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I wonder what else these people can't do besides math. Do you think there are other things, or do you think it's limited to math?
The most important thing we can learn, imo, is how to learn. That's the boon of learning math according to that link.
If learning this stuff actually helps people to learn in general, to improve memory, and to think quickly over all I don't see how it couldn't be important in the day to day. You will be able to learn that piano more quickly, how to speak Spanish quicker and with efficiency. Being able to quickly look at your meds in mgs or cc's and know what your dose, or a dose for a loved one, should be is unquestionably useful. When reviewing contracts and being rushed by the salesman (I just recently experienced this) it's useful to be able to quickly scan and know when there's an error. The message I get is that it's a matter of increasing your intelligence which is going to bleed into pretty much every area in life.
But if your just plain lousey at math you'll just hate it. Maybe your bad at math but love the piano. Why not teach piano instead? One college back when programming was just appearing as a valued skill, gave students a choice. Geomotry or a class on computer programming. What the student who doesn't plan to be a mathimation gets out of Geometry is logic. You have to use it in computer programming too, but its aplicable immediately, not in theory. Mostly I remember wondering why it mattered to anyone if I 'proved' a triangle was a triangle. I flunked geometry twice. I got all A's in programming classes. The *same* logical process had immediate use and long lasting results when I did a program.
Does it matter *how* one learns? I think not. Take a skill and offer alternatives. Math or music. Geometry or how to write a program. Let people pick what they are interested in. If you aren't nothing is going to make you care if you learn. If you are you don't even notice.
I have found uses for basic algebra in life. Never once in geometry. Much use of the application of logic, but didn't learn it from math. We need to quit 'forcing' students into boxes as if they are all the same and encourage the LOVE of learning over getting a C and burning the book the day the class is over. We're all different and we need to begin looking at that first.
I know this, as an educator, but it's definitely socially programmed, it's not a lack of innate skill. But, still, nobody, even the best math teacher in the world (and I did have a handful of very good ones, one in particular who was one of those lifechanging teachers) could do much to spur my interest. I was never anything more than a higher-end-of mediocre math student, but there was a definite lack of interest/motivation. It was just never very thrilling to me. I can't imagine the hell my life would be had I been pushed to work in a field where it played a prominent role.
I was the same in HS. I hated math and I did pretty poorly at it. For whatever reason I started taking classes in college. It was a physics class that really captured me. It showed me a different way to view the world and I found it very exciting. I needed the math to grasp the concepts. Most likely quite similar to how people say you can have different perceptions and worldview due to language? In that there are words for concepts in one language that simply don't exist in other languages.
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In all honesty, the foreign-born engineer I am dating is leaps and bounds ahead of most people I know, native U.S. citizens or otherwise, in verbal and written communication. But where he is from in India, most people have a better command of English than their native language.
I work with a number of talented scientists from India, so I get that. I love to listen to them speak their native language, tho. It's lovely. I fit in quite nicely with the Jains since I was vegetarian.
But if your just plain lousey at math you'll just hate it. Maybe your bad at math but love the piano. Why not teach piano instead? One college back when programming was just appearing as a valued skill, gave students a choice. Geomotry or a class on computer programming. What the student who doesn't plan to be a mathimation gets out of Geometry is logic. You have to use it in computer programming too, but its aplicable immediately, not in theory. Mostly I remember wondering why it mattered to anyone if I 'proved' a triangle was a triangle. I flunked geometry twice. I got all A's in programming classes. The *same* logical process had immediate use and long lasting results when I did a program.
Does it matter *how* one learns? I think not. Take a skill and offer alternatives. Math or music. Geometry or how to write a program. Let people pick what they are interested in. If you aren't nothing is going to make you care if you learn. If you are you don't even notice.
I have found uses for basic algebra in life. Never once in geometry. Much use of the application of logic, but didn't learn it from math. We need to quit 'forcing' students into boxes as if they are all the same and encourage the LOVE of learning over getting a C and burning the book the day the class is over. We're all different and we need to begin looking at that first.
I don't think students are being forced into anything. It's quite the opposite. As previously stated, I think there is more going on that interest or lack of interest.
Of course. I'm not saying the population is not benefiting from the rise in the economy and really, hallelujah to that rise. We're all waiting for the value of the Chinese dollar (yuan?) to come up in value. Again, what I'm saying is that you are not having people in China demanding that everyone gets the opportunity to go to college; that everyone must have a fair shake. You don't have them screaming n the TV and voting to make that change.
People of poor families do go to college in China. When I was a student, a friend of mine could not even make it through each month, and borrowed cash from me from time to time.
However, those who grow up in a poor community often lack the motivation to pursue advanced education. It is the same as in the US.
China is not a democratic country, very true. Singapore is not either, but they are doing very well in terms of education.
As an engineering major I only did calculus but not "real analysis". However, in my graduate study I really need to know measure theory, Hilbert space, functional analysis etc. So I picked a book and studied it myself.
Suppose I do not need those things, I would never study them on my own. It would be very boring for me.
It's not really the main purpose of education in math and science though.
Because I'm a 2nd generation Asian, I know this. The main purpose of math and science courses, especially in Asia, and to a lesser degree in the US, is to separate the weak from the strong...
Engineering, nursing, medical school, law school, all require aptitude in math or science to varying degrees (logic games on the LSAT).
What math and science courses really test in most cases, IMHO, is your ability to sit down, work hard, and go through enough problems so that you understand the material. I haven't met too many American born students in my time that were awesome at math and science but horrible at English and History.
So what OP is really advocating is that we have a more cut-throat screening system like China and Taiwan do, have standardized tests determine where you will end up in your career when you're 18 years old.
I hope not...
Given a chance, the cream always rises. Sometimes its very specific things and the whole idea of if we could analise what skills preceed it we could pamper them along is false. All tests do is show how good you are at taking tests. I took economics in college. I got a B. I figured out how he set up the test and what to memorize. Didn't learn much at all about the subject.
Japan has a similar system. You take a test about fifteen. If you don't make the grade, you'll be a store clerk all you life since you can't get into higher schools. Sucide among those who fail is a siginicant problem. Sucide among those who just think they'll fail is also a problem. But when your fifteen or eighteen, you don't know yet where you'll be able to go, not really, unless you lived in the 1800's on a farm.
I don't think we need that here. And there are students who excell at English and History and are dead in the water in math. Conceptually, its a whole different train. The specifics are not set. You can't put a particuar 'value' on a component in history because in part its subjective and in part its dependent on so many other things which one may not know yet. So the right answer now may not be the right answer in a year and more study. Many who excel in English and History grasp that intuitively and do not grasp. If you don't grasp the concepts because its not how your wired, endless hours of rote won't fix it.
Locking someone out since they don't get math demonstrates the values of the society that sets them, especially the absolutes, and doesn't have room for the inbetween grey. Valuing that grey area is what has MADE us what we are.
Teach everything equally. Let ability show and reward it, doesn't matter what it is. Give everyone a chance to be WHO THEY ARE, and give them the chance to shine how they were intended and then China's regimted world wouldn't look so good anymore.
Hey, I'm not saying she was thrilled to have to work at Starbucks for a couple of years, by any means. But sh*t happens and you do what you have to do. The cream floats to the top, though. Even at Starbucks, her value as an employee was noted and rewarded accordingly. She loves the job that she has, now, and is a rising star.
No doubt, that she didn't stay a barista and rose at Starbucks was another plus in her success in getting her new job as well. Doing the best you can in the situation is a valuable thing which does get rewarded.
No offense.
I know these are offered in US schools too, but the majority do not HAVE TO pass them to graduate.
If you go to Europe or Asia, you will realize how low the standards in US are. It is very urgent. I sincerely hope the US can improve in basic education for most (not only for elites).
In Europe, the system has long been dual pathways. You took a test. You did well in the right things, then you got to go onto high school. You already had the apptitude for math. They taught advanced mathmatics far more successfully since those who were not good at math didn't qualify. Europe was historically one of an elite society. The people who were high enough up in society found ways of getting their kids in, even if they weren't 'qualified'. The kid who had potential but didn't have the all around apptitude got chucked back into the pesantry. This also used to be the system in England. A friend of mine who came here from there was in the 'better' schools, and remembered when they switched from that system. Students without the benefit of 'better' schools but with talent were allowed in. The system was made more like the US system. He thought it was a *good* thing. He came here in part since when he has kids he didn't want them to be in that kind of system where failure doomed you even if you were twelve.
In the US that has NEVER been the idea past the early times. The theory was you offered the ability to learn. If the student wished to, they could even study on their own to go further. If they didn't care it was up to them. But some of the greatest in a regimented system would never have gotten anywhere. The very very worse thing we could do was institute an elite system which froze you out when you were fifteen or twelve or eighteen for life. How many who don't 'pass' at 18 kill themselves? How many who don't see things the 'right' way, who follow a different drummer, are shunted out of the way and their different take on life will be stashed away in a factory? And while you seem to insist that somehow everyone can be a great math student, I will never agree. I can grasp all the logic of geometry without ever passing the class. Thats the point of it. I got A's in everything but math because no matter how hard I tried it just didn't sink in. And I've never found a use for 90 percent of what did. And I am not unusual. In the Chinese system, I'd never go past that test to do anything else. But I am very good at other things which are equally useful.
You can demonstrate the willingness to work on something by having a paper due on an analysis of history, with the proper references and a well thought out and stated point of view JUST as well as you can with a long math problem. Or watching how ones writing improves over time because this only happens if you apply the lessons of each paper to the next. Math is one subject. Most people around the world don't ever use past the basic and a fraction or percentage or two their whole life. Why make it a god? Science can be learned and be a deep interest without it too. I don't have to understand the math to understand that mathmatically some event occures x amont of times over another. Unless I want to be a scientist I don't have to either. What math dominance does demonstrate is the ability to deal in the absolute, which the writer of the history paper or best student in the writing class does not. This is something we should value just as much as absolutes, since when you value them over other things you get regimented societies.
If the formula says, it won't work, then will you ask, or even consider the question, "what if we do it that way. Wonder what will happen?" Plastic was discovered while a company was experimenting, on the what if basis, with a nutrient base. That particular try didn't make anything edible, but it was the first plastic. Unplanned ideas can shake the world.
Leave math past algebra to those who wish to take it. Let them excell. Diversify the rest, and stress the abilty to learn and the joy of learning, even if its not what you were brought up to believe, and you have the system which serves us best as human beings.
Given a chance, the cream always rises. Sometimes its very specific things and the whole idea of if we could analise what skills preceed it we could pamper them along is false. All tests do is show how good you are at taking tests. I took economics in college. I got a B. I figured out how he set up the test and what to memorize. Didn't learn much at all about the subject.
Japan has a similar system. You take a test about fifteen. If you don't make the grade, you'll be a store clerk all you life since you can't get into higher schools. Sucide among those who fail is a siginicant problem. Sucide among those who just think they'll fail is also a problem. But when your fifteen or eighteen, you don't know yet where you'll be able to go, not really, unless you lived in the 1800's on a farm.
I don't think we need that here. And there are students who excell at English and History and are dead in the water in math. Conceptually, its a whole different train. The specifics are not set. You can't put a particuar 'value' on a component in history because in part its subjective and in part its dependent on so many other things which one may not know yet. So the right answer now may not be the right answer in a year and more study. Many who excel in English and History grasp that intuitively and do not grasp. If you don't grasp the concepts because its not how your wired, endless hours of rote won't fix it.
Locking someone out since they don't get math demonstrates the values of the society that sets them, especially the absolutes, and doesn't have room for the inbetween grey. Valuing that grey area is what has MADE us what we are.
Teach everything equally. Let ability show and reward it, doesn't matter what it is. Give everyone a chance to be WHO THEY ARE, and give them the chance to shine how they were intended and then China's regimted world wouldn't look so good anymore.
If someone is very bad at learning/testing, he does not need to go to college no matter how smart he potentially could be. He should leave school early to start a business, for example.
Many billionaires in China (and in the US) did not finish college.
I do not believe those who fail in high school math can be good historians/writers either. They must have very poor self management, or very poor memory, or very poor understanding of abstract concepts. Either of them is fatal for a decent historian or writer.
I got A's in everything but math because no matter how hard I tried it just didn't sink in.
Honestly, I have never seen anyone who got A's in literature but F's in math. Never.
Usually you see people get A's in one field, and at least B's and C's in the other.
People have different talents, but those talents are correlated.
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