Posted on 10/19/2006 3:13:58 PM PDT by G8 Diplomat
WASHINGTON (AP) Kids who are turned off by math often say they don't enjoy it, they aren't good at it and they see little point in it. Who knew that could be a formula for success?
The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy.
Countries reporting higher levels of enjoyment and confidence among math students don't do as well in the subject, the study suggests. The results for the United States hover around the middle of the pack, both in terms of enjoyment and in test scores.
In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless.
“We might want to focus on the math that kids are learning and just be a little less obsessed with the fact that they have to enjoy every minute of it,'' said Loveless, who directs the Brown center and serves on a presidential advisory panel on math.
“The implication is not 'Let's go make kids unhappy,''' he said. “It's 'Let's give kids better signals as to how they're performing, relative to the rest of the world.'''
Other countries do better than the United States because they seem to expect more from students, he said. That could also explain why high performers in other nations express less confidence and enjoyment in math. They consider their peer group to be star achievers.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Very true. The Koreans think they're terrible at math, but they score very high on international math tests. The Russians are always unhappy, and they excel at math. American kids think they're so smart, and they bomb out on these tests.
Math textbooks in the United States, for example, tend to have colorful photos, charts and stories to please kids, he noted. In other nations, the texts strictly have math.
Also completely true. I can't recall a single one of my math (or any subject) textbooks that didn't have pictures and random captions that had nothing to do with math. If there's a geometry problem involving pyramids, they'll put in a picture of the pyramids in Egypt with some multiculturalist caption. Someone get the liberals out of our education system and stop them from dumbing us down to the point where we are less educated than our enemies.
Most FReepers here have gone through school already and remember what the school stystem was like in those days. I'm a senior in high school and let me tell you: it's completely different today. Kids are generally less attentive, there's no discipline, and the libs have screwed up the cirriculum with their own agenda.
I thought it was because the math questions went something like this..
Q..farmer jones has 27 acres of trees that the logging company wants to cut down. if the logging company pays him $5000 per acre with an average of 2000 trees per acre that he can sell for a markup of 25% to the local paper mill..
what is your feeling on the damage to the environment if all the trees were cut down?
what about the red-lipped-brown-eyed farkle frog that will be without a home?? what happens to it?
you know, normal math questions..
No wonder I've always been a happy, confident person. ; )
Have you seen some of the crap being taught as math in the public schools? Disgraceful. My wife and I are doing the teaching every night.
Of course I've seen it. I've been THROUGH it. I'm a senior now...last year of it though! Assuming it gets better in college...
You pound number theory into your head with a ten pound hammer and see how happy that makes you.
Well yeah, that's why all the unhappy kids score so well.
What did we say about this? Holding my sides laughing...
Crap! No wonder I flunked Geometry! I was happy and confident, though...
The names they use in the problems are great, too. Its always something like "Shaniqua has four dollars and gives Pedro two. Then Pedro gives Hiriatsu one. How many does each student have?" Rarely a single good Christian name to be found.
Same with us. We have a tutor for our high school son to teach him math, I have to teach him history and chemistry (don't ask why I can help with chemistry but not math), and my wife helps with English. And we're in a supposedly very good school district in the Bay Area.
"In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless."
Happiness is overrated according to Mr. Loveless. I can see why.
I knew a young Korean gentleman, and he told me how he disliked math and was much more interested in the social sciences. At first I thought this was a strange aberration from the typical stereotype of Asian math wizards, but as this study suggests it seems to be the exact opposite.
I think this rule could probably be applied to most other subjects. School isn't supposed to always be fun, yet the liberal education establishment has brainwashed kids into thinking that learning means having fun. Learning takes effort and patient enthusiasm.
Even some of the teachers make frequent grammatical mistakes. Once my mom got an reminder from my school to register for me the SAT, that said "The SAT--Is your Studdent prepared?" That was most likely a typo but you think they'd have noticed it. And my English teacher last year couldn't spell. He'd ask the class stuff like "Does 'aggressive' have one g or two?", and he couldn't pronounce half the words in our vocabulary book.
My AP biology teacher's son goes to a different high school than the one his mom teaches at, and according to her, they can't teach bio over there. The cirriculum is so bad she had to teach it to him herself.
>>Rarely a single good Christian name to be found.
What's wrong with Pedro? Pedro equals Peter, which is a member of the set "Christian names". :)
I am now going to be unhappy for the rest of the afternoon. Darn you math, spoiling a nice day.
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