Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wbur.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 558 posts

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

#511

Post by failuser »

flavius29663 wrote: post #401
failuser wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, but again, those skills are not valued that much in USA. I don’t like it, this is reality. Sports classes provide nowhere enough physical activity to stay in shape though. Ideally a country ruled by citizens require a high level of knowledge and reasoning ability. In reality people vote for aristocratic cliques in a way often determined by their birth.

So what are you suggesting? Because math is not the perfect answer, do less critical thinking? I think it's very good for the brain, necessary even. Math is not sufficient, but it's necessary. It's a pity the US schools put less and less into math, nowadays they dumb down math for equity reasons even.

I’d suggest more math as a personal advise, but I have no power outside of relatives and friends. So I can only observe what’s happening on the national level. And that observation is that math is taught in a way that does little to promote reasoning skills and most people won’t use it. And smart people will find a way to learn, it’s easier than ever.

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

#512

Post by wheelinsupial »

II2II wrote: post #510
wheelinsupial wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AP (and, presumably, IB) are being maintained These are not accessible to all students. It depends on which catchment zone you live in, and even the schools that offer AP don't offer the same AP courses. Last I checked one offered 2 AP courses and another offered 11, so there is huge variance between the schools offering AP. These are public schools, not private schools. There are private schools that also offer AP…

> It depends on which catchment zone you live in, and even the schools that offer AP don't offer the same AP courses. I grew up in Calgary. It was possible to apply to special programs outside of your catchment area, with a choice of multiple schools for some programs. Being admitted into a public IB program comes with the expense of a monthly bus pass, not the equivalent of several years of university tuition. I wou…

The IB public programs are called "district programs," which give everyone in the district the ability to apply to the programs. So you're correct about that being open to those within Vancouver.

For one program it seems that there is a roughly $1,000 cost for each level, so it's a little over $2,000 to complete the entire IB program. The other IB program seems to cost $1,000. I don't know if either of those schools waive the fees or not, but looking at other districts they say the fees are for writing the IB exams.

I can't determine if AP courses are district programs or not.

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

#513

Post by onecool »

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…

A Russian mathematics professor of mine in graduate school was a student under Kolmogorov. He taught information theory and algebraic combinatorics and helped develop a number of systems for the Soviets. He was extremely challenging, but he cared less about the grades and more that you were understanding the material.

He would say at the beginning of the semester: "You must learn to build the castles in your mind." The visualization of the constructions really helps to understand how to apply the concepts in different contexts.

The Polish professor would hand out chocolate to every student before every test, so that your mind was more relaxed.

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

#514

Post by lobocinza »

My experience with math on the Brazilian educational system was that of a shallow obsession with form. I also had great teachers and experiences but overall it was boring and left no space for creativity which at least for me are requirements for personal investment. I expected the soviet system to be heavily bureaucratic but through your PoV it looks COOL!

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

#515

Post by udev »

tjchear wrote: post #451
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…

Any books you can recommend that are similar to the Soviet Math textbooks you talked about?

A book that appeared previously on Hackernews is Lev Tarasov's "The world is built on probability". This is not striclty a textbook, but it is translated in English in a way that preserves a lot of the feel of the original: https://archive.org/details/TheWorldIsBuiltOnProbability

For examples of beautifully crafted exercises see this: https://www.imaginary.org/sites/default/files/taskbook_arnol...

There are plenty of books in Western literature where exercises are also very good, and not only in math, but other fields too. One that comes to mind is Jon Bentley's "Programming Pearls", which has very well chosen exercises.

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

#516

Post by udev »

OnlyOneCannolo wrote: post #382
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…

Do you happen to remember any specific textbook? I'd be interested to see an example, assuming that they're still available in some format.

See my reply to other similar question in this thread.

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

#517

Post by iammisc »

damagednoob wrote: post #499
iammisc wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely can. Most adults should be able to immediately recall the learnings from elementary to high school. This is not rocket science or highly specialized knowledge. The fact that an arbitrary american adult educated in this country cannot easily differentiate and name some works of shakespeare and provide some quotes, etc, should be o source of national shame.

You're assuming your child will take the same subjects that you did. How do you recall a subject you've never taken?

There are few elective courses in high school that couldn't be replaced by a book.

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

#518

Post by laputan_machine »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #170
laputan_machine wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK maths teaching is fairly terrible. Not only do they start later, it's almost never taught meaningfully, instead relying on memorising rote formulae. I grew up hating maths, it wasn't until YouTube came along and the sheer amount of _good_ maths content on there that I started to 'get' the bits I just never understood as a teenager. Most of my friends will still say things like 'I just don't get algebra / I don't d…

Has it changed since the 1960s? Maths where I grew (Swindon, Wilts., ) up was pretty good and from first form (age 11, 1966) on used the SMP course where there really wasn't any memorization of rote formulae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Mathematics_Project

The earliest I was introduced to discrete maths like this was my first year of uni -- that course looks really interesting. I know they teach CS at high school now

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

#520

Post by inglor_cz »

hhlbf wrote: post #428
avidphantasm wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always liked math, but have never been great or very good at it. I graduated from a US public school gifted program, and a top 30 US university. The biggest problem I always had with math education is they didn’t teach the “why” nearly enough. I was lousy at memorizing formulas/methods (esp. in calculus), so I often found myself dead in the water during exams.

Maths do not have a why.

A lot of math has a practical motivation and some people learn better if they are acquainted with it.

I would consider it hostile to your students if you were a maths teacher and withheld practical applications from your students on purpose.

Post reply on HN