3 ms·

In my high school year in international school(in germany) I've seen many students from diverse backgrounds. I could see balanced number of students taught from

In my high school year in international school(in germany) I've seen many students from diverse backgrounds. I could see balanced number of students taught from their own origin: US, asian or international school itself. One thing I remember until now is that students from US kept using the phrase 'plug-it-in' whenever they substitute values into quadratic formula. Overusing that term made me laugh about their attitude towards math because it felt as if they didn't really care what's inside that magic formula that pops the answer out. It felt so 'american' because I felt the same attitude when they treat computer programs: 'I don't give a shit about what's going on. Some smart asian kid will make me a magic machine that I just need to plug in the numbers and prints the answer, while I focus on making varsity football team next year.' You can downvote me for my racism though. All excuse I can make is that they also laughed when I told them how their attitude towards math sounded like.

cmeacham98 6y ago
You could have expressed this same opinion, and in a stronger way, by not including the racism and racial stereotypes.
zozbot234 6y ago
"Plug-it-in" is simply jargon for what would more properly be called substitution and reduction. One would use the exact same sort of reasoning when doing "proper" math proofs, so I think your attitude might be a bit misguided - there's no "magic" involved.
- totorovirus 6y ago
  yes but I've already seen the attitude among american students who treat plug-it-in equivalent to plug-in devices xD
gitgudnubs 6y ago
So much racism for treating functions as black boxes. That's what you're supposed to do: treat functions as black boxes, not express casual racism on hacker news.
- mantas 6y ago
  Alternative point of view: functions is just a performance boost. You still have to understand what and how they do to use them correctly. Treating them as "black box" leads to shitty outcomes. Coincidentally, there seems to be quite a lot of overlap with cultural background and one or another PoV on functions.
playing_colours 6y ago
A shiny example of racism caused by wrong interpretation and ignorance.

cmeacham98 6y ago

You could have expressed this same opinion, and in a stronger way, by not including the racism and racial stereotypes.

zozbot234 6y ago

"Plug-it-in" is simply jargon for what would more properly be called substitution and reduction. One would use the exact same sort of reasoning when doing "proper" math proofs, so I think your attitude might be a bit misguided - there's no "magic" involved.

totorovirus 6y ago
yes but I've already seen the attitude among american students who treat plug-it-in equivalent to plug-in devices xD

gitgudnubs 6y ago

So much racism for treating functions as black boxes. That's what you're supposed to do: treat functions as black boxes, not express casual racism on hacker news.

mantas 6y ago
Alternative point of view: functions is just a performance boost. You still have to understand what and how they do to use them correctly. Treating them as "black box" leads to shitty outcomes. Coincidentally, there seems to be quite a lot of overlap with cultural background and one or another PoV on functions.

playing_colours 6y ago

A shiny example of racism caused by wrong interpretation and ignorance.