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Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

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Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#571

Post by fooker »

alephnerd wrote: post #514
fooker wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Tracked’ is doing some heavy lifting here. A vast majority of students in these countries end up learning calculus in school to keep college options open.

Most students in these countries don't end up college track. 1. College Matriculation rates are low. Only 36% of Germans aged 25-46 have attended Tertiary Education (University as well as Vocational School) [0]. This is a similar story in the UK and Canada as well. 2. In countries like Germany and UK, college track HS admissions are competitive. Attending a Gymnasium or a uni track independent school or public school…

I see India and China missing from your rebuttal, that is close to half of the worlds population and likely more than 2/3rds of all students who go to college.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#573

Post by CamperBob2 »

throwanem wrote: post #521
CamperBob2 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do, it sounds like. Enlighten us.

I'm not claiming to know anything. I'm just asking that those who do make such claims be a little less gnomic in their commentary, so that the rest of us can evaluate whether or not you're talking nonsense.

TIL gnomic. Thanks!

And if I knew whether or not it was nonsense, I wouldn't have prefaced the post with "I don't know." I was just suggesting that proxiful-wash's downvoted post wasn't completely out of the question.

The priors are suspicious enough: might a country that attempted to get the world to believe that the US created the HIV virus [1], successfully influenced a razor's-edge Presidential election [2], and plotted to stir up domestic racial conflict [3] try to handicap the US by originating and propagating counterproductive educational ideologies? It's certainly believable, but there's no smoking gun.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/14/russian...

2: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-rus...

3: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russian-documents-reveal-...

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#575

Post by tootie »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240
wnc3141 wrote: post #46

A common phrase of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is at work here. Those held to lower standards will fall to lower standards, deprived of the resources and support to achieve. The article attached provides a fantastic explanation. https://www.educationnext.org/teachers-should-replace-the-so...

For those who think this is hyperbole, see [1] for a mathematician taking down the framework. California's new standards were written by folks without a background in math nor neuroscience. They misquote neuroscience papers [2] while making mathematical mistakes in their policy paper. [1] https://sites.google.com/view/publiccommentsonthecmf/?ref=st... [2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/17O123ENTxvZOjXTnOMNRDtHQAOj..…

I've gone around in a few circles thinking about this. My kids curriculum is really different from when I was a kid. They've almost completely dropped grammer, spelling and cursive writing. They're teaching a lot more problem solving techniques in math. Some of this surprised me, but some of it I realized was actually pretty great.

I think there's some really necessary attempts to go back to first principles on education. Some steps will be missteps but I'm really happy some people are willing to take some risky efforts. Do kids take math class because they need to learn math? "But teacher, I'll always have a calculator". Damn right. A calculator and Wikipedia and chatgpt. Remembering the quadratic equation is literally useless knowledge to retain. "More math" isn't an end goal to anything aside from the 0.01% who will pursue math as a career and keep the wiki pages up to date for the rest of us.

So what the hell should kids be learning? Good question. I'm not really sure but I'm open minded about the answer.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#576

Post by feggle »

whatwhaaaaat wrote: post #285
pwthornton wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell is "trans ideology?" This is just a nonsense sentence.

The ideology that it is possible for a human male to transition to a human female (or the inverse). Not everyone believes in this and that is ok. I choose to respect the wishes of adults around me for social cohesion. I draw the line when we’re talking about children.

Even worse, most people don't believe in it, the ones that do are typically just following a popular fad. Which is a truly awful reason to permanently disfigure the children and adults who have been caught up in this nonsense.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#577

Post by alephnerd »

fooker wrote: post #571
alephnerd wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most students in these countries don't end up college track. 1. College Matriculation rates are low. Only 36% of Germans aged 25-46 have attended Tertiary Education (University as well as Vocational School) [0]. This is a similar story in the UK and Canada as well. 2. In countries like Germany and UK, college track HS admissions are competitive. Attending a Gymnasium or a uni track independent school or public school…

I see India and China missing from your rebuttal, that is close to half of the worlds population and likely more than 2/3rds of all students who go to college.

Because for this conversation, I felt like talking about comparable first world countries and explaining the Chinese and Indian education system to a (fellow) American is annoying and tiring.

Points 1-3 are the same for India and China as well.

In China, Gaokao (college admissions exam) is only allowed to those who attend College Track high schools (Sr Secondary School).

To enter a Sr Secondary School (10-12) in China, you need to pass the Zhongkao, which is de facto limited to the top 40% scorers of the exam.

Zhongkao is not mandatory btw, and a number of (often rural or migrant) students end up failing to take the exam.

If you don't pass the Zhongkao, your options are either expensive private schools or going to a vocational school which will technically count as a tertiary program by giving a diploma and an extra year, but doesn't include as rigorous STEM classes as the Sr Secondary Schools.

This is similar to India as well, where Calculus isn't introduced in the CBSE or a number of State Board Exams. ICSE introduces Calculus at Grade 12, but ICSE is limited to elite private schools and elite/competitive public schools.

In both India and China, Tertiary education is low (it's difficult to get exact statistics as both countries have now begun obfuscating tertiary level with vocational programs). That said, given the Gaokao filtering, it probably doesn't exceed 30% in China, and India is most likely half of that given the 15-20 year head start China had on India.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#578

Post by rhaway84773 »

I really appreciate some of the comments in the blog post talking about how most people don’t need algebra or anything beyond basic maths for anything in their lives. How those people have done just fine without understanding anything beyond addition and subtraction.

It’s finally explained something I never really understood. How do so many people fall for pyramid schemes. How are there so many Americans that don’t understand the difference between their net worth and their credit limit.

If you haven’t built a basic intuition for abstraction, which one pretty much learns only through algebra in K-12, all these things will be extremely difficult for you.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#579

Post by guidoism »

bluescrn wrote: post #418
Workaccount2 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is going to upend everything about education. I can't imagine colleges doing much beyond lots of AI interviews in the near future. That's if there is even a point in getting 95% of degrees anymore anyway.

The internet should have transformed education. For curious self-learners it has, there’s incredible resources online for those who seek them out. But it hasn’t made much of a dent in ‘the education system’

Something I say to anyone who will listen is that we have lived through the moment in history when the cost to receive a world-class elite education has collapsed to near zero and hardly anybody has noticed. We still talk as if an official four year university education is the goal and bemoan the cost of it rising faster than general inflation and worry about taking on debt that will burden them for the rest of their lives and worry about our kids “getting in” to the university of their choice.

It has changed education. And people who have kids nearing college age, who have noticed, will be able to help them navigate this world in a much more useful way than people who tell their kids to take on as much debt as they can to go to any university they want.

The pipeline that fuels our decision making of what to focus on in primary/secondary school as it relates only to what will help them stand out in a college application and our decision making of what a university-level education means as it relates to getting a job is fascinating.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#580

Post by dumpsterdiver »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240
wnc3141 wrote: post #46

A common phrase of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is at work here. Those held to lower standards will fall to lower standards, deprived of the resources and support to achieve. The article attached provides a fantastic explanation. https://www.educationnext.org/teachers-should-replace-the-so...

For those who think this is hyperbole, see [1] for a mathematician taking down the framework. California's new standards were written by folks without a background in math nor neuroscience. They misquote neuroscience papers [2] while making mathematical mistakes in their policy paper. [1] https://sites.google.com/view/publiccommentsonthecmf/?ref=st... [2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/17O123ENTxvZOjXTnOMNRDtHQAOj..…

Oh my, I read your first link in its entirety and, "Yikes."

The Public comment #5 section regarding chapter 12 (which covers homework and assessments) was especially shocking.

Chapter 12 in the 2005 version of the CMF was 5 pages long. The same chapter in the current draft is 70 pages long, almost entirely due to a slew of opinions against homework and other testing practices.

The entire CMF draft was (and still is even after corrections) littered with improper citations that at times entirely contradict the opinion it's meant to support.

I find it the height of irony that a group of educators arguing against homework appear to have... not done their homework.

This brings to the forefront a concern I haven't seen mentioned much in this thread: let's put aside how such a policy might affect any particular student's performance in school... what kind of adults will this policy create?

Imo, policy like this will create adults who put in about as much effort into their work as the 20 people employed to oversee this iteration of the CMF. A single professor did their work for them, and even with his help they still haven't fixed it.

"Oh, you got an F on your assignment? No problem! Just turn it in again next week and I'll give you an A."

To be clear, the specific policy I just mentioned really is part of the document - allowing students to always redo work for a better grade.

That reinforces that idea that it's okay to do a half-ass job because you can always "fix it later". In the real world however, poor decisions can have devastating effects the very first time, and there might not be a chance for a "do-over".

Homework also normalizes the idea that things will be expected from you in this world if you are to be employed. It's not only about engaging with the material, it's also about practicing being a hard-working and fastidious human. Our grandparents might have said that doing homework "builds character", and I would agree with them.

Finally, the idea presented by the CMF draft that homework just isn't very useful is absolutely wrong. Case in point, piano practice. The only way to get better at playing the piano is to practice. The difference between someone who pokes around on the keyboard every blue moon and someone who practices daily is stark.

Some might argue that becoming proficient at playing a piano is inherently different than becoming proficient at math, to those folks I would ask: How is training muscle memory and engaging with new material so different between the two?

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