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Math gets a lot of attention and therefore a lot of criticism from people who think math education is substandard and from people who think it is overemphasised

by netcan 12y ago

Math gets a lot of attention and therefore a lot of criticism from people who think math education is substandard and from people who think it is overemphasised to the detriment of creative thinking and such. I think that overall, our math education is surprisingly good, possibly better than any other subject. Especially if you consider the level of proficiency a high school graduate at below average achievement has. Reading, writing and arithmetic. Those are still the things our education system is best at. I don't mean that the average person will use trigonometry confidently, but they will use basic algebra. That in itself is an achievement. The same cannot be said of foreign language education, most science classes or anything else that requires cumulative learning. Most people that learn a foreign language (apart from english) for years in school do not come out with even a basic ability to communicate in it. I think part of the reason is the very long tradition of teaching the subject. But I think another reason we're good at teaching math is the sort of fundamental property of the subject. It's unforgivingly right or wrong, which helps cut through the cynicism of a youth that doesn't want to be in that class. The problem with the "holistic" (scare quote intended) approach to subjects is that it opens the door to nonsense of the bikesheding type. It's hard to distinguish nonsensical but enthusiastic from genuinely thoughtful. The hard right-wrong distinction in maths gives kids a feedback loop of positive and negative reenforcement. At the end of the year it's glaringly obvious if the student now has ability that he/she didn't before. I don't disagree that the ability to reason is important. But, I don't think teaching "hard" maths is debilitating to developing that ability. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this. Maths gets a bad rap. Teaching kids "real world reasoning" within the fake world of school is hard. No one broke the kids. They are just reacting to you changing the rules.

j2kun 12y ago
> It's hard to distinguish nonsensical but enthusiastic from genuinely thoughtful. English teachers successfully do this every day, as do history teachers and teachers in most other subjects. Why can't we let mathematics teachers do this when their students provide proofs via creative thinking? Certainly anyone with sufficient training in mathematics can do this. But overall your comment seems to fall short of reality. Math education in the US produces students that seriously underperform compared both to other countries and in light of the skills and knowledge required for technical careers. Contrary to your belief, high school students still generally can't do algebra. In my experience teaching the subject they don't learn algebra until they take pass calculus, and even then it's because it's a cumulative learning process, not in spite of it. Even if we teach reading, writing, and arithmetic well, that's just not enough.
- netcan 12y ago
  What I'm claiming is that English teachers both succeed and fail at this every day. Of course, you can disagree. No one wants to tell kids their idea is wrong when the subject matter is somewhat subjective (like English or History) if they appear to be trying. Math has built in quality control because of the objectivity. It creates a constructive feedback loop. I'm not from the US, I meant "we" as a whole. Obviously some places are better than others, but I think math education in 7-18 schools is better than physics, biology, history and most subjects. Obviously it's hard to compare. Your point about algebra-calculus an interesting one. I've heard several time an interesting rule of thumb that to be a teacher you need to have studied about five years beyond the level you teach. I suspect that to be able to confidently use knowledge like maths knowledge, you need to have studied x number of years beyond. So, a person who never studied math past year 12, can confidently use maths learned around year 9-10 or somesuch. In any case, I'm not claiming that we reading, writing, and arithmetic are all we should teach, just that we're relatively good at teaching these.

by netcan 12y ago

j2kun 12y ago

> It's hard to distinguish nonsensical but enthusiastic from genuinely thoughtful. English teachers successfully do this every day, as do history teachers and teachers in most other subjects. Why can't we let mathematics teachers do this when their students provide proofs via creative thinking? Certainly anyone with sufficient training in mathematics can do this. But overall your comment seems to fall short of reality. Math education in the US produces students that seriously underperform compared both to other countries and in light of the skills and knowledge required for technical careers. Contrary to your belief, high school students still generally can't do algebra. In my experience teaching the subject they don't learn algebra until they take pass calculus, and even then it's because it's a cumulative learning process, not in spite of it. Even if we teach reading, writing, and arithmetic well, that's just not enough.

netcan 12y ago
What I'm claiming is that English teachers both succeed and fail at this every day. Of course, you can disagree. No one wants to tell kids their idea is wrong when the subject matter is somewhat subjective (like English or History) if they appear to be trying. Math has built in quality control because of the objectivity. It creates a constructive feedback loop. I'm not from the US, I meant "we" as a whole. Obviously some places are better than others, but I think math education in 7-18 schools is better than physics, biology, history and most subjects. Obviously it's hard to compare. Your point about algebra-calculus an interesting one. I've heard several time an interesting rule of thumb that to be a teacher you need to have studied about five years beyond the level you teach. I suspect that to be able to confidently use knowledge like maths knowledge, you need to have studied x number of years beyond. So, a person who never studied math past year 12, can confidently use maths learned around year 9-10 or somesuch. In any case, I'm not claiming that we reading, writing, and arithmetic are all we should teach, just that we're relatively good at teaching these.