Posted on 11/07/2021 7:29:00 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
If everything had gone according to plan, California would have approved new guidelines this month for math education in public schools.
But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education.
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Critics of the draft said the authors would punish high achievers by limiting options for gifted programs. An open letter signed by hundreds of Californians working in science and technology described the draft as “an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sfexaminer.com ...
Let children excell! Many won’t, but many will. What difference does it make who excels in what field? People have different skill sets and abilities. Don’t hold some back in order to make others feel better about themselves. This is stupid.
The prayer of every sharp child; Please, oh please, let me compete against CA publik skoolz grads for a tech job.
After all, we know that these dunces will be good only for civil servant, publik skoolz, and political positions. Oh, add liberal positions on the Supreme Court.
Oh big shock!
It’s all because of “word problems” that math gets dragged into racism and social injustice.
I see how pathetically my sons former math book tried slipping curious names into word problems. Obviously trying to include various races and ethnicities.
One of the things I hate about this “diversity” obsession, is that it is extremely SELF-CONSCIOUS and UPTIGHT.
These people are like little sycophants scared of their own shadows. They’re terrified of being labeled as racist, because they didn’t make sure to show a black person here in their art or use some bizarre name like Moha’Teqa.
Regular math.
3 oranges plus 2 oranges equals how many oranges?
Woke math
25 to life with 10 years for good behaviour means you can get out when?
10 million people live in area X. How many voted for Xio Bei Din?
3 rocks of crack plus 2 rocks of crack equals how many rocks of crack?
The role of calculus has been a talking point among math educators for years, said Trena Wilkerson, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “If calculus is not the be-all, end-all thing, then we need everyone to understand what the different pathways can be and how to prepare students for the future,” she said.
California’s recommendations aim to expand the options for high-level math, so that students could take courses in, say, data science or statistics without losing their edge on college applications. (The move requires buy-in from colleges; in recent years, the University of California system has deemphasized the importance of calculus credits.)
Calculus - both in terms of derivatives and integrals - underpins a vast amount of statistics and "data science" (which is basically using applied optimization algorithms when "n" is large). A simple regression line is based on deraviatives where the sum of squared errors is zero.
This is why calculus is required for business majors - for example, you can't fully grasp economic fundamentals without understanding area under a curve or the slope of a point if tangency.
I'm all for altering word problems to make them relevant. I really didn't give a rip about science-related word problems but put a dollar sign in front of them, and they're exciting. But dropping calculus is idiocy.
And replacing calculus with stats and "data science" is like throwing non-swimmers into a 20-foot deep lake.
But damn are kids are good at selecting their own gender and picking their own personal pronouns. If you kids work hard at your Wokeism, you too can become a four-star admiral.
A favorite of mine is the big dog teaching the little dog math:
“if farmer Jones gives you three bones, then takes away two, how many fingers does farmer Jones have left?”
The Left wants to destroy it because they can't twist it.
Yeah. Of course substitute statistics for calculus. Statistics can be “interpreted”.
You make kids do the math and damn the woke consequences. I work at a place with a lot of black engineers and analysts. Math can be a slog for many but persistence and the odd epiphany pays off. I needed to know why I was learning each piece of math rather than someone just say learn it and jam it down my throat so it was hard for me. I sucked at math at school but I worked hard to learn it
For many it is a cultural issue (work in the family bisiness), some economic (money in the pocket is better than some learning that they see no value in), others the family never pushes it, most of rest go in to social services and let others make money for them to spend.
No matter whether you are counting how many apples are in the crate or how many times George Floyd said I can’t breathe under a cop’s knee, 2 plus 2 will still equal 3 in a hood school.
Trena Wilkerson, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
Remember ‘Modern Math’ from the late 60s? That came from the NCTM. In my first real teaching job, I was teaching 4th and 5th graders how to calculate problems in base 6! That knowledge sure did those kids a whole lot of good. /s
The drive to eliminate rote memorization of the times tables, also comes from the NCTM. I have seen 8th graders resort to their calculators to do a simple problem like 6 x 8. If they accidentally hit a 5 instead of the 6 they are quite happy to put down 40 as their answer.
I do understand why the NCTM do what they do. Nearly all of them loved math all their lives, were reasonably good at it and enjoyed discovering its beauty on their own. They found the memorization a drills boring and they want to see students discover the patterns of math on their own. But they neglect or reject the fact that most humans don’t love math but use it as a tool to solve problems. So they develop teaching methods that might be useful for the 5% who are gifted in math, but which handicap the 95% who are not.
People who think statistics is somehow easier than calculus are fools
California has a good junior college system where people can make up math deficiencies or learn it for the first time
In high school math was my enemy. Then I went to college to be an accountant. Had to take every math class there was. I worked at it and worked at it til one day a light bulb went off in my head and it all just clicked. Flew through beginning, intermediate, and advanced algebra.
“ In high school math was my enemy.”
Mine too! I never “got it” until electronics school, where it became a useful tool to me. Once it finally clicks, it’s all good.
Funny post.
But shouldn’t you tell the suspenseful math answer to the regular oranges question?
I mean for the many people who dropped out of math classes because math is racist.
I cheated because I know laptops have calculator software inside them, hidden in there.
California is on stolen land and must be returned to Mexico.
FINE. Use barnyard animals or cartoon characers as word problem subjects.
“If it takes half a hen half an hour to lay half an egg, how long ‘s it take a rooster to lay a brass doorknob?”
THAT’LL put a bung in ‘em!
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