I bet the same people who make these rules are the same ones who will lambast “the rich” for having the resources to actually educate their children
California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
421–430 of 748 posts
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#422I can't help but think that the majority of students algebra problems in high school come from the fact algebra is taught extremely poorly at the college level. Which is where their teachers learned how to teach.
In an Ivy League PhD physics class more than half of the students thought that equality was something between a mechanical operation, e.g. 1 + 3 = 4 means you add 1 + 3 and the result is 4, or assignment, e.g. x = 3 means that for everything that follows you can replace x by 3.
The idea that it's a binary predicate was something that only people who had done logic or something adjacent at undergrad even understood. Viz. the type of = is (* x *) -> Bool, or in words an equality just returns true if there exists a way to transform one input of the equality to the other and false otherwise.
The confusing part is that for an equation like x + 2 = 3 you're given the predicate for the of set/tuple defined by abstraction using that predicate, e.g. the set {x | x + 2 = 3 and x in R} or the tuple (x | x^2 = 0) if we care about repeated answers. Something that is not at all obvious from just being given x + 2 = 3, which without a lot of implicit context is a well formed sentence of algebra with no intrinsic meaning.
If all algebra problems were reduced to something like "List all members of the set {x | x^2 - 3 = 9 and x is real}" then we have solved a huge part of the problem.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#423I was doing algebra and Russian math word problems in 4th grade (maybe earlier, it's been a while). What exactly is the logic of pushing back mathematical training to later grades? [1] 1: https://www.edhelper.com/geography/Russia_Math1.htm
This isn't that different from 2nd and 3rd grade math in the US. There's no algebra in your link, but either way, you're confusing algebraic concepts, which are typically introduced in grade school even in the US and Algebra 1, which is just a conveniently named part of the overall math curriculum, not one that introduces Algebraic concepts for the first time.
Really? Setting up equations with unknown variables and solving them is not algebra?
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Second grade in Poland I remember problems like this when learning addition and subtraction: 3 + ? = 10 10 - ? = 3
When I explained to my son that "X" was just another way of representing the blank space in equations, he got extremely mad about the world making algebra seem hard. He screamed about how "I've been doing that to calculate damage in video games for years " and stomped off. He's never completely gotten over it. He's still mad about it to this day.
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Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#425I was discussing this with a group of friends from opposing political backgrounds, and the results were surprising.
The liberals were 100% for the change, and said it will achieve more equity, inclusion, etc.
The conservatives were equally supportive of the change, but for an entirely different (and probably selfish, though equally valid) reason. They argued that this would actually give their kids a leg up over the general population, because they were going to continue to take advanced math and advanced placement tests, it'll just be in a more private, exclusive, concentrated setting than before, with other highly motivated, self-selected kids, which they took as having a positive effect on their own kids. By making something that was widely available more exclusive, it's actually a net-benefit to them.
I thought it was an interesting take.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#426Kinds say "I don't have a math brain". That might be simply true.
The implication should be I NEED TO WORK MORE. Not lets lower the level.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#427The program is called Equitable Math and it frames current mathematics pedagogy as a mechanism by which White Supremacy is sustained.¹ Note that in a very long multi-part document on White Supremacy, there is absolutely zero mention of Asians, despite that they are somewhere between 15.5% to 17% of the state population.² Program goals includes the de-emphasis of Algebra for middle school and Calculus for high school.…
For anyone interested, I think it's probably worth actually digging into Equitable Math's "Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction" [0]. I just skimmed some of it based on your link, and the majority of it just reads like "stop teaching math poorly." I was looking for some real burn-down-the-establishment stuff, but it's honestly pretty prosaic. For example: > "There is a greater focus on getting the "right" an…
The framing isn't the only divisive part. Some of the ideas are also divisive. Search the PDF for the word 'tracking', one of the most divisive concepts in K12 math education.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#428As I repeated said, doing away "advanced maths" will make you left people feel better and will hurt a lot of socially-economically challenged families. Those who can afford RSM or AOPS will learn algebra, if they can, as young as 3rd or 4th grade, while the kids' parents don't need to lift a finger. Those who solely rely on the public school to push their kids? They will be screwed. I have all the means to support my…
These people are not politically “left” in any way, shape, or form. They are just decadent. The political left is responsible for my father’s retirement pension, his father’s freedom to spend his evenings to complete a correspondence electrician’s certification while working the mines, the 40 hour work week more broadly, fire exits in burning factory buildings, etc. so I think we should be careful who we are calling the “left.” We need a political left and these people are nothing of the sort. They are an absolute joke.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#429So much dialogue is around how to pace and sequence the traditional math curriculum (geometry, trig, precalc, calc). Are those still the most important things to teach? And do they need to be taught and tested through working through the same calculations framed in the same narrow scenarios? When's the last time you solved a quadratic equation or did integration by parts in the real world? The concepts may be importa…
Show me an American university that doesn't spend the first two years of a STEM major's life on the three-semester calculus sequence, linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations, and I will then come up with a secondary school math curriculum targeting admission to such a program.
Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide
#430As I repeated said, doing away "advanced maths" will make you left people feel better and will hurt a lot of socially-economically challenged families. Those who can afford RSM or AOPS will learn algebra, if they can, as young as 3rd or 4th grade, while the kids' parents don't need to lift a finger. Those who solely rely on the public school to push their kids? They will be screwed. I have all the means to support my…
It's still being taught just later. As a parent of an advanced and behind child I support this move. It would help both.