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Here's a revolutionary idea that pretty much all of the world adopts, if students are having trouble with a topic, get them to do more of it, instead of running
by darth_avocado 5y ago
Here's a revolutionary idea that pretty much all of the world adopts, if students are having trouble with a topic, get them to do more of it, instead of running away from it.
I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it till the next time you have to do it, how about you do a little bit of everything every year from grade 8-12. Problem solved.
For e.g. in India you learn geometry, algebra, etc. every year from grade 6 to grade 12. i.e. You have a single subject called "Math" that teaches grade appropriate concepts in all the topics in math. Trains the mind gradually over 7 years instead of one big dump. In undergrad in USA, I cruised through most of my freshmen math classes because I had learnt most of it in high school.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nottorp 5y ago> I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it for the rest of the high school, how about you do a little bit of everything every year from grade 8-12. Problem solved. I don't understand. US high school kids only do math one year out of the 4? And nothing else math related during the other 3 years? I mean, instead of doing a little bit of math spread across all the years so you know, they don't forget everything? Does this go for other subjects as well?
- darth_avocado 5y agoNo they do math every year, it's just not well designed so that each topic is spread evenly. [Updated the wording to make it more clear]
- ramesh31 5y agoMath in US high schools ends at what most countries would consider a middle school level. Algebra 2 is generally the only requirement. The vast majority of students graduate without ever even knowing what calculus is.
- giantg2 5y agoThe question in my mind is, how useful is calculus in most people's lives?
- threatofrain 5y agoNot very useful, since most people don't work in technical professions. But if you want to pursue further technical studies, then that's a different ballgame. To me, the question isn't whether Calculus will be useful to somebody who intends to study nursing, but rather whether the doorways to other venues will be made that much narrower, or closed altogether. Under Equitable Math, all children must be at the same level, whether they wish to pursue nursing or engineering. Children and their families ought to have a choice, including the choice to march forward toward their individual academic ambition and ability.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Under Equitable Math, all children must be at the same level, That's not true; the proposed Framework model shifts from a focus on breadth differentiation to a focus on depth differentiation. You could just as well argue that the existing approach tries to force all students to be “at the same level”, since it neglects the differentiation opportunity that the proposed framework focuses on. That would, also, be wrong, but no more wrong than your characterization.
- threatofrain 5y agoYou are mistaken. Under the Equitable Math proposal, all children are to be in the same technical class regardless of their ability. Children will not be allowed to take Algebra in middle school, and children will not be allowed to take Calculus until specifically the senior year. Differentiation may only occur at the senior year of high school. The Common Core does not neglect differentiation opportunity, and neither does it dictate or detail that children must be in one class over another; that is left up to each state. Under the Common Core as implemented in California, children may take Algebra with an Algebra teacher based on their individual ability. The entire Common Core specification for math can be read in one day. The Common Core does dictate learning targets to be met for any particular official class, whether that is Algebra I/II or Geometry. The Common Core also emphasizes deep learning over rote memorization, but it critically does not require that all students must be at the same level. This is the central point of contention, and not whether the Common Core ought go even deeper. As a detail, note that Californian classrooms may have around 40 children in a math class, and that penalties for classroom sizes end in middle school. These are the conditions under which math teachers must address individual variability. Equitable Math would be a SOLID win for private schools and after-school math programs such as RSM.
- ksd482 5y ago> I don't understand. US high school kids only do math one year out of the 4? And nothing else math related during the other 3 years? No, he/she meant that US high schools divide Math into algebra, geometry, trig etc. which are taught in different years as opposed to simply having these as sections in a single Math textbook which increases in difficulty every year. High school is too early to divide up Math into these subjects especially if you are going to be studying only one of these in a whole year.
- friedman23 5y agoHow many people that are good at math and love science / engineering decide to go into politics? I'm just talking without evidence but my guess is politics self selects for ambitious people that are completely inept when it comes to mathematics and critical thinking in general.
- robotburrito 5y agoI think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market. This involves a great deal of understanding on mathematics topics involving everything from stats, probability and economics. They manage to do this part time while governing, so I'd have to say they are pretty adept. I could be missing something though.
- flatline-84 5y agoInsider trading is what you're missing. As evidenced by the March 2020 dump
- quickthrowman 5y agoUh, what? The sharp drop in equities in February and March 2020 was a massive deleveraging caused by panic selling and leveraged traders being margin called.
- friedman23 5y ago> I think quite a bit. Congress regularly beats high end Wall Street investors when it comes to playing the equities market Politicians are not using math to decide which stocks to pick, they are using insider information. edit: ok, it's clear that the parent comment was sarcasm now but you never know
- dilyevsky 5y agoNo they dont - they already thoroughly investigated themselves
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- jldugger 5y agoI mean, most of that sequence builds upon itself, except geometry.
- earleybird 5y agoQ: How do you know you're doing math? A: If there's a geometric interpretation :-)
- bollu 5y agoQ. what is geometry? A. Adjoint functor to algebra
- bko 5y agoThis policy has nothing to do with the topic of algebra. This is code for advanced math, because algebra is typically considered advanced for < 9th grade children. Since the organizations feel ashamed that they're failing certain demographics as evidenced by being under-represented in the advanced classes, they're just scrapping the advanced classes for everyone. Truly disgraceful
- denkmoon 5y agoHow old is a 9th grade student in the US? My cohort started Algebra in year 7 in Australia, which is 12/13 years old. And similar to GP's proposal, we learn age appropriate topics every single year, every single week.
- d4mi3n 5y ago9th grade is the US is freshman year of high school, so most students would be around age 14 ~ 15
- 542458 5y agoGrade nine is 14-15 years of age in the US. I agree with you WRT age appropriate-ness. Just because something can or has been introduced at a certain age does not mean that is optimal. I recall a study I saw recently that showed delaying introducing one subject - it may have been math - to very young students had negligible impacts on their scores (compared to students who were introduced earlier) a few years later. The students with a delayed introduction caught up so quickly that the delay didn’t matter. I’ll see if I can dig up a link - EDIT, I’m struggling to find it under all of the COVID-related student-delay-catch-up articles.
- CameronNemo 5y agoI would be curious to know about long term retention rather than performance in a class or on a test.
- nemothekid 5y agoWouldn't that make Grade 12 18 ~ 19 years of age? Has the school age been moved up a year? I vaguely remember the oldest kids in high school being 18.
- iimblack 5y agoI’ve never heard of anywhere in the US doing just one year of math. My family currently in high school are required to do math all 4 years.
- darth_avocado 5y agoNo I didn't mean 1 year of math. Rather I meant breaking down math into these individual topics (that may or may not be compulsory) that you don't teach every year, makes the experience very disconnected.
- riversflow 5y agoCalifornia requires 2 years of Math in high school. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/cefhsgradreq.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/hs/cefhsgradreq.asp
- Eelongate 5y agoGood grief, how can that even work? If I had gone a full one or two years without any math class, I would have lost the habit and floundered when it came time to take a math class again. Are they deliberately setting kids up to fail in California?
- RandallBrown 5y agoJust because they're only required to take 2 years of math doesn't mean that is what most kids take. If I recall this is how my high school was ~20 years ago and almost everyone still took at least 3 years of math with what felt like the majority still taking 4.
- jcranmer 5y agoThose are literally the minimum possible requirements to get a diploma anywhere in the State of California; judging from the document, school districts may impose stricter requirements. Those are unusually lenient from what I've seen; my home school district [not in California] currently requires 4 years of English, 3 years each of math, science, and social studies, 2 each of PE and foreign language or fine arts, 1 year of economics/personal finance, and 4 electives. And apparently 1 course must be AP, IB or honors. As a matter of practice, you'd be expected to take 4 years of English, math, science, and social studies, and at least 3 of foreign language anyways (and indeed, there's an 'advanced degree' that has those requirements; it looks like 2/3 of students graduated with the 'advanced degree').
- kingcharles 5y agoI'm British. For the lulz I decided to complete the US "GED": "The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills." (Wikipedia) I had not looked at what it encompassed before I signed up. I was given a huge book to study from. I glanced at it briefly each day for two weeks and then sat for the exams. I got 99% in all subjects. Apparently that was the maximum possible as the score went from 0-99% for reasons I didn't bother to explore. It was disturbingly easy. And bear in mind that I was thrown out of my British secondary school at 16 because my exam scores were the worst on record at my school, allegedly.
- prepend 5y agoI guess you didn’t study the part where they teach you percentiles. 99th percentile is the highest you can score and means out of 100 people taking the class, you scored higher than 99 of them. That is good, but also consider that most people taking the GED have some sort of problem preventing them from completing a regular high school diploma.
- Eelongate 5y ago> most people taking the GED have some sort of problem preventing them from completing a regular high school diploma. Don't assume it's an academic problem though. My grandfather beat my father for years, until my father ran away from home when he was 15, consequently never finishing highschool. He got a GED years later, then eventually a masters degree. There are unfortunately many people in circumstances like his or similar, unable to finish highschool for non-academic reasons. It's important to keep this in mind because otherwise GEDs will be associated with poor academic performance, which is unfair.
- kingcharles 5y agoIt didn't state 99th percentile on the form. It specifically says 99%. And at the bottom it explains that 99% is the highest mark and the results go from 0% to 99%.
- 5y ago
- giantg2 5y ago"I always find it hilarious that the pre college education in US is so messed up. Instead of doing Algebra 1, Algebra 2, calculus, geometry as one subject that you do in a year and then completely forgetting about it till the next time you have to do it, how about you do a little bit of everything every year from grade 8-12. Problem solved." In my experience, each year built off of the previous and implicitly provided a refresher.
- ryanobjc 5y agoTell us a little bit about your Indian high school experience. Who were your peers? Who were their parents, where were they from, how wealthy were they? How wealthy was you? Did the school have competitive entry? Did kids get kicked out for failing or doing poorly?
- darth_avocado 5y agoThere’s different schools: private, public, home schooling, religious etc. I went to a public school, mostly with kids from not so great socio economic backgrounds. I wasn’t “don’t have anything to eat” poor, but I was definitely “can only afford 2 pairs of new clothes every year” poor. Most other kids were in the same boat. The thing with schools in India though is, regardless of your status as a school, your curriculum is decided by one of the central authorities, either at a national level or at state level, and since the standardized tests for college admissions are the same for everyone, the variations in curriculum among these different schools are small. Kids would repeat grades or have remedial classes for doing poorly. And the answer was to not lower the bar for everyone, but make students work harder for doing bad.
- StephenAmar 5y agoSame thing in France. There's just one subject - Mathematics. Things are just spread out from 6th grade to 12th grade and specialization only happens during the last 2 years of high school.
- mistrial9 5y agowhat about this info ? Literacy Rate of India 2021 - To know development in a society, Literacy is another proper indicator of economic development. For purpose of census, a person in age limit of seven and above, who can both write and read with understanding in any of the language is considered as a literate in India. ... Although India has raised its current literacy rate of 74.04% (2021) from 12% at the time of Independence in 1947, its still lag behind the world average literacy rate of 84%. Compared with other nations, Republic of India has the largest illiterate population.
- hindsightbias 5y agoMore Indians speak English than Americans. So rates don’t really matter.
- darth_avocado 5y agoYou’re talking about people who don’t go to school. That’s not relevant at all to the discussion here.
- david38 5y agoThere are lots of stories like this. Lot of selection bias. That is, wealthier and/or smarter people who come to the US. I’ve taken though linear, diffeq, and discrete. Rarely use them. It’s a massive waste for most people. They should be concentrating on what I would call “home economics”. That is, economics of the home. Edu on budget balancing, taxes, cost of things so you don’t eat out so much, cost of repair so you learn to fix things, etc.
- jollybean 5y agoYou can't get people to 'do more of something' if they don't show up for class, and fundamentally don't care because none of their peers do. 'Regular Teaching' works 100% well everywhere around the world where students show up ready to learn. This is 100% a community/parent/student issue. More conscientiousness, community participation, stable / 2 parent / married homes, 'Some Kind of Health Insurance', steady jobs, low crime, no druggie/prison parents, not living in fear, no gangs, no gang culture, other students who have normal levels of academic (and other) interests. And they'll do fine. Big reforms in Healthcare, Justice and for Economic Stability / Jobs would go a long way, but it will also take community participation. It's not the curriculum or teachers. They work fine everywhere else, they work fine in Cali. Kids that have something resembling what we might think of as a 'normal childhood' will do 'mostly fine'.
- candybar 5y agoThis isn't that different in the US. Algebra 1 to Algebra 2 to Precalculus to Calculus is a sequence that's taught over many years and there's no big dump. Geometry is the only exception from that sequence (unless you're counting Statistics or Computer Science, which are generally optional). Most students that are applying to competitive colleges are generally going to take a math course every year - there's no big dump that you seem to be envisioning.
- bradleyjg 5y agoNY State does this, or at least did back when I was in high school. It was called “integrated math.”
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- hintymad 5y agoNot being sarcastic, I think you misunderstood the political environment of the US right now. The media and the bureaucrats are not seeking truths but narratives. And doing more is immediately labeled racism because well, you don't appreciate the hardship and systemic racism that the oppressed have to endure. As for why shooting basketball 10,000 times day is considered heroic hardworking while doing 10 math exercises a day is considered being privileged and cramming and prepping and Asian? Well, that beats me too.