My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017)

#21

Post by BJBBB » Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

I oft wonder about my unique high school education of the early 1970s - a South Texas public school with a mix of working and professional class families. High percentage of hispanic and black, very few asians. History teachers that did not just teach dates and places but discussed causes and effects. Math teachers that did teach sterile rote methods. Science teachers that taught the future (both my chemistry and physics teachers emphasized the coming wave of computational power). Shop and automotive teachers that taught critical thinking and creative problem solving. Over 20% of my senior class took calculus. English teachers that taught us to read for meaning and to analyze literature and discussed stuff such as Stranger in a Strange Land. Almost half went to college and about 40% received scholarships.

The 21st century of public education does not seem capable of providing this experience. What the heck happened? Or was this a unique, one-time period?

Re: My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017)

#22

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

Avamander wrote: post #20

browningstreet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried the new math? The challenge is not a matter of the math, it’s a matter of formatting components of the answer in boxes. Without exposure to it, it’s nearly impossible to decipher. Which felt like half the point when I was doing it with my son.

Have you tried Haskell? The challenge is not a matter of the programming, it’s a matter of formatting components of the answer in boxes. Without exposure to it, it’s nearly impossible to decipher. Which felt like half the point when I was doing it with my son. Have you considered that different approaches to the same problem might indeed feel alien to you due to your lack of exposure, but aren't really that different…

I know dozens of ways to think about multiplication and division problems. However when the math question says "Solve this multiplication problem by making a landmark number" I'm kind of lost. I can guess what they mean, but it is often something that would be marked wrong.

Similarly I've seen Array questions marked wrong because they curriculum defines which order (row, column) lines up with the multiplicands and the student has them reversed...

Re: My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017)

#23

Post by jimmygrapes » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

BJBBB wrote: post #21

I oft wonder about my unique high school education of the early 1970s - a South Texas public school with a mix of working and professional class families. High percentage of hispanic and black, very few asians. History teachers that did not just teach dates and places but discussed causes and effects. Math teachers that did teach sterile rote methods. Science teachers that taught the future (both my chemistry and phy…

What happened was the explosion of "critical pedagogy"

Re: My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017)

#24

Post by hakfoo » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #10

browningstreet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried the new math? The challenge is not a matter of the math, it’s a matter of formatting components of the answer in boxes. Without exposure to it, it’s nearly impossible to decipher. Which felt like half the point when I was doing it with my son.

I understand the vitriol pointed at the “new math”, but it seems to me the complaints always focus towards “I got the right answer, why was I not rewarded?”. For it’s flaws, its seems these new programs are more focused on teaching kids how to reason, and as a result ask them to follow the process instead of simply arrive at the answer.

That sounds like a nice idea, but the problem is that there are many different ways to reason about most math problems.

If a curriculum is badly designed, it's going to dump one model on the students, and that's going to come to the detriment of some of them. Maybe you already learned your multiplication tables, and sitting around and drawing a 5x6 grid and counting the squares is going to frustrate and annoy. It's almost certainly going to drive parents wild, because they won't be raised with the jargon and rules, leaving them unable to help.

There's also the risk that any new material is poorly debugged or documented. When it's just about "a single right answer", we probably can get consensus that 5x6=30. But if we try to grade the reasoning tools used to get there, those are often not as universally standardized. One kid draws his 5x6 grid horizontally, and one draws it vertically. The teachers and grading rubrics have to have enough understanding and flexibility to recognize they're equivalent. In the worst case, you end up distracting students from the actual concepts by weighing them down with a bunch of unrelated rules unique to the teaching system.

I recall taking a maths class once which basically covered the same problems several times over, each time using a different model to solve them. I could see a case for a course like that. But that was a 400-level elective college course, so there's probably different constraints and expectations than when you're trying to teach 4th grade students multiplication.

The other worry I have is that we're doing a lot of window-dressing in the name of reducing "math anxiety". Every few years they try to dress up math concepts in a new way in the hopes students will find them less intimidating. Why does this seem to be unique to math? There seems to be no rush to replace Shakespeare in the schools with something students can more easily reason about.

Re: My Kids Are Straight-A Students and They Know Nothing (2017)

#25

Post by rramadass » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 10:35 AM UTC

BJBBB wrote: post #21

I oft wonder about my unique high school education of the early 1970s - a South Texas public school with a mix of working and professional class families. High percentage of hispanic and black, very few asians. History teachers that did not just teach dates and places but discussed causes and effects. Math teachers that did teach sterile rote methods. Science teachers that taught the future (both my chemistry and phy…

>Or was this a unique, one-time period?

Yes! The post WWII generation is what built the USA into the powerhouse it is today. There were two critical factors; 1) WWII left all of the competition in ruins 2) The "Cold War" forced the policymakers to focus on STEM education.

With success came hubris; the US has forgotten the factors which made it great and has lost itself in a miasma of Entertainment/Corruption/Finance/Management. It seems the "immigrants" are who are keeping the US flag flying high. I sincerely hope the US education system reforms itself and rediscovers its "lost" glory.