It is not Russian but 'Soviets math'. Ironically, Russia introduced analogy of USA's standardized right after Itina emigrated from Russia and now Russian's math is also optimized for memorizing but not for 'emphasizing reasoning and deeper understanding'
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)
#42See here for an account of Russian-style ‘math circles’ for young children:
https://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#43If the article is accurate, one Japanese equivalent of this, known as Kumon, is almost its polar opposite -- remembering my own experiences with it as a kid, it was very much about rote memorisation and doing the same sheet of arithmetic as quickly as possible. One of the exercises Kumon made kids do at the age of 5 is to simply place shuffled magnets with the numbers 1 to 100 in order on a 10x10 board. I can't say t…
So you're saying you're in the cohort that was kumon-schooled and ended up loving math.
Correct, but it was despite Kumon, not because of it.
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#44My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…
My experience in my home country of Romania was similar to yours, however my conclusions couldn't be more different.
> American schools are too soft on science in general. [...]The Albanian school was brutal in teaching science
How on earth is brutality in teaching a good idea? What was the effect of this approach on the average Albanian or Romanian student? Sure it worked fine for a few of us, but overall the results are disastrous, just take a look at the PISA rankings.
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?
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#45Does anyone know where to find translated Russian math textbooks?
Kolmogorov - Fomin: Introductory Real Analysis. Not for school kids though.
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#46My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…
> It is bound to hurt poorer but smart kids, that can't afford private tutoring and have to rely only on public schools Why should I care about them? The internet exists. Let them learn on their own if they’re so interested. Why am I being forced to subsidize people that will just grow to resent me as a leech on society due to my “inferior mathematical ability” as you surely do? Poverty is a far bigger problem than s…
Imagine not wanting to live in a country of smarter people in the future just because it costs more taxes now
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#47This is the video by the daughter of the founder of the Russian School of Math. We sent our son there over the summer, he enjoyed it and all the kids were pretty advanced in the class. California seems to want to hold everyone back in the name of equity. But that will force more people into the private school system, which is exactly what we did. I don’t trust the California government to have my children’s best interest at heart, I think they want to hamstring them in the name of equity.
https://www.ted.com/talks/masha_gershman_how_math_can_prepar...
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you share what did you do with the students that could not do algebra physics and chemistry in junior high? I’ve always thought yours was the right way. There are some students which will do the minimal but will manage if challenged. Seems the equitable way leaves them behind.
Since it was a communist country, everyone had the same conditions (crappy), and everyone had the same fricking clothes (only two clothing factories on the whole country), and same teachers (and no private schooling allowed), and we had the same books, and no calculators. And it is clear, if all conditions are equal, still people are not born equal. Some kids are just smarter than others, and some are just dummies, o…
T.b.h. as somebody from ost-block country, I did hate the cast-system based on the performance. In my school we had a class that selected for the worst students, and surprise, it created a class where so many people failed.
I was in class that had an even mix, some really smart kids, some not so much, and some comparable to the worst of the D-class. Like third of the of my classmates went for the sports-focused high-school, because they were decent at basketball and bad at almost everything else. But nobody was failing.
Like, A-class should have been the top students, B and C middling, and D poor. In reality, A was ordinary, B and C contained the best and the average and D was a failure.
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#49My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…
Why is dumbing down science teaching the fault of extreme progressive left and not, say, reduced education funding, favouring religious teaching, or even more likely, nuanced policy difficulties that don't fit nicely into a left/right divide?
Take New York City (which I'm familiar with, but it's likely the story is similar in many other places):
- each public school has the same budget per student. There is no "reduced education funding" for schools in district X vs district Y, or for any school, because the budget per student is equal. Each school's budget is public, and published on the web.
- favoring religious teaching: at least at the school my kids go to there's absolutely no religious teaching. I suspect this is the case for all the public schools in NYC
- nuanced policy difficulties? Not sure what you mean by this
Ok, now to answer your original question: why the fault of progressive left. As you see I skipped the word "extreme", as this is a loaded word; people who vote that way certainly do not perceive themselves as extreme.
At the recent mayoral primaries, the top candidates were the moderates Eric Adams and Kathryn Garcia (1st and 2nd place), and the progressive Maya Wiley (3rd place). As far as the education was concerned, the hot topic was the selective "specialized high schools" [1], where the admission is test-based, according to a state law passed about 50 years ago. The current mayor (Bill de Blasio, progressive) has worked tirelessly for the last 4 years or so to lobby the State legislature to get the law repealed. The progressive candidate, Maya Wiley, promised to work towards the same goal. Here's the relevant extract from her platform [2]
>> To remove barriers that separate and label children, we will: [...] Eliminate discriminatory admissions “screens.”
In other words, kill the specialized high schools program.
Eric Adams (the winner, moderate) promised to keep the program as it currently is.
In case you wonder what the admission entrance exam is like, it's just two separate tests, one for ELA and one for math. Both tests are fairly challenging. The progressives think that these tests (and especially the math one) are discriminatory in nature.
Here's a sample math question [3, p.78] "In Centerville, 45% of the population is female, and 60% of the population commutes to work daily. Of the total Centerville population, 21% are females who commute to work daily. What percentage of the total Centerville population are males who do not commute to work daily?"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_high_schools_in_Ne...
[2] https://www.mayawileyformayor.com/maya-wileys-plan-for-creat...
[3] https://cdn-blob-prd.azureedge.net/prd-pws/docs/default-sour...
Re: American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math' (2017)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is bound to hurt poorer but smart kids, that can't afford private tutoring and have to rely only on public schools Why should I care about them? The internet exists. Let them learn on their own if they’re so interested. Why am I being forced to subsidize people that will just grow to resent me as a leech on society due to my “inferior mathematical ability” as you surely do? Poverty is a far bigger problem than s…
Very funny, no one will resent you as a "leech on society due to" your “inferior mathematical ability.” However, if you actually choose to literally leech on society (e.g. choose to be unemployed and uneducated) then people will. Anyway, education exists to educate. If you care about social welfare, talk to the social welfare programs.
They absolutely do - they most likely consider people like me to be subhuman entities. It’s not like I have the mental ability to get into the fancy schools or fancy companies they got into.