Some of it is cultural: Americans don't want their kids to have too much homework, in many cases they don't want to help with homework or are unable to; they want a silver bullet. Some of it is lack of qualified teachers, and part of that is the way public schools are funded from the local tax base--do it cheaply as possible. Some of it is political pressure to dumb things down so that students can be graduated from HS before they reach the legal drinking age. Some of it is the rise of the education ``experts'' who always have some new…silver bullet (Feynman had a lot to say about such experts after reviewing math textbooks for California in the early '60s). The new math came about as an almost hysterical reaction to Sputnik, when, in fact, the U.S. had plenty of highly qualified scientists and engineers who just happened to get beaten to the punch by the URSS. But no, the math curriculum had to change into some kind of Bourbaki for tots, meanwhile in fact the Soviets were teaching math the old-fashioned way--nice cognitive dissonance there. There are a lot of factors, and I don't see any magical way of improving curricula, getting better teachers, requiring more homework, etc.
Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
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Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#72People keep saying Americans stink at math, americans don't understand science, americans are ignorant, etc. And yet at the same time we have these sorts of track records: http://www.popsci.com/us-dominates-at-sending-stuff-to-mars It's not just Mars or the moon, or decades ago, the US also is where most operating systems and software and CPUS are conceived of and designed. As well as countless other things that peop…
I agree USA has an impressive track record for space exploration and is at the forefront of computing, but that seems like more of a reflection of our economy and top talent than overall math literacy. Ideally we would have the best of both worlds: good high school education, and a good economy, but for some reason the former lags behind.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a mixed bad in K-12 Your typo is very accurate :-) I would say that our problem in K-12 is a self-perpetuating one. The teachers were taught math badly and so never really learned it (and learned to hate it into the bargain). So then they teach it badly. I'm not sure there's any solution except for tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs.
> tuning the students in to Khan Academy and suchlike programs I think parents have an enormous role to play in the effectiveness of K-12 education. If they are not very much involved (e.g., enforcing, participating, encouraging) then school isn't valued or prioritized, nor will the average student see how fun many subjects can be to learn (assuming the teacher may not be effective at this). > were taught math badly…
But the parents also suffered through incompetent math instruction. Unless they are among the few who loved the subject anyway, they're not going to be able to help.
> Just an aside, wouldn't this be expressed as "taught poorly"?
I don't think there's anything wrong with "badly" here, and at least one dictionary [0] seems to support me; see esp. sense 2. But "poorly" works just as well.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could not agree with you more. Another thing I've noticed anecdotally is that many of the math teachers in the secondary system in North America do not have a broad understanding of math themselves. Math is given the most rote treatment of all the subjects, and I suppose this is understandable given the abstract nature of math. But students are never told why they should care about abstractions in the first place, wh…
Not sure how math helps you deploy instagram clones. I mean set theory, logic, computable functions but that's a big stretch.
Ok so taken literally, that was a bad example. But instead of giving me a textbook of problems where I solve y = mx + b, can I use mathematical concepts in a creative capacity? To do things I care about as a high schooler? Can I see those concepts on my device today?
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: >Though lesson study is pervasive in elementary and middle school, it is less so in high school, where the emphasis is on cramming for college entrance exams I think the implication is that kids are supposed to be taught to play with math in addition to the rote memorization, not that rote memorization is evil. Many of the more "fun" math techniques rely on knowledge acquired through rote memorizati…
I think rote learning is a really really important thing, perhaps the most important thing, in math. Math is like any sport... you get good at it by practice practice practice. Check check check check. You have to train your brain to be good at it, and it can be hard, just like anything you train at. > Many of the more "fun" math techniques rely on knowledge acquired through rote memorization I wasn't aware of this.…
Most of the new fancy techniques for learning multiplication and so on assume the student knows the tables.
For example, take a look at this lesson: http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/md/distributive.php
Ignore the stupid rectangles, and ignore the part where it says "They actually use the distributive property, but we do not need to explain that to 4th grade students." (seriously, wtf)
A child who practices lots of sums, such that she knows how to add 420 and 56 without counting with their fingers or writing things down, will be able to learn this kind of multiplication with ease. Once they learn that and practice a lot, they will be able to generalize the method to multiply any two two-digit numbers.
Memorizing things is important because if you have to count with your fingers to calculate 3x3, you will never be able to calculate, for example, 23 squared in your head. But if you know the times tables your thought process might look like this:
20x20 = 400
23x20 = 400 + 60
23x23 = 460 + 23x3 = 460 + 69 = 529
(23 times 3 is "the hard part" where most kids who know all the theory (distributive property) but are out of practice (not enough rote memorization) will lose track)
A more advanced example is what engineers used to do a lot before they had calculators: They memorized log tables, so when they wanted to multiply big numbers they just added their logs together, because log(a x b) = log(a) + log(b).
An unrelated example is converting miles to kilometers. The official relationship is that a mile equals 1.609 kilometers, an ugly number that doesn't work well with mental arithmetic. But that number is kinda close to the golden ratio, don't you think? So if you are the kind of weirdo who memorizes the Fibonacci sequence, you can quickly calculate that 13 miles should be about 21 kilometers (and 21 miles is about 34km, and so on), because the ratio between a Fibonacci number and the next approaches phi.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#76In 4th grade, I got a C in math. During my teacher student grade review meeting, my male teacher told me "it's okay, girls don't do as well at math as boys."
Yeah, so there's this as a reason. I definitely wasn't a good student until high school. I definitely had a bad teacher who gave me an excuse for YEARS to accept bad results in math. My mother still bitches about that guy to this day. I suspect I have a slight learning disorder that affected my ability to process numbers. I mix 6/9s. 7/9s when transcribing numbers. Made homework difficult. Once I got to the point where letters started replacing numbers in homework, I went from a C student to an A student in math and was competing for the top grade in my math classes. Once I learned that I could do the work, I did the work and excelled.
I suspect that this type of bias affected more girls than just me, and these discouraged girls affected US scores.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and milk is always pints. An awful lot of products come in imperial sizes but metric labelling - 454g jars of jam etc. Timber sometimes gets called 2x4 even though it's 50x100, but that seems less common now. Oddly just about everyone still uses feet and inches for their height. I hear kilos more and more often for weight, I don't think I've ever heard cm for height in the UK.
> ...and milk is always pints. Returned milk is (you know, in dem bottles). But milk you buy in the store is 1L, 2L, etc. > Oddly just about everyone still uses feet and inches for their height. True. Probably because of the recognition of the 6' centering measurement. People know that if you're 6', that's kind of the cut-off for what is referred to as 'tall enough'. Over that, you're generally 'tall'. Under that, an…
Not in any supermarket I've been in, 4 and 6 pints are the commonest. Maybe us northerners aren't trusted with metric milk yet!
Only time I see litres is some of the niche brands (like Cravendale and branded organic) in bigger supermarkets, or 500ml in corner shops and some garages. So they can charge more. Presumably people compare 2l price with 2.3l / 4 pint instead of £/l.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think rote learning is a really really important thing, perhaps the most important thing, in math. Math is like any sport... you get good at it by practice practice practice. Check check check check. You have to train your brain to be good at it, and it can be hard, just like anything you train at. > Many of the more "fun" math techniques rely on knowledge acquired through rote memorization I wasn't aware of this.…
Most of the new fancy techniques for learning multiplication and so on assume the student knows the tables. For example, take a look at this lesson: http://www.homeschoolmath.net/teaching/md/distributive.php Ignore the stupid rectangles, and ignore the part where it says "They actually use the distributive property, but we do not need to explain that to 4th grade students." (seriously, wtf) A child who practices lots…
Thanks so much for that link.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: >Though lesson study is pervasive in elementary and middle school, it is less so in high school, where the emphasis is on cramming for college entrance exams I think the implication is that kids are supposed to be taught to play with math in addition to the rote memorization, not that rote memorization is evil. Many of the more "fun" math techniques rely on knowledge acquired through rote memorizati…
I think rote learning is a really really important thing, perhaps the most important thing, in math. Math is like any sport... you get good at it by practice practice practice. Check check check check. You have to train your brain to be good at it, and it can be hard, just like anything you train at. > Many of the more "fun" math techniques rely on knowledge acquired through rote memorization I wasn't aware of this.…
But the whole point of play is to run through all those rote learning steps while simultaneously learning about the system and environment they live in. Sure you can cram, and then you'll test well on standardized entrance exams, but then how many of these people are able to effectively apply that knowledge to real-world problems? If you play, or tinker, or experiment, as part of your learning, then you already have this experience.
It's not about "fun", it's about experimentation. Free-form intellectual play.
Re: Why Do Americans Stink at Math?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK uses their own screwy imperial units for some measures
Not really. You still go to the shops and buy things in litres and kilograms, and their entire construction industry is in metric. The only commercial product that isn't in metric, funnily enough, is beer and cider. I guess getting pissed people to change proved harder than everything else.
And people weigh themselves in stone, "a unit of measure equal to 14 pounds (lb) avoirdupois, or 6.3503 kilograms (kg)."