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American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

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Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#341

Post by leto_ii »

seer wrote: post #102
petre wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever wondered how it's possible that the same "stupid" Americans that don't learn integrals and group theory in highschool somehow manage just fine in university and later on in life? Most people will do just fine with basic math training because it's what you normally need later on in life. Most of my math training in the Eastern European school system has probably gone to waste. I only saw the point of a…

I think its not that it has to, its just more challenging and rewarding. I’ve read a lot about bulling and social problems in USA schools, but so almost none of that myself i Eastern Europe. I think the subjects where so hard that it forced kids to cooperate, smart kids where considered a resource that potential bullies didn’t like to harm, as they would help them in the future. Additionally there was this sense of ……

> I’ve read a lot about bulling and social problems in USA schools, but so almost none of that myself i Eastern Europe.

There was some bullying back when I was in school, but possibly less than in the US. However, I think this doesn't have much to do with the curriculum, but with social conditions.

In my case I was bullied in secondary school (by kids in my class) even though school was tough and I was easily part of what you would consider "valuable resources".

The result was that the bullies would copy their homework off of the kids that copied their homework from me and I still got into fights daily.

In highschool bullying disappeared completely, but that's because I went to a selective school (the equivalent of a US magnet hs) where everybody was academically oriented and also came from more stable social environments.

In less academically strong highschools there are a lot of nasty things taking place - students abusing eachother, teachers abusing students, students beating up teachers etc.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#342

Post by akho »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #63
bllguo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should I care about them? We should obviously care about improving education, for the good of society as a whole, for innovation, for pushing the economy forward, etc. It's dumbfounding that this would even be asked, I'm not sure anyone outside of America (i.e. no pervasive anti-intellectual culture) could conceive of a question like this > Why am I being forced to subsidize people that will just grow to resent…

Because taking geometry in 8th vs 9th vs 10th grade doesn’t really matter. And given we are otherwise doing just fine, I think stagnation is far more likely to come from somewhere else.

I’m sorry, could you give some context to non-Americans? What does “taking geometry” mean? My school had geometry as a subject in grades 7-11 (with 11 being the final year), were you expected to pack it all in one? How does that work?

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#343

Post by horsawlarway »

udev wrote: post #326

Lots of comments asking what is "Soviet/Russian Math" actually like, and how is it different. I was lucky to get an education in three systems (Soviet Math, Romanian Math School (influenced by both French and Soviet Math school), and finally in a world top 40 university in North America. I would summarize the Soviet/Russian Math/Physics approach like this: - understanding of the mechanism/intuition behind the equatio…

As an american who went through US-based curriculum in the 90s, this sounds FUCKING WONDERFUL.

Basically - it seems like the approach above treats math as a conceptual playground, where you should develop intuition and understanding.

Instead we seem to be going down the rote memorization route for most of our classes, where the goal was to apply an equation to some numbers and get the right answer, with little to no thought, and an emphasis on easy grading.

----

Our physics education seems quite similar, though - and I loved that.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#344

Post by skeletal88 »

guga42k wrote: post #334
sega_sai wrote: post #210

It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous, and is probably used as marketing tool nowadays by some schools abroad. I have graduated from one of the top physics/maths high schools in Russia, and yes we had great math education there, but that was an outlier. Outside a handful of schools the math education is pretty dismal. And even in the good math schools there are different ways of t…

>What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classes, where you can go and learn how to solve olympiad-type math problems and become more interested in maths And for people outside of big cities there were schools-by-correspondence famously running by Moscow State University for math and MIPT for math/physics. The setup was you were mailed a small booklet every mont…

I had that in Estonia as well, when I was in the gymnasium in 2002-03. I applied to the school for.. Exact sciences that was part of an university, for their informatics course. They sent me booklets with lessons and exercises and i sent my solutions, then received the next booklet with the results. I wasn't good at that, but it was interesting.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#345

Post by MysteriousJane »

I was glad to experience both methods and i can definitely conclude, that Russian/Soviet Math approach is much better! It gave me the boost to be ahead my Us and EU classmates, helped to adapt to my statistical class during my Bachelor's degree. Highly recommended for every parent to include several methodologies to their child's extra program.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#346

Post by leto_ii »

petre wrote: post #184
seer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its not that it has to, its just more challenging and rewarding. I’ve read a lot about bulling and social problems in USA schools, but so almost none of that myself i Eastern Europe. I think the subjects where so hard that it forced kids to cooperate, smart kids where considered a resource that potential bullies didn’t like to harm, as they would help them in the future. Additionally there was this sense of ……

> bulling and social problems in USA schools, but so almost none of that myself i Eastern Europe This has changed for the worse with capitalism and social inequality. We had some bullying back when I was a primary school student but it was physical bullying by higher graders towards younger students and it was mostly done outside the school. We had none of the psychological bullying that you see in the US and to a gr…

> This has changed for the worse with capitalism and social inequality.

An interesting perspective which I feel might be the actual core of the problem. I grew up after the Revolution, so I can't make a before/after comparison, but (as I mentioned in a different comment) I see a tight connection between how aggressive other students were and how bad their family situation was.

> Math for math's sake was never my thing. I only started to really like math in university when I saw its potential to solve real world problems.

Perfectly legitimate. Pushing hard math early on can actually put you off the subject forever. Some of us started liking it in university, but a lot of capable students decide it's just not for them. With a different approach many might have ended up understanding and maybe even loving it.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#347

Post by Spooky23 »

tamcap wrote: post #253
omginternets wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife went through the French "classe préparatoire" system and describes a similar degree of raw effort that was put into her studies (and in particular, mathematics). She talks about spending 10-12 hours a day either in class or studying at home, and I have to admit the amount of knowledge in that woman's head is absolutely astounding. Her education is elite in the same way that a sports team or military unit can…

As an immigrant in the US from Central Europe, I am blown away by how much time American children spend on extracurriculars vs academics (at least based on what I see around me). My extracurriculars in high school were maaaybe 5 hours a week. Some kids in the US spend 5 hours a day, every day. And don't get me started on varsity sports - that starts to resemble a job!

My 10-year old nephew plays on 6 different baseball teams. He literally plays more baseball games than my uncle did when he was a AA player :)

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#349

Post by BoxOfRain »

horsawlarway wrote: post #343
udev wrote: post #326

Lots of comments asking what is "Soviet/Russian Math" actually like, and how is it different. I was lucky to get an education in three systems (Soviet Math, Romanian Math School (influenced by both French and Soviet Math school), and finally in a world top 40 university in North America. I would summarize the Soviet/Russian Math/Physics approach like this: - understanding of the mechanism/intuition behind the equatio…

As an american who went through US-based curriculum in the 90s, this sounds FUCKING WONDERFUL . Basically - it seems like the approach above treats math as a conceptual playground, where you should develop intuition and understanding. Instead we seem to be going down the rote memorization route for most of our classes, where the goal was to apply an equation to some numbers and get the right answer, with little to no…

My British state education really did feel like "memorise just enough to jump through these arbitrary hoops which keep the government off our backs" sometimes. It's very exam-driven rather than learning for its own sake and apparently it's got even worse since schools started transitioning to academies and Gove's reforms took effect.

Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)

#350

Post by sologoub »

udev wrote: post #326

Lots of comments asking what is "Soviet/Russian Math" actually like, and how is it different. I was lucky to get an education in three systems (Soviet Math, Romanian Math School (influenced by both French and Soviet Math school), and finally in a world top 40 university in North America. I would summarize the Soviet/Russian Math/Physics approach like this: - understanding of the mechanism/intuition behind the equatio…

That’s very insightful - when I switched to US high school, the approach to math was baffling - everyone had programmable graphing calculators, whereas I wasn’t allowed any calculator at all, and took a lot longer to solve the most basic problems. Most questions were answered by the teacher as “it’s a formula, you follow it and memorize it” (which sounded ridiculous to me for the exact reasons above - I was taught to understand the basis first, then the applications).
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