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Make Your Daughter Practice Math. She’ll Thank You Later
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y agoWell, your son might thank you, too.
- eksemplar 8y agoI agree, but I think the headline for sons wouldn’t need the math bit, as boys apparently don’t gravitate away from math because they are better at something else. But sons surely need to practice, in general, because right now women are doing a lot better at higher education. At least in my country, women are increasingly getting into academia while more and more young men don’t even finish the Danish equivalent of high-school. I’m not a supporter of equality of outcome, but I think we need to get better at making sure everyone has a better opportunity for fulfilling their potential. Regardless of what they want to do. If that’s making girls practice math, then that’s a good idea.
- Viliam1234 8y agoSuggesting that boys might be better at something would be politically incorrect, of course. One is allowed to talk about gender differences only if they are in favor of women. Well, one could simply write an article about "helping your kids practice math", without mentioning gender, but I guess that would generate less clicks. Whatever; my kids are all girls, so I am going to do math with them... exactly the same way I would with boys.
- backpropaganda 8y agoIs the average reader of NYTimes really so well-versed with Latin that they'd know phrases such as "sine qua non"? I've typically seen such phrases used when the context makes the meaning clear, but this was a real stumper, and my guess is it was for others too. Why is it considered good UX to make your readers switch context to do a google search and then return to reading the article? I'm not a native English speaker, and perhaps this speaks more about my non-elite education.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pjmlp 8y agoYou don't need to master Latin to understand "sine qua non". A few languages have latin expressions as part of the proper language way of speaking, vs colloquial language, "sine qua non" being a relatively common one. So given the intended audience of NY Times it doesn't seem out of place. Likewise in Germany it would surprise me to read such expressions on The Bild, on The Süd Deutsche Zeitung, perfectly reasonable.
- gnicholas 8y agoThis would be fairly common knowledge among lawyers, who become familiar with many Latin phrases in law school. But I agree that this was not a particularly good usage. I would have instead described math skills as "foundational". This communicates the same concept without being pretentious or opaque.
- vixen99 8y agoLatin phrases are in common English usage as is this one. Their use is nothing to do with elite education. It doesn't take long to become familiar with some of the most frequently met ones. I might add that a number of European languages use them extensively.
- perl4ever 8y agoIt's not really something that comes from knowing Latin per se, (see what I did there) but just the sort of Latin phrases that were typically used in English writing of the 20th century. Due to the explosion of the Internet, I think there are a lot more people who speak and write fluent English without much experience reading books in English. It used to be that the average reader of the NY Times did read books, I would think, but maybe not so much any more.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoAlso due to the internet I don't think using a latin phrase like this is an issue. If the reader doesn't recognize it, the definition is only a couple of clicks away.
- type-2 8y agoi heard that common core style is used to teach kids to make the concepts behind the maths are understood by kids. Does anyone have any experience with it?. But I think agree with the article on the idea that what you think about your abilities changes you.
- amboo7 8y agoI taught my daughter, when she was 4, to multiply m*n by drawing m parallel lines intersecting n parallel lines, then counting the intersections as the result. Etc., as I am a nerd, we discussed fun problems from time to time. Seven years later she won a trophy at the national level.
- fatnoah 8y agoI have a 10 year old who attended private school. I'm not sure if they used Common Core or not, but they definitely used an approach designed to instill an understanding of concepts vs. the rote arithmetic drilling I did as a kid. I was skeptical at first, but mostly because the school did a poor job explaining the methods to parents, which left me to Google the methods so I could help my son when he had questions. That said, he does have a great understanding of numbers and is able to do a substantial amount of math in his head using this understanding. (e.g. 99+99+99 is just 300-3). It's essentially what I do in my own head, though with slightly different methods.
- lordnacho 8y agoOn the subject of drilling math, I would like to hear if any of you other readers have had experience with Kumon. I've been taking my kid to it, but I'm getting increasing resistance from his side, while also not seeing quite why I'm doing it. Kumon is basically a daily set of very similar questions (1+3=, 2+3=, 8+3=) with a weekly workshop where you do the same. The goal is to have all the arithmetic drilled into memory, so the workbooks are very repetitive. On paper it sounds great to be drilling math questions, and I used to do it myself. But his Kumon stuff is very slow at changing, and my son is complaining that he already knows the stuff and is doing more interesting things in school. School happens to be doing Singapore Maths, which is yet another philosophy of math teaching. The problem is the kid is understanding what I understand, which is that endless drilling isn't math. I'm a bit more ambivalent having done a load of math beyond his level, and knowing that it's useful to memorize a few things. But I can't but feel he's right and even I am bored doing the workbooks over his shoulder. There must be some alternative way I can regularly show him interesting stuff in math.
- leonroy 8y agoI did Kumon from about 9 till about 14 and I sure complained about it a lot to my parents! They persisted thank goodness because it fundamentally altered the way my brain ‘sees’ numbers. I can’t speak for that happening in every case but it was incredibly valuable for me and I’ve always found mathematics straightforward and immensely satisfying since then. I’ll be ensuring my children go once they’re old enough - you can be certain of that!
- zaarn 8y agoIn my experience, drilling doesn't lead to an understanding and rather to simply repeating the exercise from memory. A true understanding of the matter will get you farther than being able to recite past exercises, especially once you write an exam where the numbers and exercises have changed a lot so they will require understanding.
- dbtqgoat 8y agoYou’re correct that it won’t create a better understanding but it will increase performance.
- 2038AD 8y agoI'm torn. On one hand, I want to invoke Ricardo's comparative advantage and say "let them write". I am for people pursuing what they enjoy. On the other hand, the math skills of most people could be better and math is incredibly important.