> a lot of elementary school teachers are women who weren’t doing well at math and got encouraged to go become an elementary school teacher because, basically s

> a lot of elementary school teachers are women who weren’t doing well at math and got encouraged to go become an elementary school teacher because, basically sexism is alive and well I hear your frustration, and I’m glad that there has been progress in this regard. However I think that what the GP was saying and what you’re saying are two different issues: The GP is referring to particular teaching styles which might be overly formal (in the mathematical sense) or declarative (this is convolution, that’s how it is, remember it) as opposed to intuitive (which might not convoy the whole truth but helps some if not most people understand and remember the concept better). This issue can and often takes place in higher education where the teacher or lecturer is expected to be highly qualified. I remember being frustrated with the way my linear algebra and multivariable calculus classes were taught. Both generalize to n dimensions but many operations and theorems can often be understood intuitively in two or three dimensions. The courses I took were extremely formal with not a minute spent on the graphical interpretation which would have helped so much. When I raised the issue with two separate professors, both were of the opinion that the graphical approach was frivolous because it wasn’t precise. But that argument misses the point of the lecture theatre space ...