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I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience wit

I teach math. I am impressed that when you read these comments, very few of them show evidence of having read the article. The article is about experience with actual students, with ones who have a real knack for the subject and would learn it despite what any teacher did, and with ones who waver. There proves to be a better way, which the article describes in various ways, including as "sense-making." One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience.

qntty 10y ago
Do you have an opinion on math-circle inspired schools like Proof School[1]? To me it seems obvious that this is the direction that math education should go in for kids who are passionate about math. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_School
- jimhefferon 10y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it (other than what I read in the link).
whack 10y ago
> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the comments to argue in favor of what they already know to be true. I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  I concur with this. I have to fight the urge to do it myself.
- agentgt 10y ago
  > I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying. I'm curious... did you read the article in full? I'm not saying you're wrong but it would be funny if you didn't read it as well :) One of the things I like about Scientific America is they have an Executive Summary at the start of the article. So while folks may not have the details they at least have the correct gist. I skimmed the article. Do I have pre-formed opinions... I do. Would they have changed after reading the article in detail ... they might have if there was some hard evidence other than the obvious stat that the US is bad in math. My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: "Training teachers in a new way of thinking will take time, and American parents will need to be patient. In Japan, the transition did not happen overnight. When Takahashi began teaching in the new style, parents initially complained about the young instructor experimenting on their children." My father forced my brother and I into Kumon. Kumon was hardly imaginative. Did it work? I think a little bit. Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions.
  - jimhefferon 10y ago
    > My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: You could look into how your local public school system teaches. Taking to the people who teach there, for instance, is helpful. Expressing support for an NCTM-like approach, if you find you do support it, would also be great. > Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions. I understand and as a person who teaches math, and teaches teachers too, I feel the same impatience. I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Train teachers in the details of doing the job, as an engineer or doctor would be trained in details. The thing is, that's what the folks described here are doing. Have they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)
clifanatic 10y ago
> very few of them show evidence of having read the article Americans stink at reading, too.
- _nalply 10y ago
  Humans stink at reading.
  - jknoepfler 10y ago
    Humans stink.
dzdt 10y ago
Evidence that few read the article: no-one yet pointed out it is (2014).
agumonkey 10y ago
We need a culture of listening and less of speaking.
- globuous 10y ago
  We have two ears and one mouth ! That's what my brother used to tell me when I talked too much..
  - agumonkey 10y ago
js2 10y ago
To me, the article isn't really about math... math is just used to illustrate how poorly we teach in America, and then talks about the reasons why, primarily that we do a really poor job of teaching teachers. Some key quotes: - It wasn’t the first time that Americans had dreamed up a better way to teach math and then failed to implement it. …The trouble always starts when teachers are told to put innovative ideas into practice without much guidance on how to do it. In the hands of unprepared teachers, the reforms turn to nonsense, perplexing students more than helping them. - American institutions charged with training teachers in new approaches to math have proved largely unable to do it. At most education schools, the professors with the research budgets and deanships have little interest in the science of teaching. - Without the right training, most teachers do not understand math well enough to teach it the way Lampert does. “Remember,” Lampert says, “American teachers are only a subset of Americans.” As graduates of American schools, they are no more likely to display numeracy than the rest of us. - Left to their own devices, teachers are once again trying to incorporate new ideas into old scripts, often botching them in the process. - In Japan, teachers had always depended on jugyokenkyu, which translates literally as “lesson study,” a set of practices that Japanese teachers use to hone their craft. A teacher first plans lessons, then teaches in front of an audience of students and other teachers along with at least one university observer. Then the observers talk with the teacher about what has just taken place. Each public lesson poses a hypothesis, a new idea about how to help children learn. And each discussion offers a chance to determine whether it worked. Without jugyokenkyu, it was no wonder the American teachers’ work fell short of the model set by their best thinkers. And the most important two paragraphs: The other shift Americans will have to make extends beyond just math. Across all school subjects, teachers receive a pale imitation of the preparation, support and tools they need. And across all subjects, the neglect shows in students’ work. In addition to misunderstanding math, American students also, on average, write weakly, read poorly, think unscientifically and grasp history only superficially. Examining nearly 3,000 teachers in six school districts, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently found that nearly two-thirds scored less than “proficient” in the areas of “intellectual challenge” and “classroom discourse.” Odds-defying individual teachers can be found in every state, but the overall picture is of a profession struggling to make the best of an impossible hand. Most policies aimed at improving teaching conceive of the job not as a craft that needs to be taught but as a natural-born talent that teachers either decide to muster or don’t possess. Instead of acknowledging that changes like the new math are something teachers must learn over time, we mandate them as “standards” that teachers are expected to simply “adopt.” We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that their students don’t improve. But this isn't news (even if the article is from 2014). I've linked to this report from 2007 many times before and I'll do so again: http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-best-performing-schools-come-out-on-top/ http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-best-performing-... To find out why some schools succeed where others do not, McKinsey studied 25 of the world’s school systems, including 10 of the top performers. The experience of these top school systems suggest that three things matter most: Getting the right people to become teachers; Developing them into effective instructors; and Ensuring the system is available to deliver the best possible instruction for every child. In the US, we fall down on all three of these points.
njharman 10y ago
Couldn't read article. Hit paywall or something, didn't bother checking what just clicked "close tab" after the tenths of second it took to recognize it was not article. A reflex I've developed.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jandrese 10y ago
People on my Facebook feed are still venting over "Obama" trying to teach some number sense to kids. Like if you don't do the subtraction exactly how the parents were taught in school it's going to ruin the kids for life.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
>>everybody [on HN] has a pre-formed opinion and does >>not seem to want to risk having to modify it Jim, this is seems like a crazy generalization. I assume you haven't tried to quantify this and it's just anecdotal opinion right? No problem, let's continue: 1). All my beliefs are falsifiable. Since your claim includes "everybody", I guess this counterexample alone proves your conjecture false. 2). If the most open minded community on the Internet scores 100, what score would you give HN? Can you name a single one that's better? I'd like to check it out. 3). How often does a response here randomly adopt the retort "Its Obama's fault" or an ad hominem attack? When it does happen it's almost immediately killed or downvoted off. On a separate note, the article plays up how bad Americans are at math. Is this data controlled for household income and education level of parents? The factors are so significant it's hard to accept the data without them. Lastly, my personal experience mostly matches the article. So many math classes were rote, boring, and uninspiring. I first learned it didn't have to be this way during discrete math because it required less algorithms, more creativity in proofs, and pulled back the curtain on what really made things tick.
Pitarou 10y ago
Well, I clicked on the link, and it just said, "You have to log in to view this article." Are you seriously suggesting I have to register with the New York Times before I'm permitted to share an opinion? (just kidding)

qntty 10y ago

Do you have an opinion on math-circle inspired schools like Proof School[1]? To me it seems obvious that this is the direction that math education should go in for kids who are passionate about math. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_School

jimhefferon 10y ago
I'm sorry, I don't know anything about it (other than what I read in the link).

whack 10y ago

> "One of the problems here is that everybody has a pre-formed opinion and does not seem to want to risk having to modify it with the evidence of experience." That's probably the most accurate description of HN comments I've seen. People see a headline related to something they already have pre-existing beliefs about, they read a few paragraphs just to make sure they're on point, and then they jump straight to the comments to argue in favor of what they already know to be true. I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying.

alistproducer2 10y ago
I concur with this. I have to fight the urge to do it myself.
agentgt 10y ago
> I'm willing to wager $10000 that a significant majority of HN commenters in any thread do not read the article in full, and even among those who do, a smaller minority actually post comments addressing the meat of what the article is saying. I'm curious... did you read the article in full? I'm not saying you're wrong but it would be funny if you didn't read it as well :) One of the things I like about Scientific America is they have an Executive Summary at the start of the article. So while folks may not have the details they at least have the correct gist. I skimmed the article. Do I have pre-formed opinions... I do. Would they have changed after reading the article in detail ... they might have if there was some hard evidence other than the obvious stat that the US is bad in math. My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: "Training teachers in a new way of thinking will take time, and American parents will need to be patient. In Japan, the transition did not happen overnight. When Takahashi began teaching in the new style, parents initially complained about the young instructor experimenting on their children." My father forced my brother and I into Kumon. Kumon was hardly imaginative. Did it work? I think a little bit. Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions.
- jimhefferon 10y ago
  > My question (I'm having my first child with in a month) is what do I do as a parent other than be patient: You could look into how your local public school system teaches. Taking to the people who teach there, for instance, is helpful. Expressing support for an NCTM-like approach, if you find you do support it, would also be great. > Education techniques particularly math has changed so many times that it is beginning to look like diet and exercises. We are all a little jaded so I can understand the plethora of pre-formed opinions. I understand and as a person who teaches math, and teaches teachers too, I feel the same impatience. I want to know why we don't just go out and see, on actual students, what actually makes them better at understanding and being able to solve problems. Try different things and see what works. Review video tapes. Give before and after tests, and focus groups, and see what the people in the class learn the most from. Train teachers in the details of doing the job, as an engineer or doctor would be trained in details. The thing is, that's what the folks described here are doing. Have they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)

clifanatic 10y ago

> very few of them show evidence of having read the article Americans stink at reading, too.

_nalply 10y ago
Humans stink at reading.
- jknoepfler 10y ago
  Humans stink.

dzdt 10y ago

Evidence that few read the article: no-one yet pointed out it is (2014).

agumonkey 10y ago

We need a culture of listening and less of speaking.

globuous 10y ago
We have two ears and one mouth ! That's what my brother used to tell me when I talked too much..
- agumonkey 10y ago

js2 10y ago

To me, the article isn't really about math... math is just used to illustrate how poorly we teach in America, and then talks about the reasons why, primarily that we do a really poor job of teaching teachers. Some key quotes: - It wasn’t the first time that Americans had dreamed up a better way to teach math and then failed to implement it. …The trouble always starts when teachers are told to put innovative ideas into practice without much guidance on how to do it. In the hands of unprepared teachers, the reforms turn to nonsense, perplexing students more than helping them. - American institutions charged with training teachers in new approaches to math have proved largely unable to do it. At most education schools, the professors with the research budgets and deanships have little interest in the science of teaching. - Without the right training, most teachers do not understand math well enough to teach it the way Lampert does. “Remember,” Lampert says, “American teachers are only a subset of Americans.” As graduates of American schools, they are no more likely to display numeracy than the rest of us. - Left to their own devices, teachers are once again trying to incorporate new ideas into old scripts, often botching them in the process. - In Japan, teachers had always depended on jugyokenkyu, which translates literally as “lesson study,” a set of practices that Japanese teachers use to hone their craft. A teacher first plans lessons, then teaches in front of an audience of students and other teachers along with at least one university observer. Then the observers talk with the teacher about what has just taken place. Each public lesson poses a hypothesis, a new idea about how to help children learn. And each discussion offers a chance to determine whether it worked. Without jugyokenkyu, it was no wonder the American teachers’ work fell short of the model set by their best thinkers. And the most important two paragraphs: The other shift Americans will have to make extends beyond just math. Across all school subjects, teachers receive a pale imitation of the preparation, support and tools they need. And across all subjects, the neglect shows in students’ work. In addition to misunderstanding math, American students also, on average, write weakly, read poorly, think unscientifically and grasp history only superficially. Examining nearly 3,000 teachers in six school districts, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently found that nearly two-thirds scored less than “proficient” in the areas of “intellectual challenge” and “classroom discourse.” Odds-defying individual teachers can be found in every state, but the overall picture is of a profession struggling to make the best of an impossible hand. Most policies aimed at improving teaching conceive of the job not as a craft that needs to be taught but as a natural-born talent that teachers either decide to muster or don’t possess. Instead of acknowledging that changes like the new math are something teachers must learn over time, we mandate them as “standards” that teachers are expected to simply “adopt.” We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that their students don’t improve. But this isn't news (even if the article is from 2014). I've linked to this report from 2007 many times before and I'll do so again: http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-best-performing-schools-come-out-on-top/ http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-best-performing-... To find out why some schools succeed where others do not, McKinsey studied 25 of the world’s school systems, including 10 of the top performers. The experience of these top school systems suggest that three things matter most: Getting the right people to become teachers; Developing them into effective instructors; and Ensuring the system is available to deliver the best possible instruction for every child. In the US, we fall down on all three of these points.

njharman 10y ago

Couldn't read article. Hit paywall or something, didn't bother checking what just clicked "close tab" after the tenths of second it took to recognize it was not article. A reflex I've developed.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jandrese 10y ago

People on my Facebook feed are still venting over "Obama" trying to teach some number sense to kids. Like if you don't do the subtraction exactly how the parents were taught in school it's going to ruin the kids for life.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

>>everybody [on HN] has a pre-formed opinion and does >>not seem to want to risk having to modify it Jim, this is seems like a crazy generalization. I assume you haven't tried to quantify this and it's just anecdotal opinion right? No problem, let's continue: 1). All my beliefs are falsifiable. Since your claim includes "everybody", I guess this counterexample alone proves your conjecture false. 2). If the most open minded community on the Internet scores 100, what score would you give HN? Can you name a single one that's better? I'd like to check it out. 3). How often does a response here randomly adopt the retort "Its Obama's fault" or an ad hominem attack? When it does happen it's almost immediately killed or downvoted off. On a separate note, the article plays up how bad Americans are at math. Is this data controlled for household income and education level of parents? The factors are so significant it's hard to accept the data without them. Lastly, my personal experience mostly matches the article. So many math classes were rote, boring, and uninspiring. I first learned it didn't have to be this way during discrete math because it required less algorithms, more creativity in proofs, and pulled back the curtain on what really made things tick.

Pitarou 10y ago

Well, I clicked on the link, and it just said, "You have to log in to view this article." Are you seriously suggesting I have to register with the New York Times before I'm permitted to share an opinion? (just kidding)