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California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

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Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#451

Post by userbinator »

I'm perpetually perplexed at why some people seem to think that lowering the standards is going to help anyone. Do they not realise the source of all scientific and technical advancement is really the result of a minority of high achievers, and that by trying to "flatten" this inequality and effectively make everyone equally stupid, they are also going to be affected negatively?

applies social justice principles to math lessons

The inmates aren't running the asylum anymore; they're running the government. All I hope is that this cancerous ideology (I'll resist the prop65 joke...) doesn't grow any further than it already has. The decline is certainly sad to see and already rather visible.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#452

Post by kyboren »

holonomically wrote: post #305
tppiotrowski wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My interpretation: When most kids can’t do algebra, the teacher invests most of their time into helping those students catch up. Because most of the teachers time is now going to students who don’t understand algebra, algebra gets dropped all together. Minority high achievers who were capable of understanding algebra now feel that they are held back by low achievers. High achievers should probably check out Khan Acad…

Yes, this is probably what is happening. Schools are understaffed and underfunded so programs keep getting cut. At this point it really just might be better to let kids learn from Khan Academy since the adults clearly have no idea what they're doing.

> Schools are understaffed and underfunded

Please stop parroting this talking point. It's just not true. California schools are funded at record levels--$18k p.a. per pupil[0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27563357

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#453

Post by mlyle »

zozbot234 wrote: post #57
pineconewarrior wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems entirely arbitrary (if not false?). I was taught the basics of algebra and even trig (at least, how pi and radians work) in the 4th and 5th grade

Yes, but I'm talking about what works well for the average student, not just math whizs who post on HN.

I think a whole lot of kids can get algebraic ideas early.

They may not be able to have the attention span and accuracy to factor some 6th degree polynomial in 2 variables with mixed signs.

But the idea of an equation; of invertible operations; of doing things to both sides of an equation... If you word the questions right and make it interesting, most 7-8 year olds can do this stuff no problem.

I think a whole lot of the math whizs who post on HN grew up around people who loved math and figured out how to share interesting tidbits with them very young.

E.g. why are my kids all terrifically accelerated at mathematics? Is it because of some magical genetic thing (maybe a small part of it is)? Or is it because we, as parents, value and enjoy it?

I want to figure out how to bring more of that magic to ordinary classrooms.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#454

Post by anchpop »

moksly wrote: post #212

I’m Danish and not at all interested in the politics of it, but there can be a case for teaching algebra late. We do it in Denmark, because it’s the subject children have the hardest time learning, and having too many of them fail too early kills their interest in math. We still teach algebra in grade 7-9, but we’ve gone through the social experiments of teaching it at different ages, and have lost entire generations…

There was an informal study done in the early 20th century, where a superintendent decided he didn’t think math was that useful and told the 4 poorest elementary schools in his district to stop teaching it. (He chose the poorest schools because he knew the parents wouldn’t put up as much of a fuss as at the wealthier schools.) They still taught how to count, read clocks, and make change, but besides that they had no formal math instruction. They used the extra time to read as a class IIRC.

The result was that, despite lacking 6 years of formal math education, the students in that district were only one year behind the other students when they went to junior high. That is, they were able to recover all six years of missed elementary school math education in one year of junior high. And in the superintendent’s opinion, those students were better at critical thinking and were able to solve some problems their better-educated counterparts were not. I can find the link if anyone is interested.

Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math. I know I could learn math concepts now that would have taken me much longer in highschool. I kind of wish we would just let kids be kids for more of their lives

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#455

Post by mlyle »

kolbe wrote: post #419
zozbot234 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I'm talking about what works well for the average student, not just math whizs who post on HN.

So you propose we handicap the geniuses to make the rest feel better? Who do you propose will invent great things to keep our world thriving if you’ve made all the geniuses average?

If you're going to teach math to kids in a normal school and not an academy for geniuses, before stratification based on level makes sense (and there's evidence doing this too early is harmful), you need to figure out how to do it in a way that works for the majority of students.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#456

Post by rahimnathwani »

chii wrote: post #448
rahimnathwani wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the issue with a teacher that is forced to teach a class of 25 students is very obvious" It's not obvious to the authors of the California Math Framework, who believe that: - we should sort kids into classes purely by age, and that any other method of sorting is inequitable - every child should be taught grade-level material (no matter how far behind, or far ahead, they may be) - teachers are capable of successfully…

> classes purely by age, and that any other method of sorting is inequitable It's just "strange" that this is only done for academics, but never for athletics. The fact that academic results can be thought of in "equitable" terms, but not athletic results (aka, you must be able to run 100m in X seconds), points to some systemic, cultural bias in thinking that everyone is just as smart, and that genetics don't play a…

The issue isn't about whether an individual's academic performance is affected by genetics.

The question is: are differences in overall (say median) academic performance of broad racial groupings (black, white, asian, hispanic, other) mostly the result of differences in genetics?

Many (most?) people would say the differences are mostly genetic for sports, but not for academics.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#457

Post by candybar »

holonomically wrote: post #449
candybar wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't how that problem was meant to be solved - it's meant to be a straightforward subtraction problem. For instance, this is a US 2nd grade subtraction word problem from Khan Academy: Sparky the dragon was born with 28 spikes. He grew several more spikes as he got older. Now Sparky has 80 spikes. How many new spikes did Sparky grow? Sure, this could be expressed as an algebra problem, 28 + X = 80, but the inten…

Then I don't really understand what you're arguing about.

The point is that the types of problems you're referring to aren't considered algebra problems in math education, because students are expected to be able to solve them when they are introduced to subtraction, not when they are introduced to actual algebraic concepts. It's like saying when you learn to add integers, you're doing group theory because integers form a group under the operation addition. From a purely mathematical standpoint, sure, what you're doing could be explained using group theory, but from a pedagogical standpoint, it's nonsense, because you don't have to know anything about groups to be able to add integers or even to understand and utilize these specific properties of the set of integers.

It's entirely disingenuous, then, to refer to these word problems being solved by Russian students in 2nd grade, as though it has any relevance on whether it's appropriate to teach Algebra 1 in 9th grade. 2nd graders in the US are also expected to be able to solve these types of problems and it's not because they are taught any actual algebraic concepts.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#458

Post by [deleted] »

candybar wrote: post #457
holonomically wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I don't really understand what you're arguing about.

The point is that the types of problems you're referring to aren't considered algebra problems in math education, because students are expected to be able to solve them when they are introduced to subtraction, not when they are introduced to actual algebraic concepts. It's like saying when you learn to add integers, you're doing group theory because integers form a group under the operation addition. From a purely ma…

[deleted]

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#459

Post by holonomically »

candybar wrote: post #457
holonomically wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I don't really understand what you're arguing about.

The point is that the types of problems you're referring to aren't considered algebra problems in math education, because students are expected to be able to solve them when they are introduced to subtraction, not when they are introduced to actual algebraic concepts. It's like saying when you learn to add integers, you're doing group theory because integers form a group under the operation addition. From a purely ma…

Great, glad we cleared that up.

Re: California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide

#460

Post by holonomically »

kyboren wrote: post #452
holonomically wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is probably what is happening. Schools are understaffed and underfunded so programs keep getting cut. At this point it really just might be better to let kids learn from Khan Academy since the adults clearly have no idea what they're doing.

> Schools are understaffed and underfunded Please stop parroting this talking point. It's just not true. California schools are funded at record levels--$18k p.a. per pupil[0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27563357

Then maybe it should be $36k.
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