned it, and most of our big innovations are from people who know it.

I think the important part is how do you convey the benefit of math without saying anything people will immediately recognize as kind of an exaggeration.

Math isn't directly useful in an average person's life, it gives people the possibility of doing certain things average people don't do, and lets people understand things, that are not always obvious ahead of time why you would want to understand them.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#503

Post by ben_w »

mdorazio wrote: post #127
jschveibinz wrote: post #2

Argh 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.…

> They need the math!!! Serious question: for what? Basic algebra, yes. And basic geometry is handy in many jobs as well. But beyond that?

I currently think finance and statistics, so people don't get fooled so easily. Both require algebra as a foundation.

Trigonometry, calculus, vectors, complex numbers, group theory, matrices? Fun, but not something I expect to be used often enough to justify making it mandatory part of everyone's education.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#504

Post by dang »

bendbro wrote: post #85
sp332 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. But as long as they have these outlets where they can just educate their own kids and leave everyone else behind, they will.

Some students need to be left behind

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#505

Post by dang »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #105
bendbro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some students need to be left behind

Which ones are those again?

Could you please not take HN threads further into flamewar? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#506

Post by dang »

alex_sf wrote: post #278
kelseyfrog wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Test scores aren't decision making agents. Are you thinking of a person?

You're being intentionally obtuse. If you have the capacity to have an accelerated program for 1,000 students in a district, then you rank by test scores and bring in the top 1,000.

Personal attacks are not allowed here. Your comment would be fine without the first bit.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#507

Post by dang »

bendbro wrote: post #445
kelseyfrog wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intentions aren't epistemologically accessible to you. What parents commenters are doing is laundering agency through a testing regime. It's part of the process of the absolution of responsibility of consequence. As an aside, it's clear that parent commenters aren't mature enough to be approached socratically. I regret their schools taught them to read and write. They clearly don't want to learn.

[flagged]

You broke the site guidelines badly with this post. We ban accounts that do this. Your account has been doing things like this repeatedly. Can you please stick to the rules from now on?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#508

Post by dang »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #443
alex_sf wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your intentions are very clear (and naive), you're just wrong.

Since we're clearly able to read each other's intentions, yours are to disrupt the legitimate line of questioning with a temper tantrum. I hope you see where assuming people's intentions ends up. I know you can do better than that.

You broke the site guidelines badly here. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of how provocative other comments were or you feel they were.

Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of this (at least not from a quick look at the account's recent posts in other threads), so this should be easy to fix. If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to using HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#509

Post by dang »

alex_sf wrote: post #428
kelseyfrog wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My intentions aren't epistemologically accessible to you. What parents commenters are doing is laundering agency through a testing regime. It's part of the process of the absolution of responsibility of consequence. As an aside, it's clear that parent commenters aren't mature enough to be approached socratically. I regret their schools taught them to read and write. They clearly don't want to learn.

No, your intentions are very clear (and naive), you're just wrong.

Please don't break the site guidelines with personal attacks or name-calling.

You've done this in other threads too, unfortunately (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35469483 was particularly bad). We have to ban accounts that post like this, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on, we'd appreciate it.

Re: 'Algebra for none' fails in San Francisco

#510

Post by upsidesinclude »

ElFitz wrote: post #486
upsidesinclude wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>highest ranking engineering By defintion some of the highest performing students who must compete for entry. These are not apples alike.

This is what I was answering to: > (Side note, this is what we will get 10x with free college, and the guaranteed loans have already driven it this way a bit more) But perhaps good colleges in the US just accept anyone that walks through the door and can pay the tuition?

Effectively. US universities work on a growth model, expanding their student body and capital investment for tax purposes and to increase profits. There is always some school that will accept a student for the sake of those unforgivable government supplied student loans
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