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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

#661

Post by hnaccount141 »

CountDrewku wrote: post #655
vanusa wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory and spread across the globe in a matter of months, If this is what gets "taught" around the dinner table at home ... then in such a house, all STEM education will be moot.

All indications point to it coming from a laboratory even if they cannot pinpoint the exact one or 100% prove it. Statistically it's likely it came from the WUHAN lab, you know in the town it started. The correlation is too high to be ignored. The NIH has been caught funding gain of function there. So, sure go ahead and dismiss it as conspiracy but at this point you're the one sounding more like a conspiracy theorist…

It does indeed seem likely, but the evidence we have at this point is circumstantial. Until we have concrete evidence, stating it as fact is premature.

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

#662

Post by vanusa »

CountDrewku wrote: post #655
vanusa wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory and spread across the globe in a matter of months, If this is what gets "taught" around the dinner table at home ... then in such a house, all STEM education will be moot.

All indications point to it coming from a laboratory even if they cannot pinpoint the exact one or 100% prove it. Statistically it's likely it came from the WUHAN lab, you know in the town it started. The correlation is too high to be ignored. The NIH has been caught funding gain of function there. So, sure go ahead and dismiss it as conspiracy but at this point you're the one sounding more like a conspiracy theorist…

All indications point to it coming from a laboratory

In the same sense that to a Creationist, "all indications point to" the fact that Homo Sapiens first appeared on earth around 6,000 BCE and could not have evolved from other species. And that "evolution" in general is basically a myth fostered by an atheistic academic elite.

If it's what you're determined to believe, then hey, it's what you're gonna believe.

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

#663

Post by mturmon »

csa wrote: post #401
mturmon wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't quite do it the way you have shown, but take a look at: https://dragonbox.com/products/algebra-5 My kid tore through almost the whole set of problems in the app at about the recommended age (5yo).

Sure. The way I presented it was not an accident (abstract with little scaffolding). The question with the software that I have is how much is actually understood . Specially, how much of what was done can be applied in a different context. Ideally consistently, accurately, and without any scaffolding. I’m guessing the answer might be “a lot” for a typical HNer’s child (or maybe not), but it rounds to zero for the av…

This sounds like the difference between basic understanding of the idea, and mastery. Mastery would always take a lot of repetition and diverse problem-solving -- true even for algebra.

Basic understanding is a lower bar, and I'd suggest that most students leave Algebra 1 with just basic understanding. Hopefully a little better than Dragon Box.

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

#664

Post by _-david-_ »

dragonwriter wrote: post #178
_-david-_ wrote: post #25

If racism is actually causing blacks and Hispanics to not make it into advanced classes then why are Asians making it in?

> If racism is actually causing blacks and Hispanics to not make it into advanced classes then why are Asians making it in? Because immigration policy and conditions highly selects Asians for educational achievement. Hispanic immigrants are basically selected inversely, whereas blacks are overwhelmingly not immigrants or early-generation Americans. https://items.ssrc.org/from-our-programs/it-takes-more-than-...

Asians in the past who came over 100 years ago and have lived in the US did not have selective immigration rules based on education. Their prodigy are doing better than blacks who have also lived here for generations.

Some Asians were even put in concentration camps 80 years ago and were heavily discriminated against.

I understand the argument about Hispanics since many are new immigrants though.

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

#665

Post by anthk »

todd8 wrote: post #494
anthk wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism? The Soviet books on Math were crazily more deep than the US ones. Read about Spivak's Calculus.

Spivak's Calculus is intended for use in a two semester course covering differential and integral calculus. It is a challenging but rewarding introduction to calculus; in my opinion, this text is appropriate for math majors while other STEM students might be better off with a textbook that didn't focus quite so much on learning proofs. It was used at MIT for the first year of Calculus, but only by the math majors. Mi…

Then, Perelman. Or any of the zillions of books of the Eastern side of Eurpoe.

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

#666

Post by bollu »

earleybird wrote: post #242
jldugger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, most of that sequence builds upon itself, except geometry.

Q: How do you know you're doing math? A: If there's a geometric interpretation :-)

Q. what is geometry? A. Adjoint functor to algebra

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

#667

Post by bollu »

xvilka wrote: post #571

With the modern science growing every year, if anything we should expand our school program, not contract. For example, teaching basics of abstract algebra, quaternions, octonions, and sedenions, statistics, maybe basic category theory. Quantum field theory in physics, etc.

Do you have a textbook in mind to teach high schoolers QFT? I'm dubious one could write such a textbook, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

I ask since I have taken a course on QFT lite. We had to spend three weeks just doing tensors, and this was after everyone was comfortable with linear algebra and calculus and so forth.

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

#668

Post by gumby »

cs702 wrote: post #602
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…

Your comment changed my mind about the debate in California: > Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard” To be clear: I don't know enough detail about the proposal in California to judge it, but the idea that most children might be better off learning certain subjects at a later age, when they are more mature, cannot be dismissed a priori, without facts, based on ideological arguments. Your comment reminds m…

> Your comment changed my mind about the debate in California:

>> Sooner doesn’t necessarily imply “higher standard”

Thanks! The critical word in my comment was necessarily. Seems like most of the comments have been polar.

> To be clear: I don't know enough detail about the proposal in California to judge it

It is available online as are interviews with some of the people who wrote them, which include mathematics professors and other educators. Seems like most of the objections are from people who are reading the headlines and drawing immediate conclusions based on their preconceptions.

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

#669

Post by pas »

foxhop wrote: post #637
vanusa wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory and spread across the globe in a matter of months, If this is what gets "taught" around the dinner table at home ... then in such a house, all STEM education will be moot.

Prove me wrong.

That's not how reason (or falsifiability) works.

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

#670

Post by todd8 »

anthk wrote: post #665
todd8 wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spivak's Calculus is intended for use in a two semester course covering differential and integral calculus. It is a challenging but rewarding introduction to calculus; in my opinion, this text is appropriate for math majors while other STEM students might be better off with a textbook that didn't focus quite so much on learning proofs. It was used at MIT for the first year of Calculus, but only by the math majors. Mi…

Then, Perelman. Or any of the zillions of books of the Eastern side of Eurpoe.

Yes, I'm not disagreeing with your main point. I just had first hand experience with Spivak.

Your point reminds me of an experience I had in grad school. A good friend in the program was from (communist) Romania. We were both looking at the weekly math challenge that one of our professors posted in the hallway. It was something like construct with compass and straightedge the eight circles that are tangent to all three given (arbitrary sized and positioned) circles.

I was good at geometry in school, very good, head and shoulders above my fellow students. I really had no idea how to solve the problem and was fumbling around with it when I Romanian friend took a look and knew the correct approach immediately. It involved an isomorphic mapping of the circles into some alternate collection of straight line segments, solving the problem in that space, and then inverting the isomorphism (I think. It was many years ago--before the fall of the Berlin Wall). His high school training in geometry was clearly much deeper than mine was.

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