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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)

#81

Post by orthoxerox »

meshr wrote: post #41

It is not Russian but 'Soviets math'. Ironically, Russia introduced analogy of USA's standardized right after Itina emigrated from Russia and now Russian's math is also optimized for memorizing but not for 'emphasizing reasoning and deeper understanding'

I graduated before USE, and my math classes were... mediocre. To graduate, you had to do 10 problems of average difficulty, so our textbooks didn't even have problems harder than that.

I took a look at the entrance exam at the uni I wanted to apply to and was shocked. Thankfully, I had my dad and he went through Skanavi's exercise book with me.

I look at the USE math exam every year and it's much better than my final exam (although I like gaokao more, it has more varied problems that make you combine different areas of math), but I don't know where the cutoff point for "I won't get into trouble for my students' low results" is.

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

#82

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

gnat wrote: post #36
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…

Do you have data or anecdata on the effect of repeating an entire year? In many modern Western schools that'd be frowned upon as punitive and as likely to provoke a "well screw YOU!" response or ingrain "I must really be stupid" mindset.

In the ex-Soviet country I am from repeating a year was a shame and admission of idiocy.

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

#83

Post by colechristensen »

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?

Because in kindergarten I was regularly asked to go hang out by myself as literally every other student in the room learned to read. When they gave me the tests they use to measure themselves I got 99th percentile scores so literally neglecting me got them the metric as doing anything for me.

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

#84

Post by b0rsuk »

Some education systems put an emphasis on critical thinking, some on absorbing tons of information.

Polish education is notable for memorization. One area where it doesn't seem to hurt is medicine. It appears Polish doctors and nurses are very much appreciated when they migrate. Perhaps critical thinking is not a useful skill in medical practice?

Once upon a time I was reading an article about Polish migrants in Norway. The Norwegians observe that Poles are reluctant to send kids to Norwegian schools for a few reasons: a) the language is very different, b) Poles fear children will become rebellious, because the schools emphasize critical thinking* c) Poles fear children will become... idiots. Because they won't know too many facts. It appears despite constant complaining about pointless facts and useless information, Poles take some sick pride in the suffering. Some kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

* this reminds me of a rumor circulating about personnel of mental hospitals. Patients are often sedated not because it's good for the patients, but because it's convenient for the personnel.

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

#85

Post by orthoxerox »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #38
arthur_sav wrote: post #32

Somehow the American education system keeps getting worse while they poor more money into it.

There’s a limited amount you can do when everyone around you is destitute. I seriously doubt future coal miners were taught sophisticated math in high school in the USSR - they took tracking and specialization to an extreme, whereas this is culturally verboten in America (for good reason).

It's the Germans who are extreme specializers, with separate middle and high schools for vocational, professional and academic tracks.

The Union had two optional years of high school, but everyone took the first eight with no tracks or optional classes. After that you could finish school or get three years of vocational education and join the workforce.

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

#86

Post by credit_guy »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #50
google234123 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very funny, no one will resent you as a "leech on society due to" your “inferior mathematical ability.” However, if you actually choose to literally leech on society (e.g. choose to be unemployed and uneducated) then people will. Anyway, education exists to educate. If you care about social welfare, talk to the social welfare programs.

They absolutely do - they most likely consider people like me to be subhuman entities. It’s not like I have the mental ability to get into the fancy schools or fancy companies they got into.

Hold on a second. I want my kids to be good at math. I pay taxes too. Why do you think you are subsidizing me, or my kids?

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

#87

Post by lqet »

s5300 wrote: post #75
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.

Extreme political views tend to produce similar results, regardless of their justification.

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

#88

Post by Sponge5 »

dehrmann wrote: post #35
frant-hartm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> school's curriculum is based on Russian teaching traditions that emphasize reasoning and deeper understanding early on, not just memorization and practice drills. "The child should be brought to abstract level as soon as possible," she says, "meaning early introduction of algebra and geometry, not only arithmetic," and helping children figure out principles for themselves rather than spoon-feeding them.

I buy into having a deeper understanding, and in both work and school, it's pretty clear who has a deeper understanding and who's going through the motions. That said, how is it that there's such range in pedagogy? So many people have studied teaching that you'd think we'd have a better idea of what works. Or maybe it's that goals are different.

Not goals - incentives. I'm from Czechia and for me math education changed dramatically for the last year of high-school. All of a sudden it was crunch time to get the best result at the standardized tests that are part of government's examination.

Up until that point the math classes were very much Soviet-style understanding-first, daily hour-long homeworks that are described in the article.

Final year was about technique memorization.

Once you're gaming a system, education quality tanks.

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

#89

Post by inter_netuser »

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…

PISA ranking? China and Singapore are at the very top. If you think what's described is brutality, you should watch tiger moms push their children.

I've also went through what could be considered a "brutal" system, very similar to whats described, although i wouldn't use that specific term.

We had ~40 problem sets to solve every evening for homework, hours of work. I don't think anyone ever got an A+ in anything. If the student was better/stronger at something - they'd only get harder and harder questions thrown at them during oral exams until they crumble, and harder and harder sets added to their homework.

As for the "stupid" Americans? STEM classes are full of foreign kids in top US schools.

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

#90

Post by dragosmocrii »

lentil_soup wrote: post #31
dragosmocrii wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied in a top school in Moldova which follows a curriculum whose foundation was defined during the Soviet union times, so could be pretty close to the Russian curriculum. Just as an idea, in grade 10-11 I was studying limits, complex numbers, derivatives, grade 12 was dedicated to integrals and solving problems with them. Math got progressively harder starting with grade 5. I remember I was filling about 2-3 not…

How old is grade 10-11? I always get confused with these as each country numbers grades differently

grade 12 is usually 18yo, grade 11 is 17yo, etc
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