> Why Won’t Anyone Teach Her Math? Some people, a lot of people, will gladly "teach her math" and do a good job of it. E.g., I tried to, here: In the thread

> Why Won’t Anyone Teach Her Math? Some people, a lot of people, will gladly "teach her math" and do a good job of it. E.g., I tried to, here: In the thread "Why won’t anyone teach me math?" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30302079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30302079 I posted "Part I" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30307316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30307316 and "Part II" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30307349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30307349 The two parts are needed because of length limits of HN posts. The OP (original post) "Why won’t anyone teach me math?" is about a coed at Princeton in a badly taught course in linear algebra. It turns out, I did really well in linear algebra, and "Part I" explains how well I did and how I did that. In "Part II" I give an outline of an introduction to linear algebra and matrix theory. For my background I've taught applied math and computer science at three well known research universities and have a Ph.D. in pure/applied math from a fourth. From how I learned math I have to say that there is a lot of having contempt for the students and dumping on them. This dumping on the students, treating them with contempt, is unnecessary, unjustified, inexcusable, and bad for the students, researchers, teachers, schools, math, and the US. The dumping isn't just in famous research universities: E.g., I went in grades 1-12 to the unique college prep school in the city. I got dumped on from the 4th grade on and maybe also in the first three grades but simply don't remember much about grades 1-3. I wanted to learn but got dumped on so much that I just gave up trying to please the teachers and did what I could with the books for the courses. Turns out, that was a good thing for me to do, especially for learning math. There were a lot of standardized tests, both aptitude and achievement, and apparently I did well on those, much better than how the teachers viewed me. Point: The opinions of teachers who dump on students can be highly inaccurate; some more objective measures are needed. Due to the objective measures, in the 9th grade I got sent to a math tournament and in the 11th grade, to an NSF math & physics summer program. Point: The objective measures helped. Turns out, that was true throughout my education. But for college I went to a private school that took lots of pride in doing well at teaching. Some of the teaching was quite good. Still, however, there was some dumping: E.g., the college got a new prof fresh from a famous research university, and he brought his dumping/contempt propensities with him. At one point I took a reading course from him from a then famous, advanced, notoriously difficult book in topology. So, for each chapter one week I gave a lecture to the prof on the math and the next week, on the exercises. I did well. Once another prof showed up. But even with that good self-teaching success, the prof at best only slightly relaxed his dumping/contempt mode. Point: In that reading course I was a spectacularly good student but the contempt still continued. My Summary View: I see no good reason or excuse for the dumping and contempt. I refused to do any such things in my teaching. Generally I told the students: The material is in the book. Class is to help you learn. So, I'm here to explain and answer questions. There is homework which is to work as many of the exercises as you need to to learn the material, in particular to get good at working the exercises. The tests are problems similar to the exercises -- if you are good on the exercises, you should be good on the tests. From the numerical scores on the tests, I rank the students, and the purpose is to simplify the assignment of letter grades: So, if student A does better in the ranking than student B, then student A will get the same or better letter grade than student B. But WHAT letter grades? My standards are, A means that know the material well; B, knows the material; C, knows some of the material; D, doesn't know much; F, doesn't know much and none of us want the student to get credit for the course. So, I look at the work on the tests, judge A-F and decide what final scores deserve what letter grades. Students are not in competition: E.g., I'm perfectly willing to assign As to all students who know the material well; would be pleased to do so; the situation would represent a big success. The department has no rules against my assigning As to everyone. I'm available in class, after class, and in office hours. Generally the office hours are not heavily used. The US colleges and universities have some really big heartburn about the comparative roles of teaching, applications, and research. Research: Can argue that academic research is by a wide margin the most powerful contributor to civilization, health, wealth, understanding, etc. So, with lots of research universities where the profs are required to publish in peer-reviewed journals of original research and hopefully get prizes for work they have done and grants for the work they are doing will, year by year we get some astounding results. Quite broadly the most respected research is theory based on math, theory that mathematizes the field. Applications and teaching are regarded as much less desirable. Applications. Schools of medicine take applications fully seriously -- that is, a lot of the teaching and research are done in research-teaching hospitals with patients at risk of dying. The field of medicine has a major and respected role for clinical, professional practice. The MD degree, to be a "doctor", is about practice, not research. In schools of engineering, there can be some significant attention to applications. Still, generally engineering schools do not try nearly as hard as medical schools to purse practice, be clinical or professional. Teaching. There usually is a lot of good teaching in colleges that emphasize teaching over research. But generally the research universities and their profs look down on teaching -- bad for the field, students, profs, schools, and the US. Generally there is a belief, attitude, assumption, expectation, tradition, etc. that school is to be a competition, pick winners and losers, be challenging, be a filter, have the students put up with being dumped on, get lessons in going without sleep, etc. As a prof, I refused to play that game -- it was in the interest of all my students to work together to learn, come to my office hours, confess what they didn't know, and get additional explanations, problem solutions, etc. My view now, from this thread and more, is that the US research universities are on thin ice, about ready for their "comeuppance". Via taxes, tuition, etc., the public is paying the bills and wants results -- contributions to health and wealth, national security, and especially good careers for the students. Bad teaching, dumping, contempt, generally hurting the students, are creating some really bad PR for the research. Next, for the teaching and a lot of what the customers want now is arriving via the Internet, e.g., YouTube. I did some teaching here in the "Part II" I wrote. A lot of that teaching is NOT good, but the best of it is getting good. When there is some really good teaching on the Internet for free or nearly so, bad teaching, hurting the students, etc. will come to hurt the universities, even the Ivy League. It's possible for a really good student, PBK, etc., brilliant, dedicated, to be so dumped on, treated with so much contempt, that their anxiety level gets really bad, they lose sleep, have physical symptoms, get depressed, clinically depressed, don't recover, and commit suicide. Some education. We're expected to pay for such abuse, via taxes, tuition, our health, our lives? Bad teaching, hurting the students -- NOT acceptable, grade F.