California needs real math education, not gimmicks • Hacker News Board

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#261

Post by danaris » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #238

another_story wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an increased distance between those doing the actual work and those making decisions about how it should be done. Bureaucratic depth keeps any real change from taking place, instead leaving those on the ground level to try and work within a set growing rules. Any attempt to affect change has to be filtered through so many levels and takes so long. As a longtime teacher, I don't think there are any soluti…

>All that said, I don't know if it'll change much. The culture in America doesn't respect the value of education, nor educators in the way it used to. Its crazy to see these stats in the link along with your comment... but at the same time see that the US leading the way(or is at least in the top tier) in technology, business, innovation, etc. How is the country continuing to produce so much output when its mechanism…

First of all, it's important to define what we mean by "innovation".

Is cryptocurrency "innovation"? Credit-default swaps? Leveraged buyouts? So much of what's been making absurd amounts of money in recent decades—and which gets openly called "innovative" by many people—is not better ways of doing things for people, but simply better ways of separating people from their money.

Second of all, it's important to look at who, exactly, is doing the hard work on the innovations that are pushing us forward, rather than simply making rich people richer. How many of these innovations come from people who got their education 15, 25, 40 years ago?

Third of all, it's important to question the very premise: I'm absolutely in agreement that there is a strong thread of anti-intellectualism in American culture, and that there have been changes in our public school system that have caused some serious problems over the past few decades...but to what extent are these problems universal? To what extent do they actually leave graduates less well prepared to be innovative?

Indeed, to what extent is innovation even a product of education, rather than culture and creativity?

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#262

Post by danaris » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #147

bandrami wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really work in the private sector though; it leads to destructive and short-sighted juking of the relevant metrics.

Companies wouldn't use it pervasively if it didn't work.

This is laughably optimistic.

There are plenty of things companies do, pretty pervasively, that have been proven both scientifically and empirically to be detrimental.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#263

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:15 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #166

defrost wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only recently that more than 50% of humans even live in an urban area (the home base of offices). Most of human history has seen the bulk of humans living in rural areas within all manner of labor exchange schemes. "Modern Capitalism" was founded with "work from home" as a significant factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_work Since the phrase 'piece work' first appears in writing around the year 1549, it…

I bet piece work was paid for the piece, i.e. results, not time in the seat. I never wrote that all work was done in the office, sheesh. Besides, any organized labor project is going to need the labor on site. Piece work can only be done if no coordination or teamwork is needed. > the master craftsmen of the guild system began to assign their apprentices work on pieces which could be performed at home Sounds like spe…

> Capitalism is a heluva lot older than 1549.

Huh? No, it's not. The first step may be learning what "capitalism" means. It's a specific economic system that developed in early modernity. It's not some "natural state of man" any more than feudalism was before it.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#264

Post by theGnuMe » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

The standard path is optimized for college admissions discrimination. It is prep for the SAT and calculus. What is not taught is effective problem solving. Instead we are basically teaching rote pattern matching. The proof of this claim is that chat gpt aces the SAT in math but fails on any advanced test like the IIT exams. Chat gpt even fails advanced AP English and literature exams. A place a priori you’d expect an LLM to do well.

Yes we should learn the chain rule and derivatives/slope but arguably developing statistical, mathematical and even computational reasoning/thinking is a better foundation.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#265

Post by throw9away6 » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:21 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #150

waterhouse wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to achieve that, for a teacher, would be to get all the good students into your class, and avoid having any bad students, or find reasons to kick them out. Do you have countermeasures for that?

Sure. Assign the students at random. Some years the teacher will get a better batch than other years, but it would all even out.

If you did that some years would be great and some total losses. The reason being that at each grade level there are 4-10 kids that are completely unmanageable. If you allowed random to happen some percentage of the time you would overload a class with mayhem

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#266

Post by jfdbcv » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:22 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #238

another_story wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also an increased distance between those doing the actual work and those making decisions about how it should be done. Bureaucratic depth keeps any real change from taking place, instead leaving those on the ground level to try and work within a set growing rules. Any attempt to affect change has to be filtered through so many levels and takes so long. As a longtime teacher, I don't think there are any soluti…

>All that said, I don't know if it'll change much. The culture in America doesn't respect the value of education, nor educators in the way it used to. Its crazy to see these stats in the link along with your comment... but at the same time see that the US leading the way(or is at least in the top tier) in technology, business, innovation, etc. How is the country continuing to produce so much output when its mechanism…

Because the top end of US education is still very strong, with some of the best colleges in the world.

Strong capital markets makes the US probably the easiest place to start a company and seek funding.

The US remains a place where smart, talented individuals can succeed and make far more money than peers, attracting a pool of very talented immigrants.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#267

Post by theGnuMe » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

outlace wrote: post #44

I think we significantly overestimate how much school actually matters compared to family milieus. My wife and I highly value education, so regardless of when the school says children should learn algebra, I am already tutoring my 6 year old in basic algebra. If school did nothing other than be a daycare for my kids so we could work, they'd probably still be better educated than most kids going through public school…

How do you teach your 6 year old algebra?

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#268

Post by strix_varius » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #209

tlogan wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both of my kids enrolled in SFUSD and what you describe is exactly what's happening. Majority of “affluent” parents and immigrants are enrolling their children in Sylvan, Kumon, hiring Russian instructors, and so forth. Even school counselors will suggest this, as they also enroll their own children in such programs and subtly encourage you to do the same. However, if a child belongs to a disadvantaged group,…

I think a major problem is that most education "experts" (the type policy makers listen to, not practicing teachers) are upper-middle-class kids who had their parents teach them the basics of phonics and times tables. Who else would get a PhD in education? They went to school, and found learning these things a massive waste of time, because their parents had already set them up to succeed, but they don't realise it w…

This is not supported by data. Across all universities, the education department represents the bottom of average SAT scores.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#269

Post by incone123 » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

cpursley wrote: post #231

peterfirefly wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think one big problem is that low test scores are highly correlated to poverty.I think one big problem is that low test scores are highly correlated to poverty. True, but the arrow of causality is not from "poverty" to "low test scores". Children of poor (and sometimes illiterate) Chinese immigrants did and do quite well!

Careful, you’re not allowed to utter the “C” word here in relation to educational outcomes. (The word is “Culture”)

I find this site more open to constructive debate than elsewhere.

Thanks for specifying which c word you meant, as the only one in the post you replied to was Chinese.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#270

Post by strix_varius » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

t8sr wrote: post #219

ern wrote: post #206

U.S. high school math scores lag significantly behind other countries, even though scores in reading and science are above average How much of this math gap is because other countries focus heavily on test prep and exam performance?

Optimizing for test scores is an American phenomenon. AFAIK schools in most of the rest of the developed world are not worrying about these metrics. (They do worry about how many pupils go on to graduate college, for example.) (Although of course nobody on here likely knows anything about more than a handful of countries’ systems at most.)

This is blatantly wrong.

https://www.npr.org/2010/12/29/132416889/chinese-top-in-test...