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Proof you can do hard things

blog.nateliason.com

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Re: Proof you can do hard things

#301

Post by georgeyw »

l__l wrote: post #217
throwbadubadu wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't need to convince me ;), but I mean this is for the very average person who argues like "why do I need more math than adding two numbers"... and even just "allow you to reason over the structure of a problem you're interested in, while throwing away all the superfluous details" and "learning to do abstractions correctly" would not seem more approachable to them than the calculus description I gave above? imo. Is…

I honestly don't know. This might be a skill issue on my part (very much not an educator), but I think of it as a language for thinking about structural abstraction, so to me the question is akin to "is there a real-life problem that German relates to?"; I can certainly think of lots of problems that would be made much much easier by understanding the language (e.g., getting around Germany, i.e. noticing abstractions…

This text comes to mind: https://math.mit.edu/~dspivak/CT4S.pdf

I've only read pieces of it, but I think this moves in the right direction towards making category theory useful to day-to-day life in non-trivial ways.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#302

Post by arolihas »

paulcole wrote: post #288
robertlagrant wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to make out your actual point given it's couched in stereotype.

I don't think it's that hard. But if it is, then my point is that people absolutely do make the same complaint about any subject they don't like being told to learn. Tech bros (generally) don't like being told to learn about art. And non-tech bros (generally) don't like being told to learn math.

It can be hard to understand something when someone is more interested in being offended.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#303

Post by hirvi74 »

nborwankar wrote: post #290
DarkNova6 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> math reasoning really filter out people in a way nothing else does. Disagree. I say: Bad math teachers really filter out people in a way nothing else does. "Here is a list of rules which can be used in specific circumstances. I am not going to tell you why you would need them and the exam will feature several corner cases. Also, I will not provide any examples or detailed explanations because what would other peopl…

Very interesting tgat you mention bad math teachers. I agree. During my teaching assistant stint during graduate studies in applied and pure math, I had one student who was failing. Talking to her I learned that a math teacher in high school had made her feel very stupid - she stopped learning. This happens more often than is recognized especially to girls but not just to girls. I told her to come to office hours and…

> I like solving problems and I would just solve every problem in the book ploddingly and stubbornly.

Maybe that is all it takes to be a "gifted" math student?

Tangental:

I have always hated the term gifted. I will not deny there are some absolute phenoms out there in regards to any domain. Those individuals are few and far between and should be celebrated because of it. Maybe I am being semantical, but being "slightly better" does not make one gifted.

Learning a subject that is being taught to someone quicker than their peers does not make them gifted. Show me what they have created or discovered with their alleged "gift," and then we will see.

Von Neumann is not remembered because of how much quicker he learned math than others or how easy the subjects were for him. He is remembered for what he discovered and what he created -- that is what makes one truly gifted in my opinion.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#304

Post by jalapenos »

constantcrying wrote: post #179

I really despise all the "why you should care about math" takes. The question is never asked about any other school subject and only mathematics has to justify itself that way. I had to learn about categories of plants and animals, interpret 20th century literature, learn about events from a thousand years ago, I did presentations on the demographics of European countries, how certain chemicals react and much, much m…

Teachers of calculus should have to justify why people should learn it, given 99% of them will never use it, and could be taught something else challenging that they will use instead.

But the same does also apply, and get called out just as often, regarding the humanities, especially given 99% of people can fulfil their humanities interests for free and at their leisure and on their phone with Wikipedia.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#305

Post by constantcrying »

greatwave1 wrote: post #274
constantcrying wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The vast majority of people are not biologically incapable of making it through high-school level math, or even becoming a very capable mathematician with enough high-quality teaching and dedication. It was hard for me to accept, but I know that after many years of University math education there are things I will never be able to understand. I have had very good grades in my Masters, but I realized that I will neve…

> Do you think I really am in the ~50% of the population in terms of mathematical ability? I don't know nearly enough about your personal background to make any sort of judgement on to what extent your success up through university came from innate "mathematical ability" versus other factors. But I do know that making it through a Masters-level program makes you a very capable mathematician, even if were unable to st…

I am not a mathematician at all and I have never been. My contributions to mathematics are exactly zero.

But even if I were, why did the hundreds of people I studied with in school and university fail far more than I did. No, I didn't work especially hard and often times I was explaining things to other students, it weren't the teachers, we all had the same. It also wasn't motivation, I didn't need all that much to succeed. Was it just luck that I outperformed most people given the opportunity?

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#306

Post by robertlagrant »

arolihas wrote: post #302
paulcole wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that hard. But if it is, then my point is that people absolutely do make the same complaint about any subject they don't like being told to learn. Tech bros (generally) don't like being told to learn about art. And non-tech bros (generally) don't like being told to learn math.

It can be hard to understand something when someone is more interested in being offended.

Another stereotype. I'm not offended by people substituting lazy stereotypes for thinking. I just think it comes out badly when they try and articulate points.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#307

Post by Dwelve »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #186
constantcrying wrote: post #179

I really despise all the "why you should care about math" takes. The question is never asked about any other school subject and only mathematics has to justify itself that way. I had to learn about categories of plants and animals, interpret 20th century literature, learn about events from a thousand years ago, I did presentations on the demographics of European countries, how certain chemicals react and much, much m…

That's because math is harder for most people. There is no difference between learning a name in history or in biology, or some workflow. But math reasoning really filters out people in a way nothing else does. All other topics just require memory and basic reasoning. Even physics mostly is hard because of math. And philosophy, mostly because of jargon and references. Otherwise, if you break it down, it's not that co…

Can you elaborate how you and your brother compare in sports?

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#308

Post by thenerdhead »

There’s a difference of having to do and wanting to do hard things.

Most people pass a class because they have to for their degree.

Most people raise a child while being sleep deprived because they frankly have to.

When people want to do something, they don’t need to prove to themselves that they can do hard things because difficulty hardly matters to one with their mind set on something. For example anyone who decides to run a marathon one day.

Instead for the things you have to do, one could reframe the “have to” with a “get to”. Gratitude is empowering. Not everyone gets to go to college. Not everyone gets the opportunity of being a parent. Etc.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#309

Post by hnfong »

igorzij wrote: post #242

I always felt like linking education to direct use of the knowledge is missing the point. It is irrelevant whether or not you'll need the knowlege you learned in school or at uni. What matters is your learnability, and that's the muscle you train with education. Learning smth just to use it to get paid for it is the lowest form of learning; the whole point is to acquire ability to learn whatever quickly so that you c…

You can choose which subjects to study in university, or even whether to spend time to get a degree. So it's optional. And these days, university departments that don't actually do something gets its funding slashed, so in that sense market forces are working well.

It's a different story for education up to high school. School is pretty much mandatory these days, and basically everyone has to go through it. It's a worthy question to ask why learn X instead of Y, if X has little real application? Why glorify those who can do maths well, as opposed to those who can best remember the names of Pokemon? Or those who can play LoL the best?

Who defines which areas of knowledge counts as "education", and which areas are frivolous trivia?

In the case of maths, the mere fact that it has tonnes of applications in many technical subjects is sufficient justification for me, but if you reject that line of reasoning, I'm not sure you can convince me (or anyone with critical thinking) that it's more worthy to pursue knowledge in maths than knowledge in "Pokemon studies".

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#310

Post by hnfong »

abtinf wrote: post #2

The reason to learn calculus is because, as soon as you grasp it, you will start to see it everywhere.

Once you get obsessed with something, you'll see it everywhere. For you, that's calculus.

And no I'm not kidding, a couple years ago when I was studying distributed systems, I saw the CAP theorem everywhere. Why isn't distributed systems part of the high school curriculum? It's used in basically ALL computing devices (before cloud computing, distributed system theories were applied in multicore systems...)

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