4 ms·

Humble brag: I was declared "gifted" in every area except mathematics throughout school; I switched schools once and retook the test leading to some kind of bro

by gatlin 15y ago

Humble brag: I was declared "gifted" in every area except mathematics throughout school; I switched schools once and retook the test leading to some kind of broad-er exposure to the process. The tests to determine mathematical giftedness were overwhelmingly masturbatory exercises in symbol manipulation and memorized algorithms. For a long, long time I thought arithmetic was math. I was told that I would not make it to AP Calculus, let alone get a math-related career. (See my profile for the exciting conclusion to this story). Math was rote memorization and regurgitation of algorithms which I had trouble memorizing without explanations of how and why they worked. Later on I found out the answers to these questions are called "proofs," they are very fundamental to mathematics, and I am quite good at them. I did not excel at the math I was given because I was plagued with foundation questions about why any of this added up (sorry) logically and they were blockers to true understanding for me. Logic was completely missing from the curriculum. Digested mathematical trivia were handed to me like I was some kind of child. I was never given the power tools I wanted to build my own knowledge, perhaps for fear of my safety or my innocence. People who were good at studying and taking people's word for things sailed through and to this day can't prove things rigorously. These kids don't like taking things apart. It was only during some education electives I took that I realized that a well known problem in STEM education is the group of students who are intelligent but have rather slow, idiosyncratic, and methodical ways of assimilating new information. Imagine the quantum of solace that gave me. I chose Computer Science at random from an admissions catalog because I liked writing programs even though I was "bad at math," and because I couldn't afford film school. 4 years of discrete math, modern geometry, multi-variable calculus, linear algebra, and algorithm classes (on top of other fun but not as fun-damental courses) later and I realize what a load of boring and disingenuous shit public school math was. * Why do so many gifted kids think they don't like "math?" Because "math" sucks and schools don't let kids build things anymore - materially or otherwise. [Edit] Grammar, new insights, the sort of thorough editing I should have done the first time.

pasbesoin 15y ago
Corresponds with my opinion: The curricula are crap and many educators at best mediocre in the topic. No wonder the "smart kids" are frustrated. P.S. I remember hitting calculus in college and drawing the "hard" professor. ("Oooh", people exclaimed sympathetically.) I pulled an A+ and enjoyed the course, because the professor knew and cared about what he was teaching. He just insisted that you did, too.
- gatlin 15y ago
  In good conscience I must make a distinction: my public school complaints were the direct result of regressive policies on part of administration. Many of my actual teachers did the best they could with ridiculous constraints. In college, though, it's often times the professors who create the problems.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    Fair enough. In college, my Calculus II course, taught by a different professor, was terrible. To the credit of the department and administration, they did not keep her around (I forget her formal title, but she was essentially on trial). I had some good, dedicated and effective high school teachers (although they were perhaps the minority). Unfortunately, as I recall and/or experienced it, the math department was not particularly strong.
- matwood 15y ago
  P.S. I remember hitting calculus in college and drawing the "hard" professor. ("Oooh", people exclaimed sympathetically.) I pulled an A+ and enjoyed the course, because the professor knew and cared about what he was teaching. He just insisted that you did, too. That's usually what it means to be the 'hard' prof. I had a couple of those in CS and I took every class they offered. Most students would drop their classes so that always left me and just a couple others to have nearly a private class with a great professor.
- steve-howard 15y ago
  Real analysis was the hardest class I ever took, and I didn't even really have to. Barely scraped a C, but I wear it more proudly than most of the A's I've ever gotten.
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    Different contexts, but that reminds me of a sort of "second class, taken after introductory programming" survey class of the CS domain, taught by another rather intense professor. I learned more in those 12 or so weeks than in most other classes. It was intense, but left one with a rather good, basic survey -- which is no mean feat, given the breadth of the domain (from boolean logic and gates up through higher level languages, discreet mathematics, statistics and O notation, etc.) People who thought they were getting a typical "survey" class -- LOL! This professor wasn't having any of it. Perhaps a bit unfair, if you were trying to balance an overall course load that was already heavy. But of itself, worth it.
DiabloD3 15y ago
I came here to say this. In fact, I want to add, in my case, I think the institution of education ruined math for me. Although, unlike you, I don't think I ever recovered.
- bowyakka 15y ago
  I started my long road to recovery a few years ago, like many I was taught the parrot fashion of maths. Mistakenly, my impression of how to learn maths was based around the ideas of learning how to calculate new idea X and then spending hour upon hour of rote exercises. One day I had an epiphany, being a computer programmer it dawned on me that I should not be doing all these calculations by hand, only enough to get the basic idea. Since then I have only bought undergraduate or graduate text books, and used sage for learning math, its just thousands of times better as I now get to learn the real concepts and not just rules (or put another way where axioms do appear I now understand _why_ they are formulated). Also the other thing that has long lacked in my early math teaching was that in no way were we taught anything about the art of creating and reading proofs, I think this is a shame as it deprives people from the interesting mental rigour that is required to accomplish this. I think the average high school mathematics syllabus is being devised by the criminally insane. Personally I am a great believer in the work of these folk http://www.computerbasedmath.org/ http://www.computerbasedmath.org/
clistctrl 15y ago
I'm right there with you. I did terribly in school, I got 'B' grades but i'm sure I was a C or a D student. Class was frustrating. There was never a clear "goal". The focus was always on the process. I never understood why he was doing something, and why it worked. For me the understanding of the process didn't come until the end when I got to fully analyze everything, and let it sink in. Unfortunately that rarely happened. I had the same teacher for most of high school. He'd spend forever walking through a problem.. my mind would wander, I thought to myself "where is this going?" then he finally reached the end. This is where i'd start making connections. But before I could make any progress he'd erase everything and start on something new. He never graded homework, so i'd just make it look like I put some effort in it. That was enough to get credit. When test time came I had no idea what anything was. Fortunately he would always have a few full example problems on top. I'd run through them trying to find a way to solve them. Inevitably i'd spend half the test time reverse engineering the problems, and most of the time I actually did well finding a solution. I would typically get the right answers (though we'd have to show our work, and he'd subtract points because i didn't use the process he taught.) Khan academy is amazing. I've gone back to relearn the things I didn't get while in school. I love being able to go at my own pace, and re-watch things.
invalidOrTaken 15y ago
Good education is a mix between theory and application. Current K12 math education has neither.
Deinumite 15y ago
Wow this really hit home to me, I always struggled with math in highschool because things like formulas and shortcuts didn't sink in with me. I struggled to understand how to use them unless I could see the proof.
rym 15y ago
I registered to just to add some evidence of this. I did poorly in all of my math courses throughout middle school and high school while doing superb in everything else. I hated math more than any other subject. Senior year of high school came, and I was tired of doing horrible. I was surrounded by incredibly intelligent friends who all did very well in their math courses, and I was tired of being the odd one out. So I skipped pre-calc and went straight into AP calculus. I studied my fucking ass off. It paid off (through self study mostly, using khan academy and good textbooks). Fast forward to the present. I am now a sophomore at a university with an incredibly strong math department. I've finished the core mathematics curriculum, and I am currently taking two grad courses (Algebraic Topology and Grad Linear Algebra). I plan to take two more in the spring, and hopefully participate in a undergraduate research program in the summer. This is coming from someone who got a 600 on the math section of the SAT (800 on the the other two). But I wouldn't recommend going into math like I did. It has been an incredibly hard task. I am very, very, VERY jealous of those of you who had an inspired early math education. Oh, the work that could have been saved...
GeneralMaximus 15y ago
> It was only during some education electives I took that I realized that a well known problem in STEM education is the group of students who are intelligent but have rather slow, idiosyncratic, and methodical ways of assimilating new information. I'm intrigued. Do you have links to papers/articles about this phenomenon?
- gatlin 15y ago
  I've received some emails about this so I'll write this publicly here. I recall a case study and some papers that we went over for about 2 weeks in an education course. I will try to dig up the sources (this was about 2 years ago, though, so please be patient).

by gatlin 15y ago

pasbesoin 15y ago

Corresponds with my opinion: The curricula are crap and many educators at best mediocre in the topic. No wonder the "smart kids" are frustrated. P.S. I remember hitting calculus in college and drawing the "hard" professor. ("Oooh", people exclaimed sympathetically.) I pulled an A+ and enjoyed the course, because the professor knew and cared about what he was teaching. He just insisted that you did, too.

gatlin 15y ago
In good conscience I must make a distinction: my public school complaints were the direct result of regressive policies on part of administration. Many of my actual teachers did the best they could with ridiculous constraints. In college, though, it's often times the professors who create the problems.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  Fair enough. In college, my Calculus II course, taught by a different professor, was terrible. To the credit of the department and administration, they did not keep her around (I forget her formal title, but she was essentially on trial). I had some good, dedicated and effective high school teachers (although they were perhaps the minority). Unfortunately, as I recall and/or experienced it, the math department was not particularly strong.
matwood 15y ago
P.S. I remember hitting calculus in college and drawing the "hard" professor. ("Oooh", people exclaimed sympathetically.) I pulled an A+ and enjoyed the course, because the professor knew and cared about what he was teaching. He just insisted that you did, too. That's usually what it means to be the 'hard' prof. I had a couple of those in CS and I took every class they offered. Most students would drop their classes so that always left me and just a couple others to have nearly a private class with a great professor.
steve-howard 15y ago
Real analysis was the hardest class I ever took, and I didn't even really have to. Barely scraped a C, but I wear it more proudly than most of the A's I've ever gotten.
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  Different contexts, but that reminds me of a sort of "second class, taken after introductory programming" survey class of the CS domain, taught by another rather intense professor. I learned more in those 12 or so weeks than in most other classes. It was intense, but left one with a rather good, basic survey -- which is no mean feat, given the breadth of the domain (from boolean logic and gates up through higher level languages, discreet mathematics, statistics and O notation, etc.) People who thought they were getting a typical "survey" class -- LOL! This professor wasn't having any of it. Perhaps a bit unfair, if you were trying to balance an overall course load that was already heavy. But of itself, worth it.

DiabloD3 15y ago

I came here to say this. In fact, I want to add, in my case, I think the institution of education ruined math for me. Although, unlike you, I don't think I ever recovered.

bowyakka 15y ago
I started my long road to recovery a few years ago, like many I was taught the parrot fashion of maths. Mistakenly, my impression of how to learn maths was based around the ideas of learning how to calculate new idea X and then spending hour upon hour of rote exercises. One day I had an epiphany, being a computer programmer it dawned on me that I should not be doing all these calculations by hand, only enough to get the basic idea. Since then I have only bought undergraduate or graduate text books, and used sage for learning math, its just thousands of times better as I now get to learn the real concepts and not just rules (or put another way where axioms do appear I now understand _why_ they are formulated). Also the other thing that has long lacked in my early math teaching was that in no way were we taught anything about the art of creating and reading proofs, I think this is a shame as it deprives people from the interesting mental rigour that is required to accomplish this. I think the average high school mathematics syllabus is being devised by the criminally insane. Personally I am a great believer in the work of these folk http://www.computerbasedmath.org/ http://www.computerbasedmath.org/

clistctrl 15y ago

I'm right there with you. I did terribly in school, I got 'B' grades but i'm sure I was a C or a D student. Class was frustrating. There was never a clear "goal". The focus was always on the process. I never understood why he was doing something, and why it worked. For me the understanding of the process didn't come until the end when I got to fully analyze everything, and let it sink in. Unfortunately that rarely happened. I had the same teacher for most of high school. He'd spend forever walking through a problem.. my mind would wander, I thought to myself "where is this going?" then he finally reached the end. This is where i'd start making connections. But before I could make any progress he'd erase everything and start on something new. He never graded homework, so i'd just make it look like I put some effort in it. That was enough to get credit. When test time came I had no idea what anything was. Fortunately he would always have a few full example problems on top. I'd run through them trying to find a way to solve them. Inevitably i'd spend half the test time reverse engineering the problems, and most of the time I actually did well finding a solution. I would typically get the right answers (though we'd have to show our work, and he'd subtract points because i didn't use the process he taught.) Khan academy is amazing. I've gone back to relearn the things I didn't get while in school. I love being able to go at my own pace, and re-watch things.

invalidOrTaken 15y ago

Good education is a mix between theory and application. Current K12 math education has neither.

Deinumite 15y ago

Wow this really hit home to me, I always struggled with math in highschool because things like formulas and shortcuts didn't sink in with me. I struggled to understand how to use them unless I could see the proof.

rym 15y ago

I registered to just to add some evidence of this. I did poorly in all of my math courses throughout middle school and high school while doing superb in everything else. I hated math more than any other subject. Senior year of high school came, and I was tired of doing horrible. I was surrounded by incredibly intelligent friends who all did very well in their math courses, and I was tired of being the odd one out. So I skipped pre-calc and went straight into AP calculus. I studied my fucking ass off. It paid off (through self study mostly, using khan academy and good textbooks). Fast forward to the present. I am now a sophomore at a university with an incredibly strong math department. I've finished the core mathematics curriculum, and I am currently taking two grad courses (Algebraic Topology and Grad Linear Algebra). I plan to take two more in the spring, and hopefully participate in a undergraduate research program in the summer. This is coming from someone who got a 600 on the math section of the SAT (800 on the the other two). But I wouldn't recommend going into math like I did. It has been an incredibly hard task. I am very, very, VERY jealous of those of you who had an inspired early math education. Oh, the work that could have been saved...

GeneralMaximus 15y ago

> It was only during some education electives I took that I realized that a well known problem in STEM education is the group of students who are intelligent but have rather slow, idiosyncratic, and methodical ways of assimilating new information. I'm intrigued. Do you have links to papers/articles about this phenomenon?

gatlin 15y ago
I've received some emails about this so I'll write this publicly here. I recall a case study and some papers that we went over for about 2 weeks in an education course. I will try to dig up the sources (this was about 2 years ago, though, so please be patient).