5 ms·

I’m Danish and not at all interested in the politics of it, but there can be a case for teaching algebra late. We do it in Denmark, because it’s the subject chi

by moksly 5y ago

I’m Danish and not at all interested in the politics of it, but there can be a case for teaching algebra late. We do it in Denmark, because it’s the subject children have the hardest time learning, and having too many of them fail too early kills their interest in math. We still teach algebra in grade 7-9, but we’ve gone through the social experiments of teaching it at different ages, and have lost entire generations because it was taught too soon. I don’t think social justice or equality should play a part of the argument, but it’s always hard to tell where the legislation ends and the propaganda begins these days, and I’m honestly no interested enough to read the 800 page document this article is about. I will say, however, that I think we’re going to have problems teaching math until we reform the school system to be suited for the modern world instead of the early 1900’s “assembly line” society. It makes no sense to place children in classes based on their age, and certainly not for all subjects. The result is always going to be that both slow and brilliant students get fucked over, in a myriad of ways, especially if they are a mix of good and bad at different subjects. Why exactly is it that you aren’t taught courses like math, or history or language according to your ability instead of your age?

spurgu 5y ago
I would say practical reasons. How would you structure those lessons? You'd need a lot more resources to be able to tailor everyone's path like that. It would be great though. I loved going to school for the first 4 years when we were ~30 people in the whole school (spread over 1-4th graders) - the teachers were able to address individual needs. Then I went to fifth grade where were were 35 people in the class. It just went downhill from there.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Middle and high school already have separated classes, no? I once took a computer-repair class at a local school district adult school. It was self paced, and despite being bored as hell during high school, I crushed the repair course at like 4x the normal speed. Because I could. There was literally no one to stop me.
  - candiodari 5y ago
    I think you'll find the point is that they'd love to get rid of those separated classes.
smolder 5y ago
Knowledge/skill assessment is more complex than dictation. It's like a O(n) operation that necessarily looks at each student versus the O(log n) of dictating stuff to a class that asks some questions. The more evaluation and feedback are in the process, the more individualized it gets, the more burdensome and expensive it gets, generally. That's not to say we can't improve our teaching methods to automate some mechanisms for feedback and pace adjustment in the future, though... Education is due for a genuine upset. I think there are a bunch of ways technology could make general education significantly more effective, given the technology was designed for that. (Current device / OS / app design norms are mostly in service of consumerism, which assumes no one ever wants to learn anything unless someone paid for them to hear it. So, not that stuff.)
- azinman2 5y ago
  Educational technology has existed for many decades now, built by academia and industry alike. It seems to largely have played a very minor role if even that in the successful advancement of the rate of educating children. If you think you have methods that could significantly improve that, you’d have a great impact on the world. I’d love to hear these bunch of ways.
  - politician 5y ago
    I’ll bite. Take a multimedia corpus, arrange the material for delivery via Spaced Repetition Learning (SRS) coupled with an active reinforcement learning system to gradually introduce and deepen understanding of topics that expand the learner’s challenge boundary. Instead of teachers and fixed class sizes, allow students to self select into rooms based on noise level. Include a range of furniture from desks to couches. Any adults are only present to monitor for fighting or harassment and need no special training — they are certainly not to be responsible for lecturing or grading. Leave that to the machines. Perhaps direct students that have mastered material help students that have not. Naturally and smoothly steer learners into vocational or academic studies based on their performance without social discontinuities like the German method. One challenge with this approach would be how to organize appraisals of essays or long-form written content. Peer review might be one answer. There are, no doubt, many other challenges and criticisms. This scheme would dramatically upend the economics of education and make a large number of positions redundant.
threatofrain 5y ago
> Why exactly is it that you aren’t taught courses like math, or history or language according to your ability instead of your age? That's exactly the question. Under Equitable Math, all children must always be at the same level up until the senior year, and Algebra will not be offered in middle school. Some children are ready for Algebra in middle school, and some aren't. This is the most critical point of contention, and why the debate is not over whether the Common Core, which already emphasizes "deep" comprehension over rote memorization, ought be reformed to go even "deeper". > I’m honestly no interested enough to read the 800 page document this article is about. It's notable that the entire Common Core specification for math can be read in a single day. It is meant to be a coordinating document for many parties, and not just metaphorical lawyers.
- physicles 5y ago
  > Under Equitable Math, all children must always be at the same level up until the senior year Are they really advocating putting all kids in the same math class regardless of ability? That seems completely insane to me. For some fraction of the class, literally handing them a textbook and telling them to go nuts would be better in every way. At the other end, some of those kids feel awful for holding the class back. Could someone help me understand what the big picture is here? How does this actually help the under-privileged students in any way? Are they expecting that this will level the playing field for college admissions and the job market?
  - candiodari 5y ago
    > How does this actually help the under-privileged students in any way? Are they expecting that this will level the playing field for college admissions and the job market? It allows them to become teachers and school social workers and school admins and ... without requiring knowledge or capabilities they don't have? School standards are about teachers and school management, not about students. Or, more to the point, they're about letting schools hire cheaper teachers, having simpler schedules, less hours, ... It massively simplifies the business that is a school. At great cost to the kids and society as a whole, yes, but hey, savings! (goes on tv) "This is NOT about savings, this is about FAIRNESS. What are you, racist?"
anchpop 5y ago
There was an informal study done in the early 20th century, where a superintendent decided he didn’t think math was that useful and told the 4 poorest elementary schools in his district to stop teaching it. (He chose the poorest schools because he knew the parents wouldn’t put up as much of a fuss as at the wealthier schools.) They still taught how to count, read clocks, and make change, but besides that they had no formal math instruction. They used the extra time to read as a class IIRC. The result was that, despite lacking 6 years of formal math education, the students in that district were only one year behind the other students when they went to junior high. That is, they were able to recover all six years of missed elementary school math education in one year of junior high. And in the superintendent’s opinion, those students were better at critical thinking and were able to solve some problems their better-educated counterparts were not. I can find the link if anyone is interested. Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math. I know I could learn math concepts now that would have taken me much longer in highschool. I kind of wish we would just let kids be kids for more of their lives
- boppo1 5y ago
  Let's see that link, por favor
  - joveian 5y ago
    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003... (Additional references at the end of the article.) Good to see someone trying it.
- candiodari 5y ago
  Only one year behind? What a great deal!
- imtringued 5y ago
  "formal math education"? That only starts in college/university. Everything before that has been highly informal in my experience. We didn't even learn something as fundamental as first-order logic during school! If you spent the math classes on getting the basics right, the rest could be formalized and then deepened in college. The saved time could be used to go to college earlier.
eggy 5y ago
I am a big proponent of getting rid of the age-segregation as is it is now and widening the age range, but I'd like to see a citation on Denmark teaching Algebra later and the data on this. I read turn-of-the century math books that are years ahead in rigor and subject matter, and that seemed to fare well. There was a lot of stigmatizing of AP classes by the great "equalizers", but let the kids who can excel, excel. I am not at all a believer the "leave no child behind" philosophy. Even college-educated kids we hire now seem to be behind the group just 5 to 10 years younger in common sense, math, writing, history, and problem-solving skills, at least in the interviews I have given over the past 15 to 20 years. The odd superstar shows once in a while, but they will always thrive in any situation. Personally, I grew up with a lot against me, but I pushed and was pretty much self-taught, and I like to think I did good. I don't believe in trying to administer or legislate intelligence. Instant facts from Google does not equate to knowledge and wisdom.
- moksly 5y ago
  > citation on Denmark teaching Algebra later and the data on this https://www.webmatematik.dk/lektioner/7-9-klasse/algebra https://www.webmatematik.dk/lektioner/7-9-klasse/algebra https://matematik.gyldendal.dk/til_laeren/01-om-portalen/06-oversigt-over-forloeb https://matematik.gyldendal.dk/til_laeren/01-om-portalen/06-... We’re not the best inspiration for how to run your school system though, we have had several huge reforms since the 1995, and the most recent major reform is failing miserably compared to what they are doing in other Scandinavian countries. Which is ironic because the reform was created to catch up, and then ended up failing more than what we had before. Most it has to due with how our government isn’t willing to commit the necessary resources to run it. We actually have major, major, issues with that in all parts of our public sector right now. So bad with nurses that we’re cancelling operations and seeing delays on our emergency service phone lines on a national scale which are outside of what is legally required. I think Finland has the best recipe for a modern school system for the west. They did the opposite of us, where instead of making children go to school for longer hours (thus needing more resources), they make children go to school less hours, but focus the resources better.
  - eggy 5y ago
cblconfederate 5y ago
only possible with online/remote education
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
avs733 5y ago
Largely because American's believe they understand the educational process (largely based on their own anecdotes) better than experts. The particular reason people struggle with algebra is because it is one of the first fundamentally abstractionist topics taught in schools. There is a huge cognitive development and experiential component. Delaying teaching algebra makes cognitive developmental sense, but it is also inherently intertwined with with race, class, and gender for a bunch of reasons that get a lot of people really angry.

by moksly 5y ago

spurgu 5y ago

I would say practical reasons. How would you structure those lessons? You'd need a lot more resources to be able to tailor everyone's path like that. It would be great though. I loved going to school for the first 4 years when we were ~30 people in the whole school (spread over 1-4th graders) - the teachers were able to address individual needs. Then I went to fifth grade where were were 35 people in the class. It just went downhill from there.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Middle and high school already have separated classes, no? I once took a computer-repair class at a local school district adult school. It was self paced, and despite being bored as hell during high school, I crushed the repair course at like 4x the normal speed. Because I could. There was literally no one to stop me.
- candiodari 5y ago
  I think you'll find the point is that they'd love to get rid of those separated classes.

smolder 5y ago

Knowledge/skill assessment is more complex than dictation. It's like a O(n) operation that necessarily looks at each student versus the O(log n) of dictating stuff to a class that asks some questions. The more evaluation and feedback are in the process, the more individualized it gets, the more burdensome and expensive it gets, generally. That's not to say we can't improve our teaching methods to automate some mechanisms for feedback and pace adjustment in the future, though... Education is due for a genuine upset. I think there are a bunch of ways technology could make general education significantly more effective, given the technology was designed for that. (Current device / OS / app design norms are mostly in service of consumerism, which assumes no one ever wants to learn anything unless someone paid for them to hear it. So, not that stuff.)

azinman2 5y ago
Educational technology has existed for many decades now, built by academia and industry alike. It seems to largely have played a very minor role if even that in the successful advancement of the rate of educating children. If you think you have methods that could significantly improve that, you’d have a great impact on the world. I’d love to hear these bunch of ways.
- politician 5y ago
  I’ll bite. Take a multimedia corpus, arrange the material for delivery via Spaced Repetition Learning (SRS) coupled with an active reinforcement learning system to gradually introduce and deepen understanding of topics that expand the learner’s challenge boundary. Instead of teachers and fixed class sizes, allow students to self select into rooms based on noise level. Include a range of furniture from desks to couches. Any adults are only present to monitor for fighting or harassment and need no special training — they are certainly not to be responsible for lecturing or grading. Leave that to the machines. Perhaps direct students that have mastered material help students that have not. Naturally and smoothly steer learners into vocational or academic studies based on their performance without social discontinuities like the German method. One challenge with this approach would be how to organize appraisals of essays or long-form written content. Peer review might be one answer. There are, no doubt, many other challenges and criticisms. This scheme would dramatically upend the economics of education and make a large number of positions redundant.

threatofrain 5y ago

> Why exactly is it that you aren’t taught courses like math, or history or language according to your ability instead of your age? That's exactly the question. Under Equitable Math, all children must always be at the same level up until the senior year, and Algebra will not be offered in middle school. Some children are ready for Algebra in middle school, and some aren't. This is the most critical point of contention, and why the debate is not over whether the Common Core, which already emphasizes "deep" comprehension over rote memorization, ought be reformed to go even "deeper". > I’m honestly no interested enough to read the 800 page document this article is about. It's notable that the entire Common Core specification for math can be read in a single day. It is meant to be a coordinating document for many parties, and not just metaphorical lawyers.

physicles 5y ago
> Under Equitable Math, all children must always be at the same level up until the senior year Are they really advocating putting all kids in the same math class regardless of ability? That seems completely insane to me. For some fraction of the class, literally handing them a textbook and telling them to go nuts would be better in every way. At the other end, some of those kids feel awful for holding the class back. Could someone help me understand what the big picture is here? How does this actually help the under-privileged students in any way? Are they expecting that this will level the playing field for college admissions and the job market?
- candiodari 5y ago
  > How does this actually help the under-privileged students in any way? Are they expecting that this will level the playing field for college admissions and the job market? It allows them to become teachers and school social workers and school admins and ... without requiring knowledge or capabilities they don't have? School standards are about teachers and school management, not about students. Or, more to the point, they're about letting schools hire cheaper teachers, having simpler schedules, less hours, ... It massively simplifies the business that is a school. At great cost to the kids and society as a whole, yes, but hey, savings! (goes on tv) "This is NOT about savings, this is about FAIRNESS. What are you, racist?"

anchpop 5y ago

There was an informal study done in the early 20th century, where a superintendent decided he didn’t think math was that useful and told the 4 poorest elementary schools in his district to stop teaching it. (He chose the poorest schools because he knew the parents wouldn’t put up as much of a fuss as at the wealthier schools.) They still taught how to count, read clocks, and make change, but besides that they had no formal math instruction. They used the extra time to read as a class IIRC. The result was that, despite lacking 6 years of formal math education, the students in that district were only one year behind the other students when they went to junior high. That is, they were able to recover all six years of missed elementary school math education in one year of junior high. And in the superintendent’s opinion, those students were better at critical thinking and were able to solve some problems their better-educated counterparts were not. I can find the link if anyone is interested. Basically, it seems like kid’s brains are just not able to efficiently learn math. I know I could learn math concepts now that would have taken me much longer in highschool. I kind of wish we would just let kids be kids for more of their lives

boppo1 5y ago
Let's see that link, por favor
- joveian 5y ago
  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-school https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201003... (Additional references at the end of the article.) Good to see someone trying it.
candiodari 5y ago
Only one year behind? What a great deal!
imtringued 5y ago
"formal math education"? That only starts in college/university. Everything before that has been highly informal in my experience. We didn't even learn something as fundamental as first-order logic during school! If you spent the math classes on getting the basics right, the rest could be formalized and then deepened in college. The saved time could be used to go to college earlier.

eggy 5y ago

I am a big proponent of getting rid of the age-segregation as is it is now and widening the age range, but I'd like to see a citation on Denmark teaching Algebra later and the data on this. I read turn-of-the century math books that are years ahead in rigor and subject matter, and that seemed to fare well. There was a lot of stigmatizing of AP classes by the great "equalizers", but let the kids who can excel, excel. I am not at all a believer the "leave no child behind" philosophy. Even college-educated kids we hire now seem to be behind the group just 5 to 10 years younger in common sense, math, writing, history, and problem-solving skills, at least in the interviews I have given over the past 15 to 20 years. The odd superstar shows once in a while, but they will always thrive in any situation. Personally, I grew up with a lot against me, but I pushed and was pretty much self-taught, and I like to think I did good. I don't believe in trying to administer or legislate intelligence. Instant facts from Google does not equate to knowledge and wisdom.

moksly 5y ago
> citation on Denmark teaching Algebra later and the data on this https://www.webmatematik.dk/lektioner/7-9-klasse/algebra https://www.webmatematik.dk/lektioner/7-9-klasse/algebra https://matematik.gyldendal.dk/til_laeren/01-om-portalen/06-oversigt-over-forloeb https://matematik.gyldendal.dk/til_laeren/01-om-portalen/06-... We’re not the best inspiration for how to run your school system though, we have had several huge reforms since the 1995, and the most recent major reform is failing miserably compared to what they are doing in other Scandinavian countries. Which is ironic because the reform was created to catch up, and then ended up failing more than what we had before. Most it has to due with how our government isn’t willing to commit the necessary resources to run it. We actually have major, major, issues with that in all parts of our public sector right now. So bad with nurses that we’re cancelling operations and seeing delays on our emergency service phone lines on a national scale which are outside of what is legally required. I think Finland has the best recipe for a modern school system for the west. They did the opposite of us, where instead of making children go to school for longer hours (thus needing more resources), they make children go to school less hours, but focus the resources better.
- eggy 5y ago

cblconfederate 5y ago

only possible with online/remote education

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

avs733 5y ago

Largely because American's believe they understand the educational process (largely based on their own anecdotes) better than experts. The particular reason people struggle with algebra is because it is one of the first fundamentally abstractionist topics taught in schools. There is a huge cognitive development and experiential component. Delaying teaching algebra makes cognitive developmental sense, but it is also inherently intertwined with with race, class, and gender for a bunch of reasons that get a lot of people really angry.