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As I was reading the summary, I was thinking "well, of course -- that makes sense. Any teaching curriculum has got to be like that so what is so special about R
by ksd482 5y ago
As I was reading the summary, I was thinking "well, of course -- that makes sense. Any teaching curriculum has got to be like that so what is so special about Russian math curriculum?".
Then I read in other comments about US math curriculum and I was shocked to learn that not only they were NOT doing this, but they didn't have a better alternative. This is mind boggling. It seems almost idiotic.
My schooling was done in India. Our curriculum was quite well planned, but what is laid out here is the methodology of teaching in addition to the curriculum and textbooks. And that depended on teacher to teacher and school to school. But nonetheless, the textbooks were very well written so everyone got exposure to pretty much the same level of teaching styles, more or less.
When I came to US in college, I was surprised to learn that people didn't know basic techniques and tricks for algebraic manipulations. Of course, we were taught the basics and whys behind every trick but emphasis was also given to internalizing these tricks for quick computation by hand. This, in my opinion, is important because these tricks also become your mental models when thinking about math. And quick tricks would lead to quick thinking, roughly speaking.
- lumost 5y agoIt wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that most Americans experience k-12 math as an exercise in memorization. Even relatively simple algebraic manipulation such as quadratic equations are drilled for factorization first.
- jdgoesmarching 5y agoYep, it’s like teaching someone how to cook by quizzing them on recipes. I didn’t understand the purpose of calculus until grad school despite having “learned” it several times by that point.
- jacobolus 5y agoIf anyone wants a book focusing on the purpose of calculus, check out http://www.math.smith.edu/~callahan/intromine.html http://www.math.smith.edu/~callahan/intromine.html This is significantly different style from Russian textbooks. If you want a nice one of those translated into English (albeit not the easiest to find a paper copy of), I like Piskunov’s book. https://archive.org/details/n.-piskunov-differential-and-integral-calculus-mir-1969 https://archive.org/details/n.-piskunov-differential-and-int...
- dartharva 5y agoWhich board was your school affiliated to, if you don't mind me asking? I went through my schooling in India too, and I had quite the opposite experience: concepts being taught with the only focus being on beating exams, rote learning prioritized instead of logical applications (in case of science), etc.
- ksd482 5y agoICSE for 10th and ISC for 12th grades.
- dartharva 5y agoFigures. CBSE and State boards give the opposite experience, I'm sure you have heard the horror stories from your friends as well.
- webmobdev 5y agoCBSE followed similar methodology as described and was good too. But only select central schools were good at teaching it - the teachers there were well qualified, and some of them are a real gem too at teaching.
- ksd482 5y agoI have, yes. I also noticed ISC schools weren’t focused on preparation for competitive exams whereas CBSE schools were. Of course, this is anecdotal.