Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity • Hacker News Board

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#771

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:18 PM UTC

cobbaut wrote: post #440

djbusby wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start at 10am, go till 4pm?

European here, I went to school from 8:20 till 16:05. You guys really have school starting at 10:00? Who takes care of the kids after parents go to work and before school starts?

For primary and secondary school, the hours can vary (because generally the school districts need to share public buses) but it's generally 8-15, or 7 hours of school with an cumulative hour of recess.

For secondary school you can elect to have early and late classes or simply opt out of a period if you have the curriculum met. but I've never heard of a student starting later than 9.

>Who takes care of the kids after parents go to work and before school starts?

that's generally why primary students start earlier than secondary students. By high school it's no big deal if the student is by themselves getting ready to leave at 8:30 if the parents need to take off at 8.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#772

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

gerad wrote: post #542

jdale27 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No; the comment you replied to sounded like a suggestion, not a description of reality. In the US, it's common for schools to start at 8:00 or even 7:30. Recently there has been a push to start later to give kids more time to sleep. So pushing it back to say 8:30 or 9:00 (but not shortening the day, so basically everything just gets pushed back, and the kids stay up later, and need more time to sleep...).

Yeah school starts between 7 and 9am, but we still have the problem on the other side in the US, schools end between 1:30 and 4pm (at least here in CA). Figuring out after care is an exercise left to the reader. It’s completely ridiculous, especially considering how sane many (most?) countries in the rest of the world have it.

It's another problem that wasn't one in a time where a single income household could maintain a nuclear family. But like most child care, it's adapted horribly and the costs have skyrocketed.

Granted, even if they were on 2 income households in the 70's, it was also a time where 10YO's were trusted to get home or even walk home unattended, so it'd only be an issue for the youngest primary students. That may still be the case in some Asian countries today, but certainly not in the US.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#773

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:34 PM UTC

bamfly wrote: post #516

ghaff wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to keep my attention for almost 8 hours. And generally a lot less and that's with coffee and generally being able to get up and stretch my legs. And, while the situation is much different, I've become a fan of shorter presentations, meetings, etc. ADDED: I often think I couldn't handle high school today.

Looking back on high school, no wonder I was so damn bad at it and hated it so much. And depressed all the time. And probably picked up SAD that took me a decade beyond it to shake. I'd quit a job as soon as I could find another, if it demanded of me what high school did. Hell, I'd quit based on the consistent 10+ hour days and constant due-tomorrow deadlines, let alone the rest of it like the before-the-sun's-up sta…

High school's only benefit is a pseudo-forced social climate and not needing to compete for classes like you're buying concert tickets (the number of classes I was waitlisted for despite signing up the day of...).

Everything else is much worse for how I think. I don't get to choose how to time my schedule, the curriculum is mostly fixed (you would always have math/english/history, some language for 3/4 years. You only choose an elective and maybe 1 year of science) and homework tended to stack up constantly because every class was 1 hour M-F. And yea, as you mentioned it's absurd having 1 day due homework spring up when you may or may not be preparing for some other project, or test, or even competition.

You also were much more pressured against taking time to yourself. You can skip a class or take a sick day in "the real world" if you need a break or emergencies come up. those "perfect attendence" rewards were the worst grift of the education system.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#774

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

DropInIn wrote: post #707

MostlyStable wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lengthen the school _year_ sure, but I'm skeptical that lengthening the school _day_ won't have, at best, mixed effects, especially given all the studies on sleep etc.

Even better idea: Kids just work at thier own pace and don't graduate until they complete all work successfully. Anything else is just a diploma mill.

If school wasn't also an important social benchmark that would make sense. But as it is, there is some benefit to setting a pace.

I do agree that we should encourage students to self pace themselves. Another aspect of school I had to de-program myself on: it's OKAY to repeat courses you are struggling on. Expensive, yes, but sometimes coming in a 2nd time gives you the perspective to start focus on the subtleties while you were struggling with the high level details the first time.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#775

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

sfn42 wrote: post #751

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as summer resets their brains, they suddenly have large gaps in knowledge that slow next year's learning. One loves to say that summer vacations are long so that pupils have time to fill the gaps for the next school year. If they don't use this time (or their parents don't urge them to), it is their problem.

Nobody's spending their vacation studying if they can avoid it.

>if they can avoid it.

meanwhile, my parent put me in summer school almost every year in some capacity. At least summer hours and classes are relaxed compared to the gauntlet of 6-7 different subjects 8 hours a day.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#776

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 11:01 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #744

throwanem wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're putting "plotted to" and "successfully" to a lot of work here, on behalf of claims your sources appear at great pains not to make or even imply. You seem to take this whole concept very seriously, so maybe you can help me understand why. Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems, what endgame do you see that actually improves our situation? What specific and relevant cha…

Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems Translation: "A good-faith discussion is not going to happen, so let's hit the mud and see how dirty we can get." I don't think so. Only one of us would enjoy it.

>A good-faith discussion is not going to happen

Historically speaking on western social media, making a bold claim on something as generic as American primary education being influenced by foreign powers without any real evidence does tend to go down conspiracy territory. Most conpiracy theories aren't made in good faith, no.

Also isn't particularly good faith to respond with ad-hominem when asked to prove claims, which tends to happen with conspiracy that has little/no firm evidence attached.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#777

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #580

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

>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".

I feel that's a much more philosophical POV than you let on. But let's digress from that argument of redemption and reparations for now.

While there are certainly some careers where you don't get do-overs, I see the other extreme happening more with the current state of mind; they realize that they are out of time, feel like they can't extend deadlines, so they just say "fuck it", throw out some sloppily put together report or attend a meeting without the knowledge necessary, take their D in stride and move on.

You can't always delay in life either, but I think as a society we at least shouldn't shame when certain non-mission critical aspects of work need more time to cook (be it in the project or the people involved).

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#778

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 11:19 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #776

CamperBob2 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of the idea that Russians are responsible for all of America's worst problems Translation: "A good-faith discussion is not going to happen, so let's hit the mud and see how dirty we can get." I don't think so. Only one of us would enjoy it.

>A good-faith discussion is not going to happen Historically speaking on western social media, making a bold claim on something as generic as American primary education being influenced by foreign powers without any real evidence does tend to go down conspiracy territory. Most conpiracy theories aren't made in good faith, no. Also isn't particularly good faith to respond with ad-hominem when asked to prove claims, wh…

[deleted]

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#779

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 11:21 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #575

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 educa…

>"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.

I feel like that's the point of primary education. It's a sample board of various topics and subjects to help you figure out what you like. I sure as hell wouldn't be in my career if I wasn't forced to struggle on the quadratic formula for years on end. Meanwhile, I'm sure some bio/chem high schoolers could run circles around me for how much of that I retained. It depends on the student.

>So what the hell should kids be learning?

we'll certainly never come to a consensus, but I think the primary 4 subjects taught are a fine enough base. You should understand basic arithmetic and how to speak your country's native language. You should have some underlying basis of science and how to approach experimenting as well as an understanding of the history of your country and a general world history. so general K-8 education feels fine.

it's secondary education that has you really go out in the weeds. If I could choose classes there the way I could choose in college, I'm not sure if I would have given my self 4 years of english and history, nor bothered with further biology and chemistry. Hell, the 1 quarter of english and bio/chem I was forced to take in college felt like too much (I remember literally nothing about those classes). Things by high school become less strictly defined in my eyes.

Re: Refusing to teach kids math will not improve equity

#780

Post by RecycledEle » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 11:24 PM UTC

DropInIn wrote: post #706

RecycledEle wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of equity a society enforces should be inversely proportional to age. If a kindergartener is unable to succeed, we need to give them extra help. If a 45 year old is unable to succeed, they had their chances and it's their fault.

It's thier fault if we never gave the support in K-12? You do see the glaring failure in your "reasoning", right?

I agree with you that I was wrong to say "It's their fault." There are people who get screwed by life.

The main way they got screwed was when life taught them whining was better than working hard. We need to stop screwing people that way. We need to hold a hard line on the principle that they can succeed or fail in a free market, and we will not reward whining. This means eliminating all entitlements for adults.

I'll help kids learn to be successful adult. I'm a teacher, that's what I do. Let the kids and their families pick their schools from any school they can get to, including online schools.

I will not help some whiny adult who can not even train themselves when they have Internet access.

If you give money to whiny adults, who do you take it from? Do you take it from long-term investments in education? Do you take it from long term investments in our economy like paying off our national debt? Our (US) national debt eliminates many options we would otherwise have. It is more compassionate to provide the best education we can to the children, and let the adults pay for themselves.

Long-term benefits should outweigh short-term benefits. A society that educates and raises its children to be productive, the provides a free market will outperform a society that rewards whining.