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The intellectual pedigree actually explains everything. Jo Boaler is the one responsible for charging $5k/hr to advise schools to end middle school algebra. In
by arjie 1y ago
The intellectual pedigree actually explains everything. Jo Boaler is the one responsible for charging $5k/hr to advise schools to end middle school algebra. In an amusing confluence of concepts, Garry Tan (CEO of YC - whose site we're on) describes her as "infamous and disgraced"[0].
I don't know about that, but when I discovered that San Francisco schools weren't teaching algebra I was at first impressed that American children were doing Group Theory in 8th grade (something we only learn in the 12th standard in Tamil Nadu in India where I'm from) and figured moving that to 9th isn't a big deal only to find that they meant the basic stuff (linear equations and the like, what we learn in the 7th grade).
Honestly, I can't take anyone seriously who would try so hard to set back children from learning what is fairly basic Mathematics at that age. Children are capable of learning this. Or at least a sufficiently large amount are that we should be teaching them to a high standard.
For Alpha School, I think the Slate Star Codex review is likely more informative than this clearly polemic article.
0: https://x.com/garrytan/status/1953654484997169443 https://x.com/garrytan/status/1953654484997169443
tl;dr This is from the people who want to delay Mathematics education to later in a child's life (algebra to 9th grade onwards)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tptacek 1y agoIronically, by taking the author of this article seriously, the preceding comment makes a more much persuasive critique.
- arjie 1y agoI suspect most people will land on this where their predilections already lead them. To me, the effort to delay Mathematics education is sufficiently bad that I can dismiss the rest of that school of education without much concern. If they are right, they are right by accident and there's not much to learn there. I know there are others like me out there, and for them a quick reminder of who this person is will probably be sufficient for them to escape reading (what they will believe to be) a low-quality post. Time isn't infinite after all. If you feel less convinced by this, it's simply that you're not in my audience. But I think it's probably worth sticking a tl;dr on the original. Let me do that.
- rahimnathwani 1y agoI usually regret reading Dan Meyer's articles, but this one I really enjoyed. It pointed at a couple of sources that led me down a rabbit hole back when I encountered it. I don't know whether Dan Meyer is in favour of delaying math education. I do know he favours delivering education in a school setting with in-person human teachers, but the latter doesn't imply the former. And he works on making really nice tools for exploring math: https://www.desmos.com/ https://www.desmos.com/
- tptacek 1y agoDesmos is really neat.