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Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

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Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Romania in high school (Sf. Sava) being good at math and physics made you automatically very popular, everyone wanted to sit near you whenever you had written exams :) In any case, smart people were appreciated, there were no "nerds".

A Sava person in the wild :) My significant other went to Lazar and I wasn't aware of the rivalry between the two high-schools until I met her, I personally grew up in a small-to-medium town where these school rivalries were pretty much absent. It's also sociologically interesting because Sava/Lazar/Vianu people (or, generally speaking, people who went to good Bucharest high-schools, it's probably the same for other…

I keep in touch with former colleagues from high school, nobody from college, if that tells anything. The problem is that all these people live abroad, I am the only one living in Romania.

There was no rivalry between Sava and Lazar 30 years ago, except for the Cismigiu park. They were in the top 5 schools in Bucharest, but there was no direct competition, they were all considered good places to study and kids used to choose based on the location and other preferences. Lazar had easier access to Cismigiu and lower admission grades, Sava was in a strange neighborhood but a nice, larger building, MF1 (Vianu) was smaller and harder to reach from some places, etc. They all had good teachers back then, no longer these days.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#442
I'm a Swede who returned to their native Croatia in the late 90s and early 2000s and found that kids were learning maths on a much more advanced level than we were in Sweden.

I've throughout my life learned that this goes for most of eastern europe. I can't explain why. If it's a more demanding education or if they have some sort of genetic/environmental predisposition for maths.

But the phenomenon has been pretty consistent in my experience with people from Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine and the balkans.

One memory that stuck with me was how the village children would come back from their last day at school, beginning of summer, and show off their report cards.

Dozens of happy kids walking along a dirt road with their report cards in hand, ready to show them off to any adult that might give them a few Kuna or candy for the effort.

I was shocked, having been raised in Sweden.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#443
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It even went further: in Romania, there was a popular movie in the 80s where the main plot is a high school student going to the math olympiad and his classmates cheering for him (with additional romantic threads of course).

What movie is this?

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liceenii

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> British universities bizarrely seem to often reward/celebrate athletics more than academic achievements. I'm not sure how you get that impression. American universities do this, but (with a couple of famous exceptions, like the traditional boat race between Oxford and Cambridge) British universities don't care about sport. The social hierarchy was just separate, and had no bearing on anything academic. I didn't car…

At Oxford, for instance, social life mostly happens at colleges. The way things are set up, you simply do not get to spend that much time with your course-mates - you do not interact with them during lectures, and then everyone goes back to their colleges. And social life in colleges is (sadly) dominated by drinking at the college bar, drinking in clubs, and dinners in the dining hall, where everyone seems to sit acc…

I went to a mid-ranked UK university and while social life is definitely drinking and partying heavy, sports played basically no role in it at all, like not even a bit. I don't remember a single sports match even being advertised let alone having a major spectator turnout.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#445
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just an excuse. You could easily take an "intro to programming" before trying to get into the school. All it does is lower the bar of entry and you can only teach so much in the time given so it will ultimately take time away in the other end.

What's wrong with a low bar to tertiary education? It lets disadvantaged kids get in and catch up. As long as the standards are high by the end everything is fine right?

The total amount of a study program is limited, if you spend a year on repeating the basic concepts, that's a huge part of your "learning time budget" that you're not not able to devote on learning more advanced topics.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

> One of the major factors is this weird anti-intellectualism culture that just doesn't exist in Russia. It was the same thing in Romania, at least in the '90s, when I went to school/high-school. It was always strange to me seeing all those American movies of the "nerds"/geeks getting persecuted by the "cool" kids, it certainly didn't happen to kids in my school and I'm pretty sure it generally didn't happen to kids…

Based on my experience (Poland) bullying typically targets social ineptitude and sycophantism towards teachers, which tends to be somewhat correlated with good performance at school. But I've never really seen anyone being persecuted for good grades as such.

I wouldn't assume that's the case in American schools, though - not based on movies, at least. Could be just a convenient stereotype peddled by "college comedies", not a genre I'd take as valid social commentary

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#447

I have a feeling that TV/media really did play a huge role in the decline of intellectualism in the western world. The USA loves its TV, hollywood and celebrities. It's been reinforced throughout the culture and it makes a lot of people very very wealthy. The more time you spend watching tv the more money they make. Though here's the crux for them, educated people think more and do more so they don't make good custom…

Politics played a bigger role. Simply put they had to aim for lowest common denominator when setting standards else claims of discrimination would pile on.

Many school systems went so far as to either modify grading systems to prevent embarrassment or celebration of achievement. Schools types which attempt to provide a more specialized learn curriculum are regularly demonized for one reason or another.

If you want the best education then the word fairness needs to be applied properly. Fairness is insuring all students are offered the opportunity to learn and receive an education while accepting there are many who can learn more and should be offered the opportunity to do so even if that includes elevating them among their peers.

Educational achievement should be held in higher esteem that sports yet for some odd reason we do not consider fairness is sports an issue where some kids cannot compete because of ability yet in learning we do.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By CRT are you referring to Critical Race Theory? I'm sceptical that its both that influential, or that any good faith reading of CRT supports sacrificing accelerated programs. In particular CRT in education if anything pushes against reliance on standardized testing scores.

Yes, that’s what I meant (and I for intersectionality). Agreed that CRT/I would oppose standardized tests, but that’s only because CRT/I at its core opposes anything objective. And the philosophy of CRT/I has already made significant inroads in American culture. Witness all the accelerated programs that have been shut down, the many recent attacks on objective standards—all in the name of “equity” (which does not mea…

Its hard to take these assertions seriously while they are so vague, especially as they seem to be respins of the idea that education, and higher education in particular, is taking liberalism/anti-racism/feminism "too far".

My understanding is that you're saying there is a causal link between admission programs being shutdown and CRT/I, and that the particular aspect of CRT/I that causes this is an insistence on equal outcomes across social groups. I'd be interested to first establish what the actual statistics are wrt gifted and talented student programs - are the closing faster than they opening? Are they shrinking or expanding? Where approaches have changed, are the outcomes definitely worse? etc.

Does this mean we are discounting material possibilities, such as just not having enough money or changing demands/restrictions on expenditure? Accelerated programs sound a lot like arts programs - easy to cut with minimal blowback. Are we also discounting that providing fair access to accelerated programs turned out to be far more complicated than we originally thought and that the choice has been to cut rather than spend money on extra tests and more qualified staff? CRT/I [aren't the only academic source](https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/02783190609554382) of critique these programs receive.

I'd also contest your definition of equity in CRT/I as an overriding principle ('equality of outcomes by whatever means available' and implicitly, regardless of the consequences). CRT/I uses the principle of equity - that outcomes should be proportionate across social groups and that unequal outcomes must be accounted for. The vast majority of CRT/I scholarship explicitly focuses on 'leveling-up' outcomes, and where this focus is not explicit it is normally implicit (in that the paper would not otherwise make much sense, or the prospect of reducing everyone's outcomes to the lowest common denominator is a rhetorical tool).

‘people from oppressed classes have a truth unto themselves that cannot be taught but must be respected, and all opposing viewpoints must be shut down’: This is a misreading of CRT/I, and one that I suggest highlights its value. CRT/I asserts that everybody has a point of view and way of seeing the world that is affected by their various interlocking identities and experience. There are plenty of aspects of life were we generally accept the necessity and uniqueness of experience as a kind of knowledge - jobs, parenting, relationships, etc. Why should race, gender or class be different? However I'd argue that this assertion gets us closer to the truth. Accounting for bias in science and acknowledging how fundamental it is to people and instruments gets us better science, not worse, even if its harder. "all opposing viewpoints must be shutdown", seems to be a strawman: No reading of CRT/I demands this, in fact most of the literature consists of patient, often quantitative, critiques of systems (law, education, science, public health, etc). So if anything, CRT/I furthers the ideals you see it as threatening.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the major factors is this weird anti-intellectualism culture that just doesn't exist in Russia. It was the same thing in Romania, at least in the '90s, when I went to school/high-school. It was always strange to me seeing all those American movies of the "nerds"/geeks getting persecuted by the "cool" kids, it certainly didn't happen to kids in my school and I'm pretty sure it generally didn't happen to kids…

It even went further: in Romania, there was a popular movie in the 80s where the main plot is a high school student going to the math olympiad and his classmates cheering for him (with additional romantic threads of course).

Obviously all culture, and certainly mass culture in the Soviet bloc was controlled for "proper social message". I don't suppose Romania was more lax in respect to that?

A movie cheering for, or even trivializing anti-social behaviors would find it difficult to go past censorship (not to mention - to be conceived in the first place...)

It's for the same reason that you'd be hard-pressed to find a pre-1989 Central/Eastern European movie depicting any subcultures (like punks or hippies) sympathetically.

Re: Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)

#450
post #80

Disclaimer: I graduated from one of the top math high schools in Moscow in early 90s, I have MS in Math from Moscow State University, and a half finished PhD from the same place. I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible. Either country doesn’t really require much to finish school and many kids just do the tests without understanding what is going on. What separa…

> I think on average the difference between a high school student from Russia and US is negligible I went to high school in Russia and then moved to Australia. The difference was immense. It felt like i just dropped 2 year levels. Even the accelerated programs were hopelessly behind the regular curriculum for my age group in Russia. AU/US high school students can't possibly compete against RU or CN high school studen…

On the anti-intellectualism and bullying of nerds, how do we fix this? (I'm American.) I'm not a parent myself, but my brothers and sister are. Should I suggest to them that they home-school their kids to shield them from this toxic culture?
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