Brontoforumus

NYT: Why do Americans stink at math?

You would think they'd just make that a cornerstone of the advertisements.

The baby-boomer generation, everyone.

The intelligence of children is grossly underestimated in all areas when it comes to education, it's just particularly apparent in math because it's so exact a domain. Kids are given so-called shortcuts to places they don't want to go to instead of being shown a compelling goal first and then guided only if they can't find the genuine path on their own; it's no surprise they barely remember their way once the exams are done.

I was always terrible in Math and dropped it as soon as I was allowed (after Grade 10). But these stories always make me wonder if there were - or still are! - ways I could have learned more, better.

Honestly, given my experiences with the school system, I am inclined to say that if a kid works hard and still fails, the teaching process is to blame. Even if the child has an actual legitimate learning impairment, it is still the system's fault for not being suited to such a child. Fractions are not quantum mechanics, you don't need a mind capable of manipulating complex abstract constructs to understand what's going on with a sliced-up pie. But nooooo, if you screw up then you're a problem, and they're gonna try to cram just enough dumb shortcuts into your head that you'll pass the exam next month and you'll stop becoming their problem.

And I say that as a kid who worked hard and succeeded. I was spectacularly good at math but also dropped it as soon as I could, and the direction I took in the college education system was in large part decided by which path has no math in it whatsoever (went Arts & Literature in CÉGEP).

I think one of the worst things they do with math (at least in Wisconsin) here is with the kids that are actually GOOD at it. I took a test in 5th grade that said I was good at math so going into 6th grade I got put into an "Advanced Math" class. The first problem this caused was that I essentially skipped long division and other fifth and sixth grade math to go into early algebra and that just never got corrected although that's a small problem because calculators are your friend and I understand the CONCEPT of long division and large number multiplication and can do it fine with a sheet of paper and five minutes. I just don't have a wealth of knowledge with multiplication tables and things like that.

However the far worse problem, in my opinion, is that after middle school all the kids in my 'Advanced Math' class just got dumped into the math classes a grade up from where we should have been. Which meant in 9th grade we were all put into 10th grade math and treated like the giant math nerds we were by every 10th grader in our math classes. Now maybe I just feel this way because I lived it but it sure as hell seemed to me that that shit was by far the biggest reason I ever got bullied in school. That's the reason I hate math.

Also as an aside the advanced classes were actually really fucking hard. Like, I did OK in them but I'd have far rather preferred to be on the top end of 'normal' progression through school than mediocre on an 'advanced' track.

Right, exactly. The idea of skipping grades sounds like a concession to adaptability, but it's not really adapting to the students, it's just pushing them further along the same road.

As I mentioned before, I dropped out of high school twice. The first time I returned, it was decided that I was good enough to go the the grade following the one that I had quit on, not just in one class but in everything. Big surprise, I was completely lost and the teachers didn't know what to do with me. It contributed a lot to my dropping out the second time (though it was also because none of the problems related to the first time had gone away).

And then I went to the adult education system, which was actually adaptable because of course it has to be, and completed my last three years of high school in eleven months. It's amazing what a "problem teen" can do when you stop wasting his gd time.

You kids like dumb math stories?

I was on the advanced track in middle school as well, and went into Algebra in 7th grade (instead of math A/B [just general shit split up into two parts] in 7th/8th).

In 8th grade I transferred schools and was told since they couldn't trust my old school's programs were on track with theirs, so I got placement testing. I tested 'advanced' which for their school in 8th grade meant I took... algebra.

Transferring back to the first school system (that put me in algebra in 7th grade) they were like "wut, you missed math A/B? We can't let you fall behind so we'll have to put you back on the standard track for your grade." Which meant fucking algebra again.

At that point I just stopped showing up for classes, which they didn't take very well, and put me in summer school for algebra.

And that was the end of my school math career!



Until I got to community college and they put me in beginner algebra because I hadn't taken a math course in two years.

My highschool fucking blew at math so aside from the one year I had to take geometry it was just all the same stretch of algebra. Freshman math? Algrebra. Pre-Calc? No one fucking knew algebra so it just ended up being algebra class. Once I started taking college math I got placed in some sort of advanced class, which ended up being algebra.

Whenever I had to do math in school, either in science or math, I would always piss the fuck out of my teachers because I refused to show the long-ass work they wanted. Why would I do all of this stupid shit to find the answer? The reason why no one else can figure this shit out is because its so fucking complicated. Just show them how to do this in a way a normal human would do this.

Algebra was basically the last level of math I learned. I escaped before calc and even trig, which I feel kind of bad about.

And I have pretty much completely forgotten everything about it.

Yeah, "Show your work" was a thing I never really took to until college when it was complex enough to actually matter. I don't need to write out a line and a half of equations to say that x is 4 when 2x+3=11, it's just... there. It doesn't make sense for it to be anything but 4.

Joxam wrote:However the far worse problem, in my opinion, is that after middle school all the kids in my 'Advanced Math' class just got dumped into the math classes a grade up from where we should have been. Which meant in 9th grade we were all put into 10th grade math and treated like the giant math nerds we were by every 10th grader in our math classes. Now maybe I just feel this way because I lived it but it sure as orange seemed to me that that coconut was by far the biggest reason I ever got bullied in school. That's the reason I hate math.

My dad had that exact experience growing up in Long Island - he got skipped a grade, and then never had friends again until he got to college. That (along with my observation that because I wasn't causing trouble, I didn't get any attention - even in kindergarten) was one of the main reasons I got home schooled. It turned out well because I'd already started some Calculus in high school era, so I got invited to Honors Calculus in college and that lead to my getting a Master's in Math.

Cait wrote:Yeah, "Show your work" was a thing I never really took to until college when it was complex enough to actually matter. I don't need to write out a line and a half of equations to say that x is 4 when 2x+3=11, it's just... there. It doesn't make sense for it to be anything but 4.

My favorite Comp Sci professor pulled his son out of public school and started homeschooling him because he lost points on a test for leaving out a really basic step (I forget exactly what, but it was something obvious like simplifying 4/10 -> 2/5 without showing the full steps for simplifying it.)

Christ, "show your work".

In music class, second year of high school, it was Decided that I was gonna play the flute.

I can't play the flute. I literally can not play the flute. It's the shape of my lips, or the position of my teeth, or something like that. Same reason I can't whistle, probably.

Every day I'd be made to stay after class with first one friend who was also playing the flute, then with the actual teacher, trying to get me to blow into a flute the right way. Never managed to make any sort of musical sound with it, in months. After a while the teacher gave up, but made me learn the finger positions anyway, and I had to pantomime playing with the class, to "show I was working". God forbid I was allowed to try any of the dozen or so instruments other people in my class were allowed to play. "It's too late, you're not gonna catch up." I was tested by sitting in front of the teacher so he could watch me play up close. I didn't do too well, as you can expect, since it's a bit of a challenge to learn to play an instrument you can't hear. And with a flute it's not like I could exactly watch my own hands to see what was going on.

Just thinking about it still makes me mad. That was the year I first dropped out. Wasn't the only reason but on the teacher side of the equation it's nearly all the same flavor of bullshit.

Man it's been so long but school nonsense is still getting me so effing worked up. And to think I wanted to be a teacher.

François wrote:Christ, "show your work".

In music class, second year of high school, it was Decided that I was gonna play the flute.

I can't play the flute. I literally can not play the flute. It's the shape of my lips, or the position of my teeth, or something like that. Same reason I can't whistle, probably.

Every day I'd be made to stay after class with first one friend who was also playing the flute, then with the actual teacher, trying to get me to blow into a flute the right way. Never managed to make any sort of musical sound with it, in months. After a while the teacher gave up, but made me learn the finger positions anyway, and I had to pantomime playing with the class, to "show I was working". God forbid I was allowed to try any of the dozen or so instruments other people in my class were allowed to play. "It's too late, you're not gonna catch up." I was tested by sitting in front of the teacher so he could watch me play up close. I didn't do too well, as you can expect, since it's a bit of a challenge to learn to play an instrument you can't hear. And with a flute it's not like I could exactly watch my own hands to see what was going on.

Just thinking about it still makes me mad. That was the year I first dropped out. Wasn't the only reason but on the teacher side of the equation it's nearly all the same flavor of bullshit.

Man it's been so long but school nonsense is still getting me so effing worked up. And to think I wanted to be a teacher.

Holy crap, I had nearly the exact same experience.

I grade 7, where you first get proper music classes in Ontario (lolrecorders in grade 6), I wanted to play the Trombone really bad. But no one else did. So the music teacher, unwilling to teach yet another instrument, browbeat me into playing a clarinet. And man, I HATED that thing. I spent two years pantomiming and spitting into my instrument because fuck you music teacher.

To add insult to injury, two months into the year a dude transferred to our class who already played Trombone (too late for me to switch of course).

Learned a good lesson though.

Then again, based on my work history of the past ten years, maybe I didn't learn it after all. :/

Cait wrote:Yeah, "Show your work" was a thing I never really took to until college when it was complex enough to actually matter. I don't need to write out a line and a half of equations to say that x is 4 when 2x+3=11, it's just... there. It doesn't make sense for it to be anything but 4.

Dude, show your work on that is piss easy, so why would you skip it? I get it that you're probably good at math, but for someone who has barely any idea how that math works, knowing and showing the steps helps.

The problem I had with show your work is that I got skipped right over the small beginning step shit in fifth and sixth grade math because of being in 'advanced math'. I don't know WHY a lot of shit in algebra is the way it is, I just know that it is because its obvious which number goes where.

Now I might be able to simplify the problem in question to x=4 with a sheet of paper and a couple of minutes but why would I do that if I can plainly see that 2(4)+3=11?

The way I see it, they teach you to show your work with really simple math problems for the same reason they teach you to take notes in really simple history classes: because you're going to need to know how to do it later when the stuff gets harder and you really CAN'T keep track of it without notating as you go.

The problem is that frequently teachers (1) don't explain that very well (possibly because they don't understand that's the reason themselves) and (2) follow the rule dogmatically even with students who obviously understand the material and don't really need to be drilled on the rote technique stuff.

Proofs, anyone?

sei wrote:Proofs, anyone?

I hated the "proofs" in Calculus, but once I got into proper proofs (Set Theory and Logic at my college) I really loved 'em.