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As someone who has studied both math and computer science (and is now a professional programmer), I have no idea what you are talking about. We are far better a
by gizmo686 8y ago
As someone who has studied both math and computer science (and is now a professional programmer), I have no idea what you are talking about. We are far better at teaching people to program than we are at teaching them to do math. Its just that most people self select out of math [0], so, due to selection bias, it appears that we are great at teaching those that remain.
As an aside, as someone who also studied linguistics [1] (and a couple of foreign languages at a beginner level), I am very confident in saying that our approach to teaching natural languages relies almost entirely on natural aptitude. It is just that, absent a serious mental disorder, all humans have a very large natural aptitude for natural languages
[0] Probably because we are absolutly terrible at teaching it.
[1] I assume not what you mean by teaching natural languages, but the topic of language acuisition (including in adults) does come up; plus it gives some perspective on how teaching language would look if we didn't rely on natural aptitude.
- Gibbon1 8y agoI took math as part of my engineering degree. And that was 30 years ago. The older I get the more I think the way it was taught was terrible. Same reason I think teachers are bitching about the US's fetish for academic testing. Testing pressures teachers to teach students to mechanically solve problems. But with shallow understanding.
- crooked-v 8y agoI think of monads, which are real easy to explain in a programming context as soon as someone understands lists and map/reduce, but are total gibberish in a math context even if you've gotten through calculus.