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What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

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Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#151

Post by HaZeust »

nicbou wrote: post #89
NiloCK wrote: post #48

> “Who is going to trust somebody who got a degree in airline engineering who doesn’t know how to think through a problem without a computer telling them the answer?” Years ago when I was working in education (Canadian public schools) our school board had a conference ahead of the school year. The keynote was an inclusive-ed researcher / consultant / speaker who told an anecdote of how they had successfully lobbied f…

To be fair no one ever takes a moment to show you what the math is useful for. You're just expected to learn it because it's said to be important.

Completely fair point. If I knew the importance of buying a house and how in reach it's always been for me with FHA loans, perhaps I would have taken budgeting classes more seriously. If I knew about the option of putting in some sweat equity for a new DIY kitchen countertop in that house I'd eventually come to buy, perhaps I would have paid more attention to the Pythagorean theorem to know how to cut the corner-piece. So on, and so forth.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#152

Post by Meekro »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #115
nicbou wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair no one ever takes a moment to show you what the math is useful for. You're just expected to learn it because it's said to be important.

I'm not sure why this is down-voted. Nearly every single teacher I had from elementary though high school, when asked what was the usefulness of the math lesson, said that we would need it when we got to the next level of education. Elementary teachers said we would need it in middle school. Middle school teachers said we would need it in high school. High school teachers said we would need it in college. By college…

I think the GP post might have been downvoted because "what the math is useful for" frames it in the wrong way, making it sound like every lesson needs to be immediately applicable to your everyday life. An honest answer might be "this lesson in fractions is one step on a difficult 15-year journey that culminates in a junior developer position at OpenAI," but most 10-year-olds aren't ready for that conversation, so "just trust me, bro" might be the best we can do at that point.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#153

Post by Meekro »

ajross wrote: post #3

Embarassing Occam's failure in the lede: > For the past several years, America has been using its young people as lab rats in a sweeping, if not exactly thought-out, education experiment. Good grief. No, it's just the pandemic. The kids whose middle school years got disrupted are behind on skills taught in middle school. Can you squint and blame other things? Sure. But experimental education policies are hardly new i…

COVID was a problem, but other systemic problems allowed the lack of math skill to go unnoticed until the kids showed up to college. This article[1] discusses how high school teachers were subject to political pressure, forcing them to give A's to students in a Calculus class who barely knew fractions. Combine that with UCSD dropping SAT requirements, and you've got a horrible mess.

If the rest of the system was functioning properly, the COVID-related problems would have been caught early when those kids started failing their high school math classes-- which would have left them with plenty of time to go back and learn what they missed. And if UCSD still required the SAT, it would have been painfully obvious that they were admitting students who don't know basic math.

[1] https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-grades-stop-meaning-an...

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#154

Post by xboxnolifes »

Meekro wrote: post #152
xboxnolifes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is down-voted. Nearly every single teacher I had from elementary though high school, when asked what was the usefulness of the math lesson, said that we would need it when we got to the next level of education. Elementary teachers said we would need it in middle school. Middle school teachers said we would need it in high school. High school teachers said we would need it in college. By college…

I think the GP post might have been downvoted because "what the math is useful for" frames it in the wrong way, making it sound like every lesson needs to be immediately applicable to your everyday life. An honest answer might be "this lesson in fractions is one step on a difficult 15-year journey that culminates in a junior developer position at OpenAI," but most 10-year-olds aren't ready for that conversation, so "…

That doesn't sound like it's framed in the wrong way. It sounds like people don't have a good answer for it, get frustrated, and fall back on a "because I said so" answer.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#155

Post by tsoukase »

Math is the most abstract logical way of human thinking. On the other side pure art is totally on the other side. If you are an artist or similar, you don't need math. If you are a STEM professional, definitely. In between (eg health care, management, politics) it is desirable but not necessary. That simple.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#156

Post by mna_ »

triceratops wrote: post #97
nicbou wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair no one ever takes a moment to show you what the math is useful for. You're just expected to learn it because it's said to be important.

Word. I got taught matrix multiplication in high school without any context. "Here's a grid of numbers kid. Go do some elementary school arithmetic on all of them. No it's not Sudoku I promise". If only I'd know how important matrix multiplication would turn out to be...

Funny thing is you can use Linear Algebra to solve Sudoku puzzles.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#157

Post by sevensor »

vacuity wrote: post #135
sevensor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a shame other commenters are so busy waging culture war that this explanation is being minimized and dismissed. I’m married to a high school teacher, and not only is there a super obvious cohort that spent 8th-9th grade playing Fortnite instead of learning algebra, their successors are doing a lot better. Sure, the current cohort of college students needs remedial math. Let’s acknowledge the cause, offer them re…

Grade inflation seems to be the main long-term culprit. Lowered standards mean that any student that isn't incentivized for some other reason to learn math simply won't learn. I'm less enamored with the other explanations, such as technology distractions or relying on AI, but they probably play a small part too. You and GP seem very sure that, if the pandemic didn't happen, the decline in math skills wouldn't be happ…

What I’m saying is that the decline in math skills isn’t as obvious as you’re making out. The post COVID cohorts currently in high school are doing a lot better than the ones who are currently sophomores in college did. Anecdotally anyway, sample size one high school.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#158

Post by NickC25 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #137
NickC25 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically enough, they just got a Pentagon contract for 6th generation fighters.

That's because Boeing is now a defense contractor that also happens to make commercial aircraft. Which is why being located in DC is important.

They've been a defense contractor for decades...

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#159

Post by ajross »

vacuity wrote: post #144
ajross wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Grade inflation seems to be the main long-term culprit Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you? Like I'm trying to point out, if you take the pandemic shock out of the data set, there really isn't much to argue about here. US aggregate education results have never been great internationally, but haven't ever been moving particularly fast either and seem not to have been before the pandem…

I can't honestly call myself "anti-woke", nor can I honestly call myself "woke". What a pain. Harping on about either one makes for a dull comment. If anything, I'd probably be considered "woke" by ideological proximity. > Is it though, or is that just what your ideological sense tells you? What aside from grade inflation explains why those students in the UCSD report had high grades but had to take remedial math cla…

> A slow-moving train wreck is still a train wreck.

It's. Not. A. Train. Wreck.

There is a high signal NOW, due (very obviously) to a well-understood and well-characterized effect visible up and down social metrics in all societies where they have been measured.

What I'm saying is that pretending to ignore this very obvious hypothesis in order to push a personal theory about "grade inflation" or whatever and demanding the rest of us freak out about the implied "train wreck" is just bad logic.

Usually that kind of argument is the result of ideological bent, not considered thought.

Re: What happens when even college students can't do math anymore?

#160

Post by red-iron-pine »

ponector wrote: post #121
satisfice wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there degrees in “airline engineering?”

A degree from Ryanair university with major in how to screw your customers while keeping flights fully booked.

there are definitely accountants with a lot of number skills working hard on screwing flights up -- unironically lots of math in those fields. mostly excel-based tho.
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