Math is taught wrong because school teachers don't understand what makes math important and beautiful. Changing the curriculum at the administrative level is not going to help so long as this persists, because it's always going to be easier for teachers to grade kids based off of terminology ("scalene" v.s. "obtuse") than actual understanding.
But currently, the only way to reliably get people who understand what makes makes math important and beautiful is to hire those with advanced degrees in a STEM field. But those people are expensive, and society pays them to do things other than teach.
God says...
C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\DARWIN.TXT
itute a distinct order from those descended from I, also
broken up into two families. Nor can the existing species descended from A
be ranked in the same genus with the parent A, or those from I with parent
I. But the existing genus F14 may be supposed to have been but slightly
modified, and it will then rank with the parent genus F; just as some few
still living organisms belong to Silurian genera. So that the comparative
value of the differences between these organic beings, which are all
relat
It's a sad problem. I remember I hated math since the first year I went to school, and the only reason I know anything now is that at one point I decided that writing computer games is more interesting than doing math homework - and somehow, magically, math became interesting and worth learning in my free time.
(I remember that when I was 16, we took an exam between secondary and high school. After the exam we were exchanging solutions to exam problems; I remember people talking about how they solved one task by using Pythagorean theorem, and me thinking "wtf? What Pythagorean theorem? I used the formula for distance between vectors in 2D space".)
So now, many years later, I sometimes work as a tutor and I completely understand when high school students tell me that math is useless and physics is boring. Both subjects are so completely destroyed in school that it's sad too look. I remember conversations about Michelson–Morley experiment, for example. Yes, it is useless and boring when taught in school, to be memorized for upcoming test. But it's much more interesting if one sees it as an important part of a great story - a story of our struggle to understand what the light really is, about two competing theories that were finally unified in a seemingly bizarre way, paving way for crazy science that gave us Internet, iPhones and lolcats.
The question of what Math should be taught at school is a hard one. Unsurprisingly, a lot of thought has actually gone into curriculum design, but unfortunately this is an area in which everyone has an opinion, and quite a lot of politics gets mixed up in there as well.
The writer has a perspective that is probably valid for him, but I think the problems is a little more complex than he lays out. He does seem to focus on the areas of Maths that he has found useful in his own field. However, no matter what field you go into, if you expect the Math you learn in school to be actually applicable and useful, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Most of maths education is exactly that - education. Not training. A large section of students are totally uninterested either way, of course.
I've seen some horrors perpetrated in the name of "contextualising math". What we currently have is definitely up for improvement, but I think if this guy actually gone down to trying to implement his suggestions, he would find it a whole lot messier than he thinks.
4 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 20.0 ms ] threadBut currently, the only way to reliably get people who understand what makes makes math important and beautiful is to hire those with advanced degrees in a STEM field. But those people are expensive, and society pays them to do things other than teach.
http://www.losethos.com/files/SimStrSetup.exe
A18-W50-U50
I aced nonlinear control systems -- trumps your highest class.
I had a 1440 SAT. What'd you have?
http://www.noob.us/humor/the-office-dwight-faces-nerd-tortur...
Shrinks.
God says... C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\DARWIN.TXT
itute a distinct order from those descended from I, also broken up into two families. Nor can the existing species descended from A be ranked in the same genus with the parent A, or those from I with parent I. But the existing genus F14 may be supposed to have been but slightly modified, and it will then rank with the parent genus F; just as some few still living organisms belong to Silurian genera. So that the comparative value of the differences between these organic beings, which are all relat
(I remember that when I was 16, we took an exam between secondary and high school. After the exam we were exchanging solutions to exam problems; I remember people talking about how they solved one task by using Pythagorean theorem, and me thinking "wtf? What Pythagorean theorem? I used the formula for distance between vectors in 2D space".)
So now, many years later, I sometimes work as a tutor and I completely understand when high school students tell me that math is useless and physics is boring. Both subjects are so completely destroyed in school that it's sad too look. I remember conversations about Michelson–Morley experiment, for example. Yes, it is useless and boring when taught in school, to be memorized for upcoming test. But it's much more interesting if one sees it as an important part of a great story - a story of our struggle to understand what the light really is, about two competing theories that were finally unified in a seemingly bizarre way, paving way for crazy science that gave us Internet, iPhones and lolcats.
The writer has a perspective that is probably valid for him, but I think the problems is a little more complex than he lays out. He does seem to focus on the areas of Maths that he has found useful in his own field. However, no matter what field you go into, if you expect the Math you learn in school to be actually applicable and useful, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Most of maths education is exactly that - education. Not training. A large section of students are totally uninterested either way, of course.
I've seen some horrors perpetrated in the name of "contextualising math". What we currently have is definitely up for improvement, but I think if this guy actually gone down to trying to implement his suggestions, he would find it a whole lot messier than he thinks.