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> Why do you believe that "not everyone can understand chemistry"? At least 5% of the population can’t understand algebra. If you can’t do algebra then you mig

> Why do you believe that "not everyone can understand chemistry"? At least 5% of the population can’t understand algebra. If you can’t do algebra then you might be able to follow recipes but you can’t do chemistry. Without algebra you can’t do stochiometry and that’s essential for even high school level chemistry.

benrbray 5y ago
Sorry, by "can" I mean "has the mental capacity to". I agree with the statement "not everyone has the knowledge they need to understand chemistry right now". I disagree with "not everyone has the mental capacity to understand chemistry". Note also my definition of "everyone". I certainly think everyone has the mental capacity to understand algebra.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > I certainly think everyone has the mental capacity to understand algebra. I invite you to tutor some middle school students then. For values of algebra that include “can be taught to draw the appropriate line given the corresponding equation” there are plenty who can’t understand algebra.
  - spacedcowboy 5y ago
    I don’t know about middle school kids, mine’s not there yet, he’s 9 - but he’s already done algebra, including simultaneous linear equations with multiple unknowns. No powers, quadratic equation or differentiation and the like yet, but I can see the QE coming up in next years books (which we recently bought since 3rd grade just finished) I’m pretty sure that when I was at school, this was a “senior school” (age 11-16) topic, and I was maybe 12 or 13. Kids are learning stuff earlier than they used to, at least it feels that way to me.
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      Oh, you can teach some six year olds algebra. It’s not impossibly hard. Some children are ready at a very young age. But some people you can teach it for a semester and every shaky grasp of the subject they got in four months will disappear completely in two weeks. Some people cannot do abstraction.
oblio 5y ago
> At least 5% of the population can’t understand algebra. That's a very low bar, though. It would mean that 95% (ok, maybe slightly less) of everyone out there would be able to understand chemistry.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  That algebra is necessary for chemistry does not imply that it is sufficient.
atoav 5y ago
Can't or don't? I think there is a huge difference between currently being unable to understand something and being unable to understand something indefinitly (e.g. because you have mental deficiency that blocks you from forming the necessary pictures in your mind). Having thought math to mentally challenged kids, I had only one kid where I would really say he could not learn algebra at that point of his life. Mainly because he had a memory span of 10 minutes and severe developmental issues. All the other kids where really bad at math, but given the right effort I could really improve things by just working on their stuff for 1 hour a day. I know many tech guys like to see themselves as some kind of elite that has a secret knowledge very few others can master. But in my eyes that is just a failure of an education system.
- kaba0 5y ago
  As for kids, I agree with you that the majority of them can potentially be good at almost every field. But as for adults, I’m not so sure. Most of us become way too rigid as we age, learning capability and more importantly motivation becomes way lowered. So someone who had trouble with basic algebra (at the time mostly due to a bad teacher/experience with math) will not generally be able to overcome his/her identity of “being bad at math”. Of course, there are exceptions.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  The majority of us can improve in any area. Some brains are hard wired for programming others for say music. A programmer can make a song. A musician can make a program. I'm sure you could train those kids to sing as well. I'm sure you could train those kids to play basketball. You wouldn't be able to train them enough to make any professional league. Programming is genetic. Recently I met my birthparents and I discovered the whole family are programmers. I thought I came up with the idea myself I pushed myself through school. No one in my highschool did programming or elemetry school. I thought I determined my own choices.. I was proud of the unique path.. then I met the birthparents and realized how predetermined everything is.
  - atoav 5y ago
    I do think it is more about the way you explain something than about the actual topic. You can explain the same topic in such a way that it works for people who can visualize things, for people who like abstract concepts, for people where it is about social relationships etc. Good educators will always target multiple of those patterns. Bad educators always target the same pattern and will therefore only have auccess with the same kind of person. I am currently teaching electronics and programming to artists who quite uniformly hated math and physics in school, and it kinda works. You just cannot teach it in the way they would teach it to a STEM student.

benrbray 5y ago

Sorry, by "can" I mean "has the mental capacity to". I agree with the statement "not everyone has the knowledge they need to understand chemistry right now". I disagree with "not everyone has the mental capacity to understand chemistry". Note also my definition of "everyone". I certainly think everyone has the mental capacity to understand algebra.

barry-cotter 5y ago
> I certainly think everyone has the mental capacity to understand algebra. I invite you to tutor some middle school students then. For values of algebra that include “can be taught to draw the appropriate line given the corresponding equation” there are plenty who can’t understand algebra.
- spacedcowboy 5y ago
  I don’t know about middle school kids, mine’s not there yet, he’s 9 - but he’s already done algebra, including simultaneous linear equations with multiple unknowns. No powers, quadratic equation or differentiation and the like yet, but I can see the QE coming up in next years books (which we recently bought since 3rd grade just finished) I’m pretty sure that when I was at school, this was a “senior school” (age 11-16) topic, and I was maybe 12 or 13. Kids are learning stuff earlier than they used to, at least it feels that way to me.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Oh, you can teach some six year olds algebra. It’s not impossibly hard. Some children are ready at a very young age. But some people you can teach it for a semester and every shaky grasp of the subject they got in four months will disappear completely in two weeks. Some people cannot do abstraction.

oblio 5y ago

> At least 5% of the population can’t understand algebra. That's a very low bar, though. It would mean that 95% (ok, maybe slightly less) of everyone out there would be able to understand chemistry.

barry-cotter 5y ago
That algebra is necessary for chemistry does not imply that it is sufficient.

atoav 5y ago

Can't or don't? I think there is a huge difference between currently being unable to understand something and being unable to understand something indefinitly (e.g. because you have mental deficiency that blocks you from forming the necessary pictures in your mind). Having thought math to mentally challenged kids, I had only one kid where I would really say he could not learn algebra at that point of his life. Mainly because he had a memory span of 10 minutes and severe developmental issues. All the other kids where really bad at math, but given the right effort I could really improve things by just working on their stuff for 1 hour a day. I know many tech guys like to see themselves as some kind of elite that has a secret knowledge very few others can master. But in my eyes that is just a failure of an education system.

kaba0 5y ago
As for kids, I agree with you that the majority of them can potentially be good at almost every field. But as for adults, I’m not so sure. Most of us become way too rigid as we age, learning capability and more importantly motivation becomes way lowered. So someone who had trouble with basic algebra (at the time mostly due to a bad teacher/experience with math) will not generally be able to overcome his/her identity of “being bad at math”. Of course, there are exceptions.
ipaddr 5y ago
The majority of us can improve in any area. Some brains are hard wired for programming others for say music. A programmer can make a song. A musician can make a program. I'm sure you could train those kids to sing as well. I'm sure you could train those kids to play basketball. You wouldn't be able to train them enough to make any professional league. Programming is genetic. Recently I met my birthparents and I discovered the whole family are programmers. I thought I came up with the idea myself I pushed myself through school. No one in my highschool did programming or elemetry school. I thought I determined my own choices.. I was proud of the unique path.. then I met the birthparents and realized how predetermined everything is.
- atoav 5y ago
  I do think it is more about the way you explain something than about the actual topic. You can explain the same topic in such a way that it works for people who can visualize things, for people who like abstract concepts, for people where it is about social relationships etc. Good educators will always target multiple of those patterns. Bad educators always target the same pattern and will therefore only have auccess with the same kind of person. I am currently teaching electronics and programming to artists who quite uniformly hated math and physics in school, and it kinda works. You just cannot teach it in the way they would teach it to a STEM student.