California moves to recommend delaying algebra to 9th grade statewide • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by josefx » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:02 PM UTC

anchpop wrote: post #454

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…

> 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.

If it is anything like German math education back when I was in school a lot of the early things are simplified to an insane extreme and either have to be revisited later or are completely replaced with a better approach. I think we went through half a dozen ways on how to multiply and divide numbers when only one mattered in the end. If you learned the basics from your parents you could even expect to be penalized since you had to use the useless methods described in the curriculum for the first few years and could get penalized for correctly identifying an equation with a negative result.

> Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math

Or it may be related to a really bad curriculum that tries to be "age appropriate" by teaching mostly useless crap.

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

#552

Post by djsbs » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:05 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #502

userbinator wrote: post #451

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 m…

What if you invert your thesis. Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard”: 1 - American school teach the alphabet before grade 1, and push kids to read early. German schools don’t even teach the alphabet until grade 1' yet by the end of that year the reading level of the kids is the same as US kids at the end of grade 1, or better. German Pädagogin justify this by saying there is some neural development issu…

I learned how to read in Spanish, and very shortly thereafter I moved to an English country.

Totally different. You just cant compare a phonetic language to one like English.

My daughter is now learning how to read in the best school in my city and its taking her over year compared to me. We started at roughly the same age, but she and her classmates are struggling through hours of practice.

“Thats a sharp e honey”

“That letter is silent, baby”

“You’ll never sound that out, that words just messed up”

EDIT - punctuation and mistypes

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

#553

Post by dathinab » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:06 PM UTC

Hitton wrote: post #540

gumby wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you invert your thesis. Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard”: 1 - American school teach the alphabet before grade 1, and push kids to read early. German schools don’t even teach the alphabet until grade 1' yet by the end of that year the reading level of the kids is the same as US kids at the end of grade 1, or better. German Pädagogin justify this by saying there is some neural development issu…

ad 1) that's caused simply by phonemic orthography of German. English orthography is hell compared to that, it's not surprising that they need to start to learn it earlier.

Uhm, are you sure.

I multiple times heard from exchange students that the standard of the English curses they had in the US hand been below the standard of the English cursed they had Germany...

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

#554

Post by watwut » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #502

userbinator wrote: post #451

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 m…

What if you invert your thesis. Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard”: 1 - American school teach the alphabet before grade 1, and push kids to read early. German schools don’t even teach the alphabet until grade 1' yet by the end of that year the reading level of the kids is the same as US kids at the end of grade 1, or better. German Pädagogin justify this by saying there is some neural development issu…

> German Pädagogin justify this by saying there is some neural development issue — I think that is likely bull.

Why would that be bull? Kids brains develops over time.

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

#555

Post by watwut » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:09 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #553

Hitton wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ad 1) that's caused simply by phonemic orthography of German. English orthography is hell compared to that, it's not surprising that they need to start to learn it earlier.

Uhm, are you sure. I multiple times heard from exchange students that the standard of the English curses they had in the US hand been below the standard of the English cursed they had Germany...

German 7 years old dont speak fluent English at all.

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

#556

Post by zozbot234 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:10 PM UTC

polaris_mars wrote: post #544

gumby wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you invert your thesis. Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard”: 1 - American school teach the alphabet before grade 1, and push kids to read early. German schools don’t even teach the alphabet until grade 1' yet by the end of that year the reading level of the kids is the same as US kids at the end of grade 1, or better. German Pädagogin justify this by saying there is some neural development issu…

It is so ironic that you mention Germany,where kids are split (at age 10, 12?) into hauptschule (lower ability), realschule (medium ability), and gymnasium (higher ability). To think ramanujans of this world would benefit from lower standards is also having no idea or never knowing one in real life.

The problem with that sort of tracking is that no one wants to be stuck teaching kids with "medium" and "low" skills. So these kids are going to get matched to the worst, lowest skilled teachers, and no chance of realistically getting back on the "high" track! You can of course fix that by rewarding the best teachers and training them better in effective instruction methods (i.e. nope, the kids aren't going to just "learn stuff on their own"!) but guess what, both of these are political anathema in the public schooling system. Especially in the U.S.

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

#557

Post by dathinab » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:13 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #417

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…

> Why exactly is it that you aren’t taught courses like math, or history or language according to your ability instead of your age? That's exactly the question. Under Equitable Math, all children must always be at the same level up until the senior year, and Algebra will not be offered in middle school. Some children are ready for Algebra in middle school, and some aren't. This is the most critical point of contentio…

Didn't common core also state that a child solving 4x5 by computing 5x4 fails the task and in turn hindering deeper comprehension.

Or do I confuse this with something else?

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

#558

Post by xyzzy21 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:13 PM UTC

California has a state average IQ of 95.5.

That presumably means any kind of complex education will have problems. And adjusting to the bottom half of the distribution means that smarter or even average people suffer from this focus on the "least common denominator"! People are NOT all the same and interchangeable so the best education strategy is to tune the process to fit individuals instead.

Glad I'm gone from California. It's sad but I've written off all emotional attachments to the state and accepted that California's best times are a good 50 years ago.

Back when I was a kid, I was in the California state "Gifted Child" program and it was instrumental in getting me into technology as a career. That can't happen now to anyone like who I was back then. And that demographic that is defining this change in education focus will never achieve anything like I have in my career because this is aligned to the state IQ of 95.5!

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

#559

Post by watwut » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:13 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #451

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 m…

I engaged in math competitions and such as a kid, I hope we can put this into the realm of "higher achievement".

I dont think minimum standards or curriculum moving accross grades have all that much to do with what competitive higher top does. The higher top require way more knowledge then what standards require. And more importantly, it requires more depth and speed.

High achievers are expected to know so much more then standards and to apply it in much higher variety of situations to compete.

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

#560

Post by MandieD » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 12:17 PM UTC

carom wrote: post #225

unanswered wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not supposed to understand "the opposing argument", because it's fake. The real goal of this change is to increase the gap between kids whose family situation will give them an opportunity to learn actual math before college, and those whose family situation will keep them permanently locked out of college. This will ensure that the demographics of the next generation are even more skewed toward social instabi…

This is absolutely what will happen. The state is forcing people to teach their kids at home and the children who don't have that support structure are going to get left behind. It almost seems like it will become common for students to skip grades.

It would be great if skipping grades became more commonly acceptable, especially for the sake of children whose parents don’t have the wherewithal to get them advanced instruction (either through own knowledge or money). I would have liked to skip a grade in elementary or middle school, but instead ended up in the back with an algebra book - from which I taught myself the parts I was interested in, but glossed over the parts I didn’t like. If I’d been able to skip a grade, I would have been forced to sit through all of it, and that would have been a good thing.