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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)

#531

Post by zeku »

sologoub wrote: post #506
zeku wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully for me, my college Calculus professor(in USA) banned calculators for Calc 1 and 2(the two required Calc classes for a computer science degree at my public university). He was heavily avoided by many and "special" for doing so. I found it easier to forego the calculator as it allowed us to focus on methods and how/why over just moving large numbers around.

That sounds pretty awesome actually! It also probably makes it a bit harder to prepare the materials, since you need to make sure it’s reasonably computable by hand.

Perhaps, but the guy had been teaching these courses for at least 10 years so he really had it all down. I mean he taught almost completely from his brain.

Total math teacher too, his university email is so full if you email him it just bounces back.

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

#532

Post by coolgeek »

iammisc wrote: post #461
hhlbf wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maths do not have a why.

You are being downvoted but you're correct. Consider the natural numbers. There is no 'why' behind them. There are axioms behind them, and -- given those axioms -- there are statements about the natural numbers that can be logically reduced to the axioms, but the axioms have no why. Moreover, it is provable the axioms have no why, because they cannot have a why, because the axioms cannot be proven except in relation…

> Consider the natural numbers. There is no 'why' behind them.

In a universe with more than one object, cardinality exists. Natural numbers are how we can discuss cardinality.

Natural numbers are also how we discuss ordinality, because ordinality exists in any universe having at least one dimension.

Axioms are how we discuss natural numbers rigorously. But natural numbers exist independent of any axioms. That's why they're called natural numbers

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

#533

Post by ksd482 »

dartharva wrote: post #527
ksd482 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I was reading the summary, I was thinking "well, of course -- that makes sense. Any teaching curriculum has got to be like that so what is so special about Russian math curriculum?". Then I read in other comments about US math curriculum and I was shocked to learn that not only they were NOT doing this, but they didn't have a better alternative. This is mind boggling. It seems almost idiotic. My schooling was done…

Which board was your school affiliated to, if you don't mind me asking? I went through my schooling in India too, and I had quite the opposite experience: concepts being taught with the only focus being on beating exams, rote learning prioritized instead of logical applications (in case of science), etc.

ICSE for 10th and ISC for 12th grades.

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

#534

Post by whimsicalism »

petre wrote: post #493
whimsicalism wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like everyone replying has ignored my caveats. Most international students are not there because of discrimination they faced. Most people who are seeking asylum or undocumented in the US are from the Americas. For international students not from the Americas, most are wealthy or well connected by the standards of their home country, although often not by American standards. It's not uncommon to hear about t…

I think you are generalising and exagerating a bit. As it happens, I had a colleague and an acquaitance who both worked as a taxi drivers in Chicago and knew each other. They weren't bankers, nor farmers' kids. Their parents were middle class teachers and accountants. Reality is more boring and mundane than you might imagine.

Was your colleague an international student? If not, it seems like you should read my comment again :)

And of course I'm generalizing! I have no doubt there are exceptions, but the fact remains that it is largely true.

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

#535

Post by dartharva »

ksd482 wrote: post #533
dartharva wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which board was your school affiliated to, if you don't mind me asking? I went through my schooling in India too, and I had quite the opposite experience: concepts being taught with the only focus being on beating exams, rote learning prioritized instead of logical applications (in case of science), etc.

ICSE for 10th and ISC for 12th grades.

Figures. CBSE and State boards give the opposite experience, I'm sure you have heard the horror stories from your friends as well.

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

#536

Post by nicolas_t »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #250
nicolas_t wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal but both my parents repeated a year (that was in the sixties in France), they went on to become a teacher teaching primary school teachers how to educate children for one and a headmistress at a relatively large primary school for the other. Both of them looking back thought that repeating a year was a good thing for them, they went from being struggling average/below average students to top of their class…

> but has lowered the level of kids actually going to university (especially at engineering schools and elite institutions) Come on, of course it hasn't. Entry requierements haven't changed. The highschools providing the largest contingents of students to these elite institutions respect neither the national curriculum nor the ban of sorting students by ability without any consequences. Unsurprisingly the two most fa…

I remember being in my engineering school with prepa intégré and the teachers lamenting that we had not studied vector space in high school like students used to 15 years ago. I have a friend teaching at a math sup/math spé who complains about the lowering of the level. So yes, the level has been lowered and entry requirements have changed. I do know that in both prépa intégrés and math sup/math spé they try to compensate for the lower level out of high school by condensing all that should used to be done in high school within those two years. Of course those two most famous high school are an exception but those are such a small percentage of the total number of engineers.

All countries use entrance exams, it's not something that specific to France and of course there's an inherent unfairness to them, kids from better educated families are always going to get better results. In fact if we were talking about fairness then the disappearance of boarding schools (internats) have actually increased inequality. There was a time when a lot of kids spent the week in boarding schools, for kids from families with less focus on education (like my grandmother who kept telling my mum that she should stop reading because it'd cause her headaches), it removed them from non-optimal environment and put them in situation where they had better access to education. But I'm not sure that's desirable or optimal :)

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

#540

Post by tajustice2 »

The fact that this comment is going to be flagged just speaks to how bad leftist activists have gotten.

Sad to see how much STEM has been eroded in the US by the very academics that we entrust to teach it. It's as if an entire generation of academics despises STEM and those who study it. Gender studies majors look at the "straight white males" in math and engineering with contempt and jealousy, so they're concentration on "dismantling" things they don't understand, but are still jealous of.

Now math in the US is all about "decolonization" because math is inherently racist and a property of "whiteness".[0]

No wonder parents who actually want their kids to be educated are looking for math lessons outside of the "decolonized" math that is being taught. God forbid students actually learn something!

[0] https://theconversation.com/yes-mathematics-can-be-decolonis...

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