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Don't force your kids to do math

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Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#71

Post by ludicrousdispla »

jamesy0ung wrote: post #53

As someone who just finished school, I’m trying to figure out how to get genuinely interested in mathematics. I’ve never been particularly strong at it, yet I’m planning to enter a university program that demands a high level of math. The problem is, it’s hard to motivate myself to study math for its own sake. For example, I loved learning programming because it’s hands‑on—I can build something and immediately see th…

University is not a good place for learning mathematics as most of your math instructors there will be very good at math and very bad at teaching people that are not already very good at math.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#72

Post by Buttons840 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #66
WalterBright wrote: post #63

> Without realizing it, he was doing algebra. A friend of mine taught remedial math at UW to incoming freshmen. She would write: x + 2 = 5 on the blackboard and ask a student "what is the value of x?" The student would see the x, and immediately respond with x means algebra, algebra is hard, I cannot do algebra. So she started writing: _ + 2 = 5 and ask the student to fill in the blank. "Oh, it's 3!"

I’ve always found that an indictment of math education — and spent many, many hours discussing it. When teaching addition, workbooks commonly use a box, eg, “[ ] + 2 = 5” — and first graders have no conceptual problem with this. Somehow, we lose people by the time we’re trying to formalize the same concept in algebra. There’s been many times I’ve written a box around letters in a problem and asked students “what’s in…

Go from "[ ] + 2 = 5" to writing it "box + 2 = 5--what is box?". Then "b + 2 = 5--what is b?" then "x + 2 = 5--what is x?".

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#73

Post by notesinthefield »

Qem wrote: post #59
jamesy0ung wrote: post #53

As someone who just finished school, I’m trying to figure out how to get genuinely interested in mathematics. I’ve never been particularly strong at it, yet I’m planning to enter a university program that demands a high level of math. The problem is, it’s hard to motivate myself to study math for its own sake. For example, I loved learning programming because it’s hands‑on—I can build something and immediately see th…

Probability/Statistics is a good excuse to learn mathematics, because paying a little attention one finds lots of day-to-day situations where is possible to apply it. For example, see the secretary problem[1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

I wish I couldve excluded everything past basic algebra and hopped right to statistics at a young age - I *loved* everything about the practicality of it, how it explained tangible relationships and illuminated the world. Algebra and calculus were so un-engaging I had those teachers calling me everything but a stupid child.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#75

Post by grepLeigh »

I adored this post right up until:

> I have an internal KPI: if in the last three days I haven’t spent at least 30 minutes playing with my kid, there’s something seriously wrong

I think I'm interpreting this ungenerously, because my knee-jerk reaction was to wonder about who is handling the other 12+ waking hours a day.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#76

Post by necovek »

PostOnce wrote: post #27
twodave wrote: post #15

Another article where someone thinks being a parent means they understand all children. I have 4 kids, and 2 of them definitely would never do math, even basic math, for fun, ever. Their brains lack whatever pathways most people utilize to learn math, so I now have a 15 year old who has to work nearly as hard at arithmetic as she did when she first learned it. No amount of drilling, change of curriculum, buckling dow…

I as a child, a teen, and a young adult thought I hated math, I got bad grades and it bored me. I dropped out of school. I later went to college and took remedial algebra twice. Math in school was purposeless and rigid, a rote procedure to be followed by command because that's what kids have to do. Now, I have grown older, and my curiosity drove me to learn because I wanted to make things, machines and software and p…

With my kid in elementary school, I can see how math instruction is generally terrible: teachers rarely have any enthusiasm for teaching it. I only had one great math teacher (combining enthusiasm, skill and hard work) and I've been through special math programs (in high school and uni).

Again, it is a question of incentives: someone with enthusiasm for math would likely go with a higher paying job requiring higher level math.

Still, despite the crappy teachers, I was better than most to persevere at it until high school where I had the great teacher.

But this does not scale and we are losing kids to bad teachers: how can we fix this?

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#77

Post by sitkack »

chasely wrote: post #69
hahamaster wrote: post #43

I tell my kid that math is a language. You learn to speak it, just like you learn to speak any other language, slowly, by listening, understanding, speaking, intuitively recognizing patterns, rules and exceptions. When you start to become fluent you translate problems into math and solve them. At school they keep trying to make them memorize useful phrases, like a tourist that goes to Paris and learns how to say "whe…

> and learns how to say "where's the bathroom", "hello", "would you like to sleep with me", "thank you", "goodbye" Quite a story condensed into those five phrases.

For sale, condom, never worn

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#78

Post by ziofill »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #71
jamesy0ung wrote: post #53

As someone who just finished school, I’m trying to figure out how to get genuinely interested in mathematics. I’ve never been particularly strong at it, yet I’m planning to enter a university program that demands a high level of math. The problem is, it’s hard to motivate myself to study math for its own sake. For example, I loved learning programming because it’s hands‑on—I can build something and immediately see th…

University is not a good place for learning mathematics as most of your math instructors there will be very good at math and very bad at teaching people that are not already very good at math.

Sorry, no. Universities are great places to learn math. You’re misrepresenting the genuine passion for teaching that many university instructors have.

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#79

Post by sdrothrock »

grepLeigh wrote: post #75

I adored this post right up until: > I have an internal KPI: if in the last three days I haven’t spent at least 30 minutes playing with my kid, there’s something seriously wrong I think I'm interpreting this ungenerously, because my knee-jerk reaction was to wonder about who is handling the other 12+ waking hours a day.

I read this as remembering to set aside time specifically for play and not just for day-to-day parenting and discipline

Re: Don't force your kids to do math

#80

Post by sublinear »

Buttons840 wrote: post #72
zmgsabst wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found that an indictment of math education — and spent many, many hours discussing it. When teaching addition, workbooks commonly use a box, eg, “[ ] + 2 = 5” — and first graders have no conceptual problem with this. Somehow, we lose people by the time we’re trying to formalize the same concept in algebra. There’s been many times I’ve written a box around letters in a problem and asked students “what’s in…

Go from "[ ] + 2 = 5" to writing it "box + 2 = 5--what is box?". Then "b + 2 = 5--what is b?" then "x + 2 = 5--what is x?".

I agree. I think the actual problem is that the student is trying to comprehend what it means for anything to have mathematical value other than explicit numbers.

Numbers and letters are taught together, but not as symbols. Letters are taught with sounds and numbers are taught with counting. The notion of a symbol isn't really emphasized much.

I would explain it more like after

[ ] + 2 = 5

what happens if you need more than one box for a complicated problem? Teach the idea that saying box #3 is equivalent to assigning an arbitrary letter for whatever reason you want, but that people more familiar with math prefer letters because they stand in for words that describe what the number is for. You might want to use 'c' for the number of cats you're trying to figure out.

In a room of five animals two are dogs. How many cats?

a = 5, c = ?, d = 2

a = c + d

so... 5 = c + 2

what is c?

Light bulb goes off: "You can do that?" Yes, you can do whatever you want and it's not all about carrying the one or whatever other rote teaching they've been given. They can get creative and be engaged, and then you let them know that actually there are some conventions people like to use for what they're trying to do. They might even believe they've invented a new idea. At least they're having fun.

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