3 ms·

If you speak/read French, try to have a look at elementary/middle school math books from the 60's/70's in France. It was a disaster and forced a lot of kids to

If you speak/read French, try to have a look at elementary/middle school math books from the 60's/70's in France. It was a disaster and forced a lot of kids to imagine they were bad at maths.

rq1 6y ago
I had discussion about it with Cedric Villani once and he told me that was not a disaster because of the books or the material, but the teachers were not good enough. Eg. when teaching set theory, teachers were debating what should be a perfect representation of a set (is it an ellipse or circle... etc.?) Children were completely lost because of this. If you don’t draw a perfect ellipse to represent a set then you had a bad mark and so on and so forth.
- dnpp123 6y ago
  Sure but what good is an education method if the teachers don't understand it. I don't doubt that if you had a great teacher that would work, but considering how focused French education is on mathematics, this was one of the main reason why the social ladder broke.
  - rq1 6y ago
    I understand, but on the same period, France grew a whole generation of brilliant mathematicians. I don't think that the two are completely unrelated. There is basically two solutions: reduce the quality of the material, or teach the teachers. I tend to prefer the second.
    - dnpp123 6y ago
      > I understand, but on the same period, France grew a whole generation of brilliant mathematicians. I don't think that the two are completely unrelated. If you could prove me that there were more brilliant mathematicians educated in France during the 60's/70's compared to other periods, I'd be interested. Even if this is the case (which I'm not sure), at least it's pretty clear it lowered the median (whether this is good or not is another debate ;)
wbhart 6y ago
But how did Bourbaki influence elementary/middle school mathematics? Bourbaki mathematics is basically at the level of graduate school. Except in countries where a graduate degree is required to teach mathematics, I can't imagine how there would even be a connection between the two worlds. Is that the case in France? Again, I'm not disputing what you are saying either, merely trying to understand what happened. Is it still going on in French schools today? Or was it 60's/70's only?
- dnpp123 6y ago
  AFAIK the idea at that time was to try to apply the Bourbaky method to teach kids elementary maths - e.g. try to explain the concept of sets before kids know how to add 2 numbers (I'm caricaturing but not that much - you had to explain to kids Peano before addition..). Someone else might have a better answer for that as I'm too young to know. Wikipedia French page on 'New Math' mentions it but not in details. > Is it still going on in French schools today? Or was it 60's/70's only? Unless you are in a reaally elitist high school in Paris with a really old teacher, this should'nt happen nowadays.
  - Jraf 6y ago
    French here : As far as i remember, I've learned set, intersect, include, etc when i was 11-12 years old, in 1985-1986. Seems to be 6th Grade.
    - wbhart 6y ago
      Everybody learns that at school, French or not (I certainly did in Australia). The set theory referred to here is very abstract.
    - posed 6y ago
      When I learned set theory and relations for the first time, I was in love with the abstractiveness of mathematics. It was so intuitive and I truly felt that I've got the grasp of fundamental principles of maths. The sad thing was, we were introduced to set theory in Grade 11(17 years old), that's too late IMO, it should be taught around Grade 4.
chewz 6y ago
In most countries the schoolbooks had been changed to teaching about sets and stuff in the first grade. Generally more abstract or top-down approach. Old school approach was more bottom-up. In my country I have been still learning from old schoobooks while classes below had new schoolbooks - thats why I remember that well. Recently I have been helping 11 year old with classes (remote learning now). And my impression is that this top-down approach is still present but the schoolbook was full of practical life examples (money issues, understanding newspaper articles with pecentages and percent points etc.)

If you speak/read French, try to have a look at elementary/middle school math books from the 60's/70's in France. It was a disaster and forced a lot of kids to imagine they were bad at maths.

rq1 6y ago

I had discussion about it with Cedric Villani once and he told me that was not a disaster because of the books or the material, but the teachers were not good enough. Eg. when teaching set theory, teachers were debating what should be a perfect representation of a set (is it an ellipse or circle... etc.?) Children were completely lost because of this. If you don’t draw a perfect ellipse to represent a set then you had a bad mark and so on and so forth.

dnpp123 6y ago
Sure but what good is an education method if the teachers don't understand it. I don't doubt that if you had a great teacher that would work, but considering how focused French education is on mathematics, this was one of the main reason why the social ladder broke.
- rq1 6y ago
  I understand, but on the same period, France grew a whole generation of brilliant mathematicians. I don't think that the two are completely unrelated. There is basically two solutions: reduce the quality of the material, or teach the teachers. I tend to prefer the second.
  - dnpp123 6y ago
    > I understand, but on the same period, France grew a whole generation of brilliant mathematicians. I don't think that the two are completely unrelated. If you could prove me that there were more brilliant mathematicians educated in France during the 60's/70's compared to other periods, I'd be interested. Even if this is the case (which I'm not sure), at least it's pretty clear it lowered the median (whether this is good or not is another debate ;)

wbhart 6y ago

But how did Bourbaki influence elementary/middle school mathematics? Bourbaki mathematics is basically at the level of graduate school. Except in countries where a graduate degree is required to teach mathematics, I can't imagine how there would even be a connection between the two worlds. Is that the case in France? Again, I'm not disputing what you are saying either, merely trying to understand what happened. Is it still going on in French schools today? Or was it 60's/70's only?

dnpp123 6y ago
AFAIK the idea at that time was to try to apply the Bourbaky method to teach kids elementary maths - e.g. try to explain the concept of sets before kids know how to add 2 numbers (I'm caricaturing but not that much - you had to explain to kids Peano before addition..). Someone else might have a better answer for that as I'm too young to know. Wikipedia French page on 'New Math' mentions it but not in details. > Is it still going on in French schools today? Or was it 60's/70's only? Unless you are in a reaally elitist high school in Paris with a really old teacher, this should'nt happen nowadays.
- Jraf 6y ago
  French here : As far as i remember, I've learned set, intersect, include, etc when i was 11-12 years old, in 1985-1986. Seems to be 6th Grade.
  - wbhart 6y ago
    Everybody learns that at school, French or not (I certainly did in Australia). The set theory referred to here is very abstract.
  - posed 6y ago
    When I learned set theory and relations for the first time, I was in love with the abstractiveness of mathematics. It was so intuitive and I truly felt that I've got the grasp of fundamental principles of maths. The sad thing was, we were introduced to set theory in Grade 11(17 years old), that's too late IMO, it should be taught around Grade 4.

chewz 6y ago

In most countries the schoolbooks had been changed to teaching about sets and stuff in the first grade. Generally more abstract or top-down approach. Old school approach was more bottom-up. In my country I have been still learning from old schoobooks while classes below had new schoolbooks - thats why I remember that well. Recently I have been helping 11 year old with classes (remote learning now). And my impression is that this top-down approach is still present but the schoolbook was full of practical life examples (money issues, understanding newspaper articles with pecentages and percent points etc.)