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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)

#71

Post by ardit33 »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
ardit33 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it was a communist country, everyone had the same conditions (crappy), and everyone had the same fricking clothes (only two clothing factories on the whole country), and same teachers (and no private schooling allowed), and we had the same books, and no calculators. And it is clear, if all conditions are equal, still people are not born equal. Some kids are just smarter than others, and some are just dummies, o…

> Since everyone was the same ethnicity, you can't blame 'systematic x'. It was all equal. This is certainly an advantage that Albania had over Alabama. There are still people alive who remember the school system having to be desegregated under armed guard. The struggle continues: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/1...

yeah, but you are missing the point completely. I gave you a real life example: Even if everyone is equal, and has the same conditions, some people are just born smarter than others, and will put more effort and do better.

Equality of conditions is a good thing to ask for, equality of outcome is stupid, as even in a murderous communist regime, was impossible to achieve as it goes against basic human nature.

That's why event though I am liberal/democrat, I don't like the today's 'progressives', as they seem completely ignorant of human nature, and have no knowledge of the history of countries that went through socialism/communism, and yet want to repeat the same destructive mistakes by trying to achieve 'equality of outcome', which is impossible.

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

#72

Post by petre »

leto_ii wrote: post #44
ardit33 wrote: post #7

My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…

My experience in my home country of Romania was similar to yours, however my conclusions couldn't be more different. > American schools are too soft on science in general. [...]The Albanian school was brutal in teaching science How on earth is brutality in teaching a good idea? What was the effect of this approach on the average Albanian or Romanian student? Sure it worked fine for a few of us, but overall the result…

> Have you ever wondered how it's possible that the same "stupid" Americans that don't learn integrals and group theory in highschool somehow manage just fine in university and later on in life?

Most people will do just fine with basic math training because it's what you normally need later on in life.

Most of my math training in the Eastern European school system has probably gone to waste. I only saw the point of advanced maths, calculus later on in technial university when I had to apply it in science. During my engineering career I only used the math I learned up to maybe ninth or tenth grade. No calculus. For materials science we also had to use maths up to tenth grade because of non linear properties of materials. However, calculus and advanced math was required to understand the physical phenomena. What went away was solving tricky integrals and series for which you had to think of an obscure substitution - the type of grinding math excercises we had to solve in high school. Last month I had to solve some RSA and ECC cryptography problems at work that could not be easily solved with existing crypto libraries. For example RSA signing checks were reimplemented using a big numbers library. That also did not require advanced maths, but rather a lot of grinding research done by reading crypto standards and technical guides.

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

#73

Post by wyclif »

w4rh4wk5 wrote: post #11

Does anyone know where to find translated Russian math textbooks?

You can find some on Amazon.

Gelfand's Algebra: https://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Israel-M-Gelfand/dp/081763677...

Gelfand's Geometry: https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Israel-M-Gelfand/dp/10716029...

Gelfand's Trigonometry: https://www.amazon.com/Trigonometry-Gelfand-Mathematical-Sem...

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

#74

Post by Natsu »

vanviegen wrote: post #26
inglor_cz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"reduced education funding" But Albania can finance rigorous teaching of science ... ? USA spends a lot more money per pupil than any former Eastern Bloc nation. But you can spend a lot of money on inefficient solutions. For a less politically charged example: compare expenses of the Falcon rocket family to those of the Space Launch System.

Teaching might be (or might have been) a prestigious and relatively well-paying job in Albania. I wouldn't know - would you?

ardit33 would know and having said "A doctor and a nurse probably lived in the same apartment, and had similar wages." I question both the idea that teachers were highly paid and that there was much status to be had in general in Albania.

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

#75

Post by s5300 »

ardit33 wrote: post #7

My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…

>Extreme progressive Liberals are killing science and progress in this country,

There is literally a major political party in the US that parrots science to be fake & that religion/faith in god is all that matters. Also, that "progress" (in a technological/scientific sense) is a bad thing

Last I checked, it was not the progressives that identify with this line of thinking.

Come on.

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

#76

Post by vkazanov »

colechristensen wrote: post #27
lucas_codes wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is dumbing down science teaching the fault of extreme progressive left and not, say, reduced education funding, favouring religious teaching, or even more likely, nuanced policy difficulties that don't fit nicely into a left/right divide?

Here you go: https://www.noodle.com/articles/let-s-get-rid-of-special-edu... Inclusive classrooms raise scores of the lower performing students. That's probably true. It glosses over what it does to people on the other end of the spectrum. As someone from the other end of the spectrum, growing up never having to put any effort, having few or no peers close to my level, and being constantly encouraged by the people ar…

I agree.

I started in an average class in my year. Don't remember doing anything extra at home, or much at all, but still had an equivalent of all A's. At some point my parents realised something was wrong and moved me to the strongest class... Only then I started doing something. This is when I realised that some kids were already impossibly far ahead (we had world-level olympiad goers there).

Can't say I become world-class at anything but this helped to concentrate and work through the rest of school and uni without any problems.

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

#77

Post by vkazanov »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #59
colechristensen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://www.noodle.com/articles/let-s-get-rid-of-special-edu... Inclusive classrooms raise scores of the lower performing students. That's probably true. It glosses over what it does to people on the other end of the spectrum. As someone from the other end of the spectrum, growing up never having to put any effort, having few or no peers close to my level, and being constantly encouraged by the people ar…

Why isn't it deeply offensive for you to want to slow them down if the reverse is true?

What's more important: make everybody average? or make it possible for some people to reach outstanding levels?

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

#78

Post by moonchrome »

ardit33 wrote: post #7

My sister sent my niece to one, as even her 'private' middle school in Newton, MA, was just not strong enough. She did sign up my niece in every summer class she could, without overloading her. It was always my nieces' choice, and half the time she choose arts and half science. Now, my niece is able to do college entry level data science classes (she is about to become a Junior in HighSchool), and she actually likes…

>The Albanian school was brutal in teaching science. Biology started at 5th grade, pre-Algebra at 5, and full blown Algebra at 6, physics at 6, and Chemistry at 7. Then in highschool you did the same, but more advanced. There was no choice at all, you had to do them all. The only choice in HS was a second foreign language. The whole idea was that you have to know all the basics of ALL sciences, so in college you know what to choose and pursue. If you never tried, you will have no clue if you liked something or not. (also basic music knowledge, sheet reading, and arts was a requirement as well).

I've went through similar curriculum in Croatia and I hated it - the literature they forced on us was politically correct bullshit some figurehead decided should be common culture. As a result 30% of the class read it and the rest just cheated and studied for test.

It was like this in every class - I hated cheating and studying for the test - I was lazy and it was pointless - as a result I got barely passing grades based on slightly paying attention in class. But in casual conversation I could relate way more of the basics than my peers. And I lost interest in many subjects simply because of how they were taught (study random facts because it will be on the test - no context or application). I had to relearn algebra after highschool because of how badly it was taught - and I was interested in it since I was trying to learn 3d programming and I was going to math competitions in elementary school - teachers couldn't relate any questions I asked to stuff I was interested in.

I hope my kid gets way less material to study and more opportunity to figure out what he wants to learn.

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

#79

Post by leto_ii »

petre wrote: post #72
leto_ii wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience in my home country of Romania was similar to yours, however my conclusions couldn't be more different. > American schools are too soft on science in general. [...]The Albanian school was brutal in teaching science How on earth is brutality in teaching a good idea? What was the effect of this approach on the average Albanian or Romanian student? Sure it worked fine for a few of us, but overall the result…

> Have you ever wondered how it's possible that the same "stupid" Americans that don't learn integrals and group theory in highschool somehow manage just fine in university and later on in life? Most people will do just fine with basic math training because it's what you normally need later on in life. Most of my math training in the Eastern European school system has probably gone to waste. I only saw the point of a…

My point was that a lot of advanced math can be taught later on. If it's forced down people's throats without them understanding why things are the way they are, all you're gonna get is ignorance and resentment.

In Romania I attended one of the "elite" maths/cs highschools. Except a hand full of people who would win medals in the imo etc. the rest of us were mostly clever, overworked automatons who learned problem solving tricks that we regurgitated on the page come exam time.

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

#80

Post by xmprt »

credit_guy wrote: post #20
mjevans wrote: post #4

By about 1/4th of the way through I wanted to just know what 'russian math' looked like. By Halfway it was pretty clear they weren't going to tell me. I skimmed the last half, nothing stood out. What does "Russian Math" look like?

Sample problem for K-1 [1]: "Jane fills a bag with three types of chips. There are 3-point, 4-point and 7- point chips. Jane picks 3 chips worth 15 points. Which chips did she pick?" Sample problem for grades 5-6 [2]: "Pinocchio drank half a cup of black coffee. He then filled the cup back up with milk and drank one third of the mixture. Again he filled the cup to the top with milk, drank one sixth of the mixture and…

Those are pretty challenging problems and they also require a bit of working out. How many of these problems are students expected to solve in, say, and hour long test?
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