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

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#131

Post by hguant » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:48 AM UTC

twothamendment wrote: post #122

ecshafer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution to the education attitude issue in the us, which is very real: pay the families that perform best in school districts. Take the top grades on each years final tests and give the family money. The entire society will change overnight, as people will suddenly be asking kids why they aren’t studying.

My son struggled to read when he was young. Over the summer we set a goal and attached a payout to it. Yes, I bribed my son to read. The problem is now I can't get him to stop. Money talks.

My math teacher in 6th grade had a conversation with my parents that essentially went "he's not going to learn algebra from the Hobbit, but I feel bad telling him not to read"

There are worse problems to have!

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#132

Post by tnecniv » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:51 AM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #26

wiseleo wrote: post #4

Data Science is a form of statistics. Algebra II is a pre-requisite for statistics. How is replacing a pre-requisite with a more advanced class is a good idea?

How is data science not just statistics, rebranded? When I studied statistics in university we studied clustering, regression, hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, visualisations, charting, general linear models... how is this different from data science? Is it just because we have more computing power, so we rebranded it? Instead of doing frequentist analyses because those are easy to do with smaller computers,…

I’ve periodically looked into it the differences and mostly it seems to come down to priorities. Statistics prioritizes mathematical rigor all the way through the process from collection to analysis. ML / Data science has more algorithmic concerns. Even the theoretical aspects of the two fields emphasize that distinction.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#133

Post by loandbehold » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:52 AM UTC

Solvency wrote: post #120

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Texas in the 90s the math courses were: algebra, geometry, algebra II, precalculus and trigonometry, and calculus.

Learning trigonometry so late makes zero sense. It should go geometry, trigonometry, then algebra, and so on.

you can't do that much trig without knowing basic algebra.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#134

Post by sidlls » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:53 AM UTC

AvocadoPanic wrote: post #27

sidlls wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been absolutely enraged at the approach to mathematics instruction my children (who have just finished 2nd and 5th grade) have had to-date. It is an absolutely mind-bogglingly inflexible system that seems designed to frustrate anyone gifted enough genetically or fortunate enough environmentally (e.g. parental/mentor instruction) to be beyond the concepts taught at a given level.

Did yours read any assigned novels in school in the 4th grade? Ours didn't, they don't do that anymore. Not much writing either, because so much is online. My wife is homeschooling next year.

No my oldest’s school didn’t require that. I don’t recall that either, but I was in 4th grade in the mid-80s so my recollection may be off.

They do a fair bit of writing, but not as rigorous as what I had in 5th grade. We had to write legit 5-paragraph essays and reports (I remember this because I struggled with it), and my son’s longest compositions were only required to be 1- or 2-paragraph blurbs in a composition book.

It seems like they took the bottom 40% of learners as the baseline for their implementation of Common Core. If anything they should have at least taken the middle 40%, since that brackets the mean in a normal distribution.

But what do I know. I just have a PhD in physics and have forgotten more math and statistics than they ever learned, and don’t make use of those ridiculous algorithmic tricks they teach and force kids to use, instead of fundamentals.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#135

Post by oefrha » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:55 AM UTC

wiseleo wrote: post #4

Data Science is a form of statistics. Algebra II is a pre-requisite for statistics. How is replacing a pre-requisite with a more advanced class is a good idea?

It’s “data science” only in name. (Btw I hate the term data science; most practitioners of this profession practice pseudoscientific bullshit or worse.) From TFA:

> The core issue of the CMF’s “data science” section is that it claims to be discussing data science while it is actually discussing data literacy.

> ...

> The CMF is replete with statements like “high-school data-science class students can learn to clean data sets – removing any data that is incorrect, corrupted, incorrectly formatted, duplicated, or incorrect in some other way [...] High school students can also learn to download and upload data, and develop the more sophisticated “data moves” that are important to learn if students are tackling real data sets.''

It’s more of an Excel class with some basic math sprinkled in.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#136

Post by electriclove » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 4:57 AM UTC

Great article! Though the author despises phrases like Woke Math, his description of the failings of the California Math Framework is exactly what critics are referring to when using phrases like Woke Math.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#137

Post by oceanghost » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 5:00 AM UTC

I am just confronting this now. My daughter is 6, and I'm trying to teach her math and reading. She's excelling at reading. The thing about math is, I have to teach her math the way the standards specify. The problem is…

The common core math is just strange. I find it confusing, and I did a full tour at an engineering college.

Math is a “procedure”. That's why programs like MatLab/MathCad can solve equations-- they just have a set of rules that solve problems. Learning math is the process of internalizing these rules.

The common core stuff seems to be the opposite of this. I want to build with my daughter a set of skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, exponents etc, eventually moving on to trig, linear algebra and calc) she can build on. But common core hopelessly confuses even simple things like adition.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#138

Post by electriclove » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 5:00 AM UTC

goolulusaurs wrote: post #25

In my younger years, particularly during my schooling, I held a deep resentment towards the educational system. It felt overtly clear to me, as a student, that schools failed to effectively foster learning and growth. However, my perspective has evolved over time. I've come to understand that the issues I observed are not unique to the school system but rather characteristic of large institutions as a whole. The perv…

These institutions cannot be reformed in a reasonable amount of time. The alternative has to come from elsewhere. People need a viable alternative so they can 'exit' similar to how Uber changed the taxi industry.

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#139

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 5:02 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #94

ordersofmag wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer any evidence or reasoning as to why I should believe this? It would seem to assert that somehow student success/failure currently sits entirely in the hands of teachers: they know what is needed and could do it if only they were marginally more motivated. I'm not a teacher myself but have been involved in the system my entire life and this doesn't ring true at all. Even if it were possible it would almo…

It works everywhere in the private sector. Having a base salary plus incentive pay for meeting objective goals is commonplace. Companies wouldn't do that if it didn't work. In my own company, Zortech, the staff was paid a base rate plus a cut of the gross sales for the month. > it would almost certainly result in teachers focusing all of their efforts on the best students and none of it on those who are struggling Ac…

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

Re: California needs real math education, not gimmicks

#140

Post by bandrami » Sun, Jul 09, 2023, 5:03 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #82

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…

The one solution that will work (and is vehemently resisted) is to pay teachers a base salary plus a bonus for each student that meets grade level expectations at the end of the year.

I find it weird the intensity with which people believe that teachers rather than students are the bottleneck here. If you want to add an incentive it makes much more sense to incent the students to do well.