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I would also add many things that are taught have a lot of historical cruft. For example, calculus. What is taught currently by most high schools is a horrible
by nextos 7y ago
I would also add many things that are taught have a lot of historical cruft.
For example, calculus. What is taught currently by most high schools is a horrible mess that mixes infinitesimal calculus as devised by Newton-Leibniz with late 1800s epsilon-delta formalisms. Clarifying this would shed a lot of light into student understanding.
Same thing can be said about linear algebra, where lots of algorithmic stuff hides a simple abstraction that is rarely mentioned. Matrices encode linear transformations.
I was taught way too many algorithmic tricks without proper conceptual motivation.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoCompletely agree. I think there should be a way to review and crit public curriculum... I guess I have to wait till my kids are in the class
- jacknews 7y agoThanks for saying what I was about to. Yes I find the curriculum often runs in 'historic' order, as if the students are expected to learn in the same order as humanity discovered things. Why not teach the powerful underlying principles as soon as they can be comprehended? For example, it's not until after you've learned about many kinds of chemical reactions that you actually learn what chemistry is, about atomic electron shells, valence, etc. Same with biology, too much naming flower parts, and not enough evolution, molecular biology, etc.