6 ms·

Teachers: Inclusion is the worst thing to have happened to education

65 points by Onavo 2y ago

beej71 2y ago
My aunt said exactly these things about her 4th grade class 25 years ago. A problem, yes. Some kind of new woke thing, no. Maybe more of a college model is in order.
primitivesuave 2y ago
One tangible example of what this looks in practice is the widespread push in California for "equitable math": https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- infotainment 2y ago
  > • Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views. Maybe the real mistake the Soviet Union made was not banning math, as it can apparently only be used for capitalism.
  - defrost 2y ago
    > as it can apparently only be used for capitalism. Care to show your working? Many people, if asked to identify ways in which a hammer is used to build a cupboard, wouldn't conclude hammers can only be used for cupboards.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when... There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning. When designing airplane parts, there are definitely right and wrong answers.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Indeed, and you correctly used a plural thus reinforcing the notion that methods with an undue focus on singular right answers a particular teacher is thinking of aren't all that great.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      That's not what I meant, but I'll go with it for the moment. You can design and build a functioning automobile without math. You cannot design a functioning airplane without math. You cannot design a functioning spacecraft without a very, very strong math background. With aircraft parts, you can make mistakes up to a point, but those mistakes will make the airplane cost more, such as being overweight. There is always an optimum answer, and I took it as a point of pride to get things exactly right. I knew some engineers who couldn't do arithmetic very well. The results were parts that were overweight and often would not even fit together, causing expensive redesign and rework. Engineering management knew who they were, and assigned them tasks where their deficient work was not going to cause much trouble. But in no case was 2+2 not equal to 4.
      - defrost 2y ago
        > You cannot design a functioning airplane without math. Did the Wright brothers use a lot of math in their wind tunnel experiments or was it more empirical .. given that "correct" math for flight dynamics took a while longer to come about. > With aircraft parts, there are a lot of "right* answers; three pairs of wings, two pairs, a single pair, a single wing, push from the back, pull from the front, control surfaces here or forward canards there. > There is always an optimum answer There are multiple optimums in the field of avionics.
        WalterBright 2y ago
        > Did the Wright brothers use a lot of math in their wind tunnel experiments Yes, they did. They did a lot of math in their design (their notebooks survive). That's why they were successful and their contemporaries all failed. They developed the first mathematical theory of propellers, for example, and used it to create a propeller that was twice as efficient as that of other experimenters. See "The Wright Brothers as Engineers, An Appraisal" by Quentin Wand > there are a lot of "right* answers None of them flew if they got thrust/lift/drag/weight/cg/strength/stability wrong answers. Lots of people died as the result of wrong answers.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I'm reminded of: 1. a novice follows the rules because he's supposed to 2. a master follows the rules because he understands the rules 3. a guru transcends the rules because he knows the rules don't apply There's no way to skip steps 1 and 2. That reference tries to skip straight to 3. It'll never work.
  - atoav 2y ago
    The problem math education has is that 99% of it is thought by people who are still at step 1, while it should be thought by people who are at step 2 or 3.
- gravescale 2y ago
  That's a document that really has had money spent on the formatting, it's really very nicely designed. The editable fields are a great touch as you can just paste in your answers directly from ChatGPT.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    I assume the misspellings "agnecy" and "sutdents" are intentional, as showing perfectionism would be a sign of white supremacy. Except the reference they give for these characteristics of white supremacy [1] says: > Organizations that are people of color led or a majority people of color can also demonstrate many damaging characteristics of white supremacy culture. [1] https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/preserve/museums/files/White_Supremacy_Culture.pdf https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/preserve/museums/fil...
WalterBright 2y ago
> I ended up pulling groups out and found that some of them could not solve one step equations--like x + 5 = 10 stuff. A colleague of mine taught remedial algebra to freshmen at the University of Washington back in the 80's. She'd show the students: x + 5 = 10 and ask what 'x' is. They'd all fall over in a quivering heap saying they can't do algebra. So she tried: _ + 5 = 10 and asked them to "fill in the blank". They could do that, no problem. The problem they were having was the "x". "x" meant "algebra", and they couldn't do "algebra". I know this is no magic solution to teaching algebra, but it is interesting how some people are triggered by it.
- kazinator 2y ago
  I had a math teacher who claimed the opposite anecdote: he found that kids can do equations when there is x (obviously ones who are past their algebra fear): x + 5 = 10 is no problem. But then when you use some unfamiliar symbol, they freeze: △ + 5 = 10. At that level, people tend to resemble trained models. I was trained on x, so I don't get it any other way.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    If you put a different symbol I would be immediately put off by "is there a secret meaning to it?", I wonder if that's the reason
- mythrwy 2y ago
  The answer for fill in the blank equation is 7. I just made that up. It can be any value. (Just kidding. I assume a typo)
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Sorry about the typo :-/
- atoav 2y ago
  I am a guy who works with complex DSP algorithms all the time. I know how to get to things thinking in arrays with actual numbers. I can't say how often I decyphered some obscure mathematical hyroglyphs only to then be: "Oh that is what that means? I have been doing this for a while now, they could have described that with a sentence or two." I get why mathematical notion looks like it does, but it sucks at doing a lot of things. That would be as if I tried to teach people a non-trivial piece of code by showing them the zeros and ones that make up the code and naming all important variables with ancient banylonian letters. Now sure, after a while the tiny fraction of them who wouldn't get scared away by this might also get fluid in a mad system like that — but if my goal is to make people understand the code why not reduce the tripping stones instead of putting some there for once? I think mathematicians — similar to the people who didn't let themselves be scared away by zeroes, ones and babylonian letters — have become fluid at a system that they now defend, because they are the initiated magicians who understand it. As a programmer I am aware that there is a difference between what a piece of code expresses and the syntax/representation it uses. To me mathematicians are like programmers who learned only brainfuck and refuse to consider trying out more appropriate notations for teaching purposes, because that's what they had to learn historically.
kazinator 2y ago
Exclusion is a necessary tool in education. For instance, if someone is being persistently disruptive, you kick them out.
infotainment 2y ago
I think the fundamental thing that many refuse to accept is that some people are, in fact, smarter than others. Until we can accept that fact in society, we're always going to end up reducing to the lowest common denominator.
- beej71 2y ago
  Most people are smart enough to do most things, in my experience. Whether or not they're motivated to do those things, that's a different story.
- atoav 2y ago
  Yet, as someone teaching electronics and programming to art students, many of whom "hate maths" there are many people who would have understood it in school if it was explained right and/or if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place. The truth is that many math teachers suck. I had a math teacher that managed to do integrals with us for a year without ever explaining to us (in a school specialized on mechanical engineering) what real world problems would be impossible to solve without it.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    > if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place Being bad at math means you'll likely not manage your finances very well, and that will hurt. I saw a documentary recently on Netflix (or Amazon?) on what happens to athletes who became overnight millionaires. Very few managed to hold on to that wealth very long. Some pretty sad stories.
    - atoav 2y ago
      Do you have kids? Telling them their finances are a reason for learning maths is bullshit, because not every person that age has to worry about their finances. And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral. As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods. The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.
WalterBright 2y ago
If I was faced with such a teaching situation, I'd just teach the 8th grade material. For most of the class, that'll lead to the best outcome.
Delphiza 2y ago
(source: I have current experience with understanding and navigating special educational needs in the UK) Our current model of teaching, loosely based on compulsory education defined in the Victorian era, does not scale. It may work for the interquartile range, but hopelessly fails the upper and lower quartiles. Kids that could achieve more academically get 'held back'. Kids that need help 'fall behind'. The median kids get along fine and hopefully cruise through school. There are no easy solutions because, as a society, we do not want to (or cannot) pay for smaller classes and restructured teaching at a scale that works. We cannot imagine alternatives, such as not bundling kids the same age together (kids at the same age do not have the same academic capability across all subjects). We insist, for our own children, that they get a good degree so that they can get a proper job. We cannot accept, as parents, employers, or buyers of services, that there are alternative paths. So, we put all kids in the same sausage machine until the machine is worn out and the sausages are all the same. There is nothing fixable with education because the current model can't be fixed. With the exception of the privileged who can afford it. It is luck as to whether a particular child lands up with the right school, the right teacher, the right peers, at the right stage of their academic progression. There is a high probability that they will do okay, and we seem happy with that. There should be a revolution with learning. Most people of HN have self-taught a lot of what they know, even just by trying to keep up. Many people are able to work and learn remotely. Our ability to interact and learn at our own pace is common post-grad, and should trickle down to college and secondary school. The platforms and tools need to get better, and society needs to view it as acceptable. The only scalable solution to 'inclusion', at both ends of the distribution, is more home learning.
- gravescale 2y ago
  My school had streams for several subjects which is perhaps unfashionably pragmatic, but at least it allows the top, bottom and inner quartiles to go at their own paces with more tailored tuition. The lower streams also took the lower exam tiers. Which limited their maximum grades, but a C (or whatever the number grade is these days) from a decent showing in Foundation Maths is better than an fail from a disastrous attempt at the Higher tier. It won't help when children are multiple entire years behind their peers, though. Short of actually repeating years with extra tuition and major parental involvement until they can catch up, I don't know what you're supposed to do at that point. Obviously just chucking them into the next year and marking it down as a "pass" might make look good for the paperwork, but it's just compounding the misery for the poor kid who might as well be being taught quantum chemistry in Ancient Sumerian for all the good it will do them.
orwin 2y ago
I thought it was about either Montessori 'do not grade' or the California weird new math laws but this is simply a rant about a teacher who never learned how to teach. Yes, people in the same grade don't have the same level. It's actually good: some of them will be great and have high grades, other not and will have low grade. Your job is to have both learn new stuff. You're paid for that. Good teachers will create class cohesion and will make pupils learn from each other (that's what happened in my class in highschool, we ended up very close to each other, and the whole class partied with each other ever other month or so, and we ended up all 22 in my math teacher's garden after we all got the final results (all passed).
- Symbiote 2y ago
  > I’m teaching kids who are brand new to the country and who cannot speak English, and who may not even have literacy skills in their native language.
bachmeier 2y ago
The title is editorialized and wrong. This is the opinion of a single anonymous poster who claims to be a teacher in Canada. I saw much of the same thing when I was in school. Everyone was in the same classroom because there was no money for anything else. I was limited by what the weakest student in the room could do, because everyone had to be able to pass.

65 points by Onavo 2y ago

My aunt said exactly these things about her 4th grade class 25 years ago. A problem, yes. Some kind of new woke thing, no. Maybe more of a college model is in order.

primitivesuave 2y ago

One tangible example of what this looks in practice is the widespread push in California for "equitable math": https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
infotainment 2y ago
> • Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views. Maybe the real mistake the Soviet Union made was not banning math, as it can apparently only be used for capitalism.
- defrost 2y ago
  > as it can apparently only be used for capitalism. Care to show your working? Many people, if asked to identify ways in which a hammer is used to build a cupboard, wouldn't conclude hammers can only be used for cupboards.
WalterBright 2y ago
> White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when... There is a greater focus on getting the "right" answer than understanding concepts and reasoning. When designing airplane parts, there are definitely right and wrong answers.
- defrost 2y ago
  Indeed, and you correctly used a plural thus reinforcing the notion that methods with an undue focus on singular right answers a particular teacher is thinking of aren't all that great.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    That's not what I meant, but I'll go with it for the moment. You can design and build a functioning automobile without math. You cannot design a functioning airplane without math. You cannot design a functioning spacecraft without a very, very strong math background. With aircraft parts, you can make mistakes up to a point, but those mistakes will make the airplane cost more, such as being overweight. There is always an optimum answer, and I took it as a point of pride to get things exactly right. I knew some engineers who couldn't do arithmetic very well. The results were parts that were overweight and often would not even fit together, causing expensive redesign and rework. Engineering management knew who they were, and assigned them tasks where their deficient work was not going to cause much trouble. But in no case was 2+2 not equal to 4.
    - defrost 2y ago
      > You cannot design a functioning airplane without math. Did the Wright brothers use a lot of math in their wind tunnel experiments or was it more empirical .. given that "correct" math for flight dynamics took a while longer to come about. > With aircraft parts, there are a lot of "right* answers; three pairs of wings, two pairs, a single pair, a single wing, push from the back, pull from the front, control surfaces here or forward canards there. > There is always an optimum answer There are multiple optimums in the field of avionics.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        > Did the Wright brothers use a lot of math in their wind tunnel experiments Yes, they did. They did a lot of math in their design (their notebooks survive). That's why they were successful and their contemporaries all failed. They developed the first mathematical theory of propellers, for example, and used it to create a propeller that was twice as efficient as that of other experimenters. See "The Wright Brothers as Engineers, An Appraisal" by Quentin Wand > there are a lot of "right* answers None of them flew if they got thrust/lift/drag/weight/cg/strength/stability wrong answers. Lots of people died as the result of wrong answers.
WalterBright 2y ago
I'm reminded of: 1. a novice follows the rules because he's supposed to 2. a master follows the rules because he understands the rules 3. a guru transcends the rules because he knows the rules don't apply There's no way to skip steps 1 and 2. That reference tries to skip straight to 3. It'll never work.
- atoav 2y ago
  The problem math education has is that 99% of it is thought by people who are still at step 1, while it should be thought by people who are at step 2 or 3.
gravescale 2y ago
That's a document that really has had money spent on the formatting, it's really very nicely designed. The editable fields are a great touch as you can just paste in your answers directly from ChatGPT.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  I assume the misspellings "agnecy" and "sutdents" are intentional, as showing perfectionism would be a sign of white supremacy. Except the reference they give for these characteristics of white supremacy [1] says: > Organizations that are people of color led or a majority people of color can also demonstrate many damaging characteristics of white supremacy culture. [1] https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/preserve/museums/files/White_Supremacy_Culture.pdf https://www.thc.texas.gov/public/upload/preserve/museums/fil...

WalterBright 2y ago

> I ended up pulling groups out and found that some of them could not solve one step equations--like x + 5 = 10 stuff. A colleague of mine taught remedial algebra to freshmen at the University of Washington back in the 80's. She'd show the students: x + 5 = 10 and ask what 'x' is. They'd all fall over in a quivering heap saying they can't do algebra. So she tried: _ + 5 = 10 and asked them to "fill in the blank". They could do that, no problem. The problem they were having was the "x". "x" meant "algebra", and they couldn't do "algebra". I know this is no magic solution to teaching algebra, but it is interesting how some people are triggered by it.

kazinator 2y ago
I had a math teacher who claimed the opposite anecdote: he found that kids can do equations when there is x (obviously ones who are past their algebra fear): x + 5 = 10 is no problem. But then when you use some unfamiliar symbol, they freeze: △ + 5 = 10. At that level, people tend to resemble trained models. I was trained on x, so I don't get it any other way.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
  If you put a different symbol I would be immediately put off by "is there a secret meaning to it?", I wonder if that's the reason
mythrwy 2y ago
The answer for fill in the blank equation is 7. I just made that up. It can be any value. (Just kidding. I assume a typo)
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Sorry about the typo :-/
atoav 2y ago
I am a guy who works with complex DSP algorithms all the time. I know how to get to things thinking in arrays with actual numbers. I can't say how often I decyphered some obscure mathematical hyroglyphs only to then be: "Oh that is what that means? I have been doing this for a while now, they could have described that with a sentence or two." I get why mathematical notion looks like it does, but it sucks at doing a lot of things. That would be as if I tried to teach people a non-trivial piece of code by showing them the zeros and ones that make up the code and naming all important variables with ancient banylonian letters. Now sure, after a while the tiny fraction of them who wouldn't get scared away by this might also get fluid in a mad system like that — but if my goal is to make people understand the code why not reduce the tripping stones instead of putting some there for once? I think mathematicians — similar to the people who didn't let themselves be scared away by zeroes, ones and babylonian letters — have become fluid at a system that they now defend, because they are the initiated magicians who understand it. As a programmer I am aware that there is a difference between what a piece of code expresses and the syntax/representation it uses. To me mathematicians are like programmers who learned only brainfuck and refuse to consider trying out more appropriate notations for teaching purposes, because that's what they had to learn historically.

kazinator 2y ago

Exclusion is a necessary tool in education. For instance, if someone is being persistently disruptive, you kick them out.

infotainment 2y ago

I think the fundamental thing that many refuse to accept is that some people are, in fact, smarter than others. Until we can accept that fact in society, we're always going to end up reducing to the lowest common denominator.

beej71 2y ago
Most people are smart enough to do most things, in my experience. Whether or not they're motivated to do those things, that's a different story.
atoav 2y ago
Yet, as someone teaching electronics and programming to art students, many of whom "hate maths" there are many people who would have understood it in school if it was explained right and/or if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place. The truth is that many math teachers suck. I had a math teacher that managed to do integrals with us for a year without ever explaining to us (in a school specialized on mechanical engineering) what real world problems would be impossible to solve without it.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place Being bad at math means you'll likely not manage your finances very well, and that will hurt. I saw a documentary recently on Netflix (or Amazon?) on what happens to athletes who became overnight millionaires. Very few managed to hold on to that wealth very long. Some pretty sad stories.
  - atoav 2y ago
    Do you have kids? Telling them their finances are a reason for learning maths is bullshit, because not every person that age has to worry about their finances. And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral. As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods. The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.

WalterBright 2y ago

If I was faced with such a teaching situation, I'd just teach the 8th grade material. For most of the class, that'll lead to the best outcome.

Delphiza 2y ago

(source: I have current experience with understanding and navigating special educational needs in the UK) Our current model of teaching, loosely based on compulsory education defined in the Victorian era, does not scale. It may work for the interquartile range, but hopelessly fails the upper and lower quartiles. Kids that could achieve more academically get 'held back'. Kids that need help 'fall behind'. The median kids get along fine and hopefully cruise through school. There are no easy solutions because, as a society, we do not want to (or cannot) pay for smaller classes and restructured teaching at a scale that works. We cannot imagine alternatives, such as not bundling kids the same age together (kids at the same age do not have the same academic capability across all subjects). We insist, for our own children, that they get a good degree so that they can get a proper job. We cannot accept, as parents, employers, or buyers of services, that there are alternative paths. So, we put all kids in the same sausage machine until the machine is worn out and the sausages are all the same. There is nothing fixable with education because the current model can't be fixed. With the exception of the privileged who can afford it. It is luck as to whether a particular child lands up with the right school, the right teacher, the right peers, at the right stage of their academic progression. There is a high probability that they will do okay, and we seem happy with that. There should be a revolution with learning. Most people of HN have self-taught a lot of what they know, even just by trying to keep up. Many people are able to work and learn remotely. Our ability to interact and learn at our own pace is common post-grad, and should trickle down to college and secondary school. The platforms and tools need to get better, and society needs to view it as acceptable. The only scalable solution to 'inclusion', at both ends of the distribution, is more home learning.

gravescale 2y ago
My school had streams for several subjects which is perhaps unfashionably pragmatic, but at least it allows the top, bottom and inner quartiles to go at their own paces with more tailored tuition. The lower streams also took the lower exam tiers. Which limited their maximum grades, but a C (or whatever the number grade is these days) from a decent showing in Foundation Maths is better than an fail from a disastrous attempt at the Higher tier. It won't help when children are multiple entire years behind their peers, though. Short of actually repeating years with extra tuition and major parental involvement until they can catch up, I don't know what you're supposed to do at that point. Obviously just chucking them into the next year and marking it down as a "pass" might make look good for the paperwork, but it's just compounding the misery for the poor kid who might as well be being taught quantum chemistry in Ancient Sumerian for all the good it will do them.

orwin 2y ago

I thought it was about either Montessori 'do not grade' or the California weird new math laws but this is simply a rant about a teacher who never learned how to teach. Yes, people in the same grade don't have the same level. It's actually good: some of them will be great and have high grades, other not and will have low grade. Your job is to have both learn new stuff. You're paid for that. Good teachers will create class cohesion and will make pupils learn from each other (that's what happened in my class in highschool, we ended up very close to each other, and the whole class partied with each other ever other month or so, and we ended up all 22 in my math teacher's garden after we all got the final results (all passed).

Symbiote 2y ago
> I’m teaching kids who are brand new to the country and who cannot speak English, and who may not even have literacy skills in their native language.

bachmeier 2y ago

The title is editorialized and wrong. This is the opinion of a single anonymous poster who claims to be a teacher in Canada. I saw much of the same thing when I was in school. Everyone was in the same classroom because there was no money for anything else. I was limited by what the weakest student in the room could do, because everyone had to be able to pass.