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It sounds like, the way they taught him in school had extra steps, in order to teach logic, so the kids would understand the concepts and process. But once you understand, you don't need all the baby steps. And you say, that in college, he's being graded down, because he's not including the baby steps? Did I understand that right?
No she's saying in high school he was graded down.
All I know is when I get exchange students from there and other Eastern European countries, they are always way ahead of our students and actually refuse to do all the "steps" that we make our students do, arriving at the correct answer and in a much quicker time. Sometimes I think we are our own worst enemies in education in the name of "tradition"....
I'm not sure our problem is so much "tradition" but the fact that our educational philosophy goes through one fad after another during which everybody has to jump on the bandwagon for this wonderful new way to do things that never seems to end up working. We would probably be better off if we stuck more with tradition and augmented it with new ideas that are proven to work. Ultimately though, I think our problems with education are a cultural issue.
All I know is when I get exchange students from there and other Eastern European countries, they are always way ahead of our students and actually refuse to do all the "steps" that we make our students do, arriving at the correct answer and in a much quicker time. Sometimes I think we are our own worst enemies in education in the name of "tradition"....
The steps aren't traditional, though. Traditionally, math was taught differently. Then, at some point, someone decided that something called "new math" was the way to go. So suddenly, parents weren't able to help their kids with their math homework, because the steps the kids had to do through were something the parents weren't at all familiar with. Then after "new math", there was something else. The US has been completely lost with regards to how to teach math for a very long time. Maybe we need to go back to however it was taught in 1910.
I'm not sure our problem is so much "tradition" but the fact that our educational philosophy goes through one fad after another during which everybody has to jump on the bandwagon for this wonderful new way to do things that never seems to end up working. We would probably be better off if we stuck more with tradition and augmented it with new ideas that are proven to work. Ultimately though, I think our problems with education are a cultural issue.
Math is the basis of all other sciences. Understanding of the physics and chemistry requires a good knowledge of math. I think 6 hours per week is the minimum required to study math.
I'm a retired actuary so worked with many Eastern Europeans and Asians. I remember a Chinese woman telling me that in grade school they learned a song with the multiplication tables. They were too young to understand multiplication at the time, but when they did, they already had the tables memorized. I believe those cultures place more emphasis on Math as the building blocks for many other disciplines and in the US, our culture is afraid of it. People joke on FB about math phobia, how they never use algebra... and then they get killed on credit card interest and subprime Adjustable Rate Mortgages because they don't understand compound interest.
At my university if you were an Elementary Ed major you were required to take "Baby Calculus" (a simplified version not meant for Math majors) or Linear Algebra, which I thought was fascinating but was highly theoretical. We started out with quite a few Elementary Ed majors in Linear Algebra- I guess they saw "Algebra" and figured it would be easier than Calculus. They all dropped out. I think that's a very sad commentary on how a lack of interest in rigorous math just perpetuates itself- the people who are going to teach it to young children aren't motivated and it just gets passed on to the students. I found math really boring till I got into Algebra in HS. I'm glad I was still open to it- I had a great career, thanks to the high market values for people who actually DO like Math.
Americans do not like to be judged. However in a math class you are judged all the time. It is either right or wrong, and you feel either smart or stupid.
Nowadays many Americans who hate math already gained power in the educational system, and they are trying to eliminate math requirements further.
Not a "good" understanding for sure. Physical laws are described in math.
Exactly.
It's not possible to get out of the gate so far as understanding physics without an excellent grasp of algebra, trig, and ultimately calculus/diff-e etc. One would know a cinder block dropped onto his/her head would hurt but not be able to explain why with any level of precision.
It's possible to have surface level understanding about scientific concepts like frequencies, red-shift, pressure, some feel for why water is such an astonishing compound and myriad other things. It's impossible to understand any of these well without command of algebra through calculus and beyond etc.
At the end of the day onion skin is only worth so much. The good stuff is deeper.
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