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We focus far too much time teaching calculus and trigonometry in school. Applied statistics would be far more relevant for nearly everyone.

by josho 5y ago

sobriquet9 5y ago
It's not easy to learn statistics without calculus.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Basic level doesn't need calc
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    Any part of statistics is completely dependent on calculus. You don't get to choose how features are distributed over the set of possible samples. It's always some scary looking function without exact solutions. But you don't need to teach people all the fundamentals of calculus before they can apply it. Definitions and a small set of pre-made answers are enough to start using it and focusing on the statistics. When (and if) those people decide to learn it more in depth, they can go back to calculus fundamentals, and will have an easier time doing so, because they will know why those things exist.
- ozim 5y ago
  I guess that parent poster was thinking about probability and mixed it up with statistics. If yes, then I agree with him. People should have more probability lessons at school than trigonometry or calculus.
  - sobriquet9 5y ago
    Basic probability (coin flipping, events over trials) by itself is just as useless as basic trigonometry. It only becomes useful as you move from simple combinatorics to continuous distributions, at which point you need differentiation and integration to switch between CDF and PDF. Much in the same way trigonometry becomes useful in physics once you need to deal with vectors and waves.
xwolfi 5y ago
We teach maths too much, we should just give gold bars to every student so they already win at life. Trigonometry in particular is so ingrained in many aspect of applied science that not learning its fundamentals and then pushing to its higher level concepts is going to seriously reduce adaptation capability in students. And if you somehow never need to rotate things, it's a good training in applying theoretical rules to concrete problems. In my university, after 2 years of increasingly complex trigonometry, we were left with 3D engine programming and to the fact that opened my mind forever that theoretical mathematics have a purpose.
lootsauce 5y ago
What % of students struggle and never really get the maths? What % do fine with the maths but never need them in their adult lives? I would argue this is far more than 75% of all people. Same can be argued probably with higher %s for foreign language in the us. I think learning advanced maths and foreign languages are great but I also think we waste insane amounts of human potential and $$$ with the way we go about it.

We focus far too much time teaching calculus and trigonometry in school. Applied statistics would be far more relevant for nearly everyone.

by josho 5y ago

We focus far too much time teaching calculus and trigonometry in school. Applied statistics would be far more relevant for nearly everyone.

sobriquet9 5y ago

It's not easy to learn statistics without calculus.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Basic level doesn't need calc
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Any part of statistics is completely dependent on calculus. You don't get to choose how features are distributed over the set of possible samples. It's always some scary looking function without exact solutions. But you don't need to teach people all the fundamentals of calculus before they can apply it. Definitions and a small set of pre-made answers are enough to start using it and focusing on the statistics. When (and if) those people decide to learn it more in depth, they can go back to calculus fundamentals, and will have an easier time doing so, because they will know why those things exist.
ozim 5y ago
I guess that parent poster was thinking about probability and mixed it up with statistics. If yes, then I agree with him. People should have more probability lessons at school than trigonometry or calculus.
- sobriquet9 5y ago
  Basic probability (coin flipping, events over trials) by itself is just as useless as basic trigonometry. It only becomes useful as you move from simple combinatorics to continuous distributions, at which point you need differentiation and integration to switch between CDF and PDF. Much in the same way trigonometry becomes useful in physics once you need to deal with vectors and waves.

xwolfi 5y ago

We teach maths too much, we should just give gold bars to every student so they already win at life. Trigonometry in particular is so ingrained in many aspect of applied science that not learning its fundamentals and then pushing to its higher level concepts is going to seriously reduce adaptation capability in students. And if you somehow never need to rotate things, it's a good training in applying theoretical rules to concrete problems. In my university, after 2 years of increasingly complex trigonometry, we were left with 3D engine programming and to the fact that opened my mind forever that theoretical mathematics have a purpose.

lootsauce 5y ago

What % of students struggle and never really get the maths? What % do fine with the maths but never need them in their adult lives? I would argue this is far more than 75% of all people. Same can be argued probably with higher %s for foreign language in the us. I think learning advanced maths and foreign languages are great but I also think we waste insane amounts of human potential and $$$ with the way we go about it.