Math Education

Americans don't learn math, why else are they so fat from drinking a lot of soda and eating a lot of GMOs? Americans ruin everything.

You guys literally just won the Olympiads.

As a European, honestly, it's fine. The biggest problem is the way it seems to be ever more adapted to the lowest common denominator. But the curriculum doesn't seem to civer anything less than European schools (save from maybe some analytic geometry and matrix algebra?).

Both European and American schools seem to fail in motivating students for maths, though I guess it's more of a cultural issue

>>8298841
European education seems to be paradoxically ahead and behind the US. On the one hand, it seems like they are doing more advanced stuff; but really it just amounts to forcing kids who aren't ready to handle material so they become rote memorization focused at an earlier age which is bad. US doesn't give a fuck, so there's a bit of lazy, slacker, artistic and creative problem solving edge while the Europeans are suffering from a bit of rigor mortis. Just my 2 cents.

>>8298885
>US doesn't give a fuck
and yet, it tries to teach E&M and modern physics without any calculus to high school students, and tries to teach memorization rules for derivatives and integrals and calls that monstrosity "calculus"

both of these nonsensical classes are standard and evaluated in the SAT subject tests. absolute waste of time.

I'm an American who started HS in 1999. The lowest common denominator pace killed me. I remember spending something like one to two weeks on each textbook section.

My other biggest gripe was the class length. 7 periods per day, at around 45 minutes each. Not enough time for me to give a shit about whatever's being discussed. Too busy watching the clock.

>>8298887
I just graduated public high school in Texas. Calculus was a prerequisite for physics c(mechanics and em). Both class were taught around preparation for AP tests(that are in general very well made) which strongly favored students who had an intuitive understanding of the material. Thus teachers pushed students hard to understand the concepts. Perhaps there is some deeper level you are referring to but rote memorization is inaccurate.

I also took the SAT subject tests for physics and math 2. The physics test does not require physics c, and rewarded a solid intuitive understanding of basic principles. Math 2 does not have calculus though perhaps it could be used on some problems, IMO only precal/trig was needed, I didn't feel the need to use calculus on any of the problems.

Very inaccurate post. It seems you know very little about the subject at hand.

Very little proofs. No abstract algebra, little or no linear algebra. I didn't truly know how cool math was until I got to college. (And I say that having taken a pretty advanced IB math course, so you can imagine how shitty the normal American math class is.)

>>8298951
IB math does not go as far as calculus afaik. Which plenty of kids take. Do you really think all that stuff should be taught at high school?

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I personally think that the problem is we hold math too highly.

Now I say this as a mathematician. When I tell people what I do for a living, it's always "I stopped learning math in highschool and even then I wasn't good at it" and a combination of "you must be really smart!".

Now /sci/ memes aside, I find mathematics to be the easiest of all subjects since it is really the art of modeling and simplification. The reason we know so much about math as opposed to physics or biology is because it's so bloody simple. It's bloody fun, and it is bloody simple. Look a living creature and we still have no idea how it works entirely. We are bloody clueless in that respect.

If we take the "u have 2 b smart" stigma away from math and stop stressing its importance for everything, I am pretty sure students will begin to enjoy it like it is an art form (it truly is an art form, the most concrete and objective art form of all time).

I enjoyed high school. I dreaded waking up at 7 in the morning to go to class. But I got to take 5 academic classes and then baseball. It all went downhill when i was allowed to choose my college schedule. If you told me today to take 5 classes M-F I would tell you to go fuck yourself

I wish I would have been forced to do more of it.


>didn't want to do work so took easy math classes
>could have taken calc in high school but didn't

>I'm smart but lazy
'no'

>>8298979
>IB math does not go as far as calculus afaik
ya it does tho, calc I and a smattering of calc II

>>8298993
fuck off undergrad retard

t. PhD.

can someone lay out the order that math is taught? I never went to high school but I've learned up to algebra 1 on my own and now I don't know how to proceed for college requirements.

>>8299467
Typical highschool progression might be

algebra 1 > geometry > algebra 2 > precalc > calc 1-2

>>8299467
What the other anon said, but for your bachelor's it's very common to take calculus in college. Depending on your major it's completely normal. I fucked up my high school math and science focusing on history, art, and German instead, but now I'm a geology major at the top of my class taking calculus in my 2nd year.

College can be very flexible

>>8299437
what is this t. mean?

>>8300011
t. newfag

>>8298806
When I think of IMP, (common core math curriculum) I think of all the students I've heard complaon about incompetent teachers. I've heard from one student that there was a Freshman taking the fifth math course my school has to offer (from there he can go into Calc, Stat, etc.).

>>8298829
...and?

>>8298887
How would you do it then, genius?

>>8299283
>I dreaded waking up at 7
Nigga, I woke up at five for an early class.

>>8300018
c'mon anon, everyone's gotta learn sometime.

>>8300111
It basically means "regards" as in the signature of a letter/email. It's a finnish or russian thing, it's use on imageboards comes from krautchan I think.

>>8300150
thanks b

>>8299437
I am a professor.

t. someone smarter than you.

>>8298887
>tries to teach memorization rules for derivatives and integrals

I'm one of those people who gets concerned whenever someone talks about learning multiplication by times tables, but having things like the power rule on hand is really helpful. You should try to prove the rule when it's introduced, of course, but still.

Integration is dependent on knowing how to "reverse" a derivative, so having a bunch of memorized rules on hand is all you really can do there.

>>8298920
My middle school did your period schedule, except for eighth grade which had 6 periods of 62 minutes; I remember my seventh grade pre-algebra teacher complaining 40-something minutes was too short.

I went to high school my freshman year with a "block schedule" of 90-something minutes a period, four periods a day and changing classes each semester, but I transferred to a high school that did what yours did.

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>>8298951
In my experience high school geometry goes over proofs and logic, but later classes don't so you end up forgetting a lot of it.

Very basic linear algebra (as in, how to multiply matrices) is covered in Algebra II, but unless my memory's failing me they don't go much further; I didn't know what a determinant was until college. High school sure as hell didn't cover abstract algebra, of course, and neither does my college unless you major in math.

>>8298979
>took BC calc senior year
>got a 4 on it, a 5 on the AB subsection, feel so smart
>later learn over half of students get a 5 on the BC exam (also other than the subscore I have never gone above a 4 on an AP exam)

>>8300052
How did you high school work? Classes didn't happen before 8 anywhere in my experience.

>>8298806
Aussie here, so I don't have first hand experience with the US math curriculum but mine was probably close enough. Math is quite possibly the worst-taught subject ever. I don't know if its because a bunch of autists are in charge or what but fuck me. I don't think you could devise a more effective way of inculcating hatred for math than the way we teach it to kids.

>>8301610
>and neither does my college unless you major in math.
fucking seriously?
What the fuck America?

>>8298806

Because algebra is about manipulation and memoraziation, while calculus starts @ a more fundamental level where numbers don't even have to be involved. I mean, ask some newMathFags what their least favorite thing about math is, "Ugh, it's just too complicated looking at all the numbers, why not just use a calculator?" And in a sense, they're right, why not just use a calculator.

Calculus on the other hand is beautiful, and describes the natural world with a lot of foundation and basis to build on.

>>8301636
Just to be safe, when you say "abstract algebra" you do mean shit like rings, groups, etc.? If so, the algebra classes covering that material at my college are only for people in that major (or people minoring and also taking the proofs class).

Of course, if you're taking a good amount of math but aren't a math major, you're probably an engineer or something and abstract algebra isn't all that useful to your job.

High school was the absolute worst, let me expand upon American high school and how it ended up in my forced detention in a non-profit psychiatric lock-down facility (step-down from juvi).

Well, I hated high school. I hated showing up and I hated that I didn't HAVE TO LEARN! I could show up and scribble and pass. This lead to an incredibly lazy mentality where I never did any work since I didn't have to think (my IQ is 120).

In the 3rd grade I scored the highest out of over 1,000 students on a Science test for the state. To say the least I was never mentored in any way and they even put me in a average science class in the 7th grade which I did bad in because I never filled out the unrelated journal at the beginning of class.

Now that you're getting a jist for the situation I will expand upon the final part.

You have to attend the broken school system in America. It's against the law otherwise so my parents put me in a loony bin since I didn't want to show up. Very deep psychological scaring and trust issues to this day. I was there for 4 months for no reason and my psych testing showed I just have trust issues.

There are a lot of issues in the united states due to capitalism and unchecked power. That sums up the american school system.

>>8301636
>implying abstract algebra is useful
biology student here, all you'll ever need for undergrad is differential equations, linear algebra, and being able to form and read proofs.

>>8301776
My school only requires calculus for bio majors. Nope, we don't even need to take statistics. I'd love to take all of those, but it will never work with my schedule--I have no time to take "unnecessary" courses.
How fucked am I?

It's geared towards literal retards

I remember wanting to skip pre-calc over the summer, i was told i had to spend 4 hours a day for the summer every day to learn it.

Ended up spending 5 minutes a day and having no problems, so much shitty filler and memorization to replace actual understanding of math

I went to Catholic school so I am not in the public schooling loop. People from my school were generally better than those from other schools since we had stricter academic standards, once you adapt to that you will generally just perform better. Like
>>8298841 said, adapting to the lowest common denominator is probably a big part of the problem.

>>8301756

>quoting your IQ in any discussion about yourself

kill yourself. no one cares what your iq is. you sound like a massive cunt.

>>8301885
If you're in first or second year, it's ok. But third year is imo the worst time for stats because thats when all the weed-out courses come in.

>>8299995
>>8300010

thank you both so much

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>What are your thoughts?

If the U.S. wants adolescents to be better at math then they need schools to have a heart to heart with them. Explicitly tell students and their parents how royally fucked they are if they don't straighten their shit and learn it.

Not only for future employment purposes but for general financial reasons too.

Explain to them in detail how bad the outside world could be if they are not math literate.
Explain to them what mismanaged debt can fucking do to you.
Explain to them how expensive a baby really is in a first world nation even with 'welfare'.
Explain to them how much it cost to keep the school they are currently in running and serviceable.
Explain to them important management of health care and insurance is right now.
Explain to them how kids from other countries looking for better opportunities will come to U.S. and will fight you for employment because the companies and government allow it.
Explain to them how the modern luxuries they take for granted such as smart phones, transportation internet, music players, heating, air conditioning and even clean water all came about because the people who brought them to existence knew how to do math.
Explain to them how they might as well kill themselves and their love ones on the spot right now (especially blacks and you make sure they fucking hear it loud and clear) if they end up going to jail for felony offenses because it's such a black hole fanatically.

This should be required on week one at every U.S. high school. I don't care if it freaks them out or scare them, honestly they should be scared at this point.

Also yeah the curriculum is sub-par but it's still hundreds of times better than the shit they had centuries ago. At least today there's a shit ton of free educational support by third parties for students who need it.

Sorry for the rant.

>>8301936
t. low IQ
kyS

Not enough focus on statistics, probability and estimation. Most people never need to know shit like how to prove that two triangles are congruent, or manipulate trig identities, or find the local extrema of a function. This idea that everyone needs to learn Euclidean geometry, trigonometry and calculus is misguided.

On the other hand, estimation is a skill that everyone uses pretty much every day. Imagine if the general population actually had a better grasp of things like basic probability, sampling, statistical significance, law of large numbers, central limit theorem etc.

>>8302224
I maintain that nothing teaches statistical literacy like trying to disprove studies you don't like; the deluge of pop-sci clickbait may well be performing a valuable public service in this regard.

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Free thought is not discouraged, but looked upon strangely

>>8301651
>manipulation and memoraziation

Manipulation and Modification

"The definition of X is P."

>>8301740
>rings, groups, etc.
Ideals, Cosets(Partitioning), Functors
yes, Req. for Math mjr. in Mich.

Stuff is great for modeling.

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>>8301776
>differential equations, linear algebra, and being able to form and read proofs
If your a women, or trap, I want to date you

>practical & technical
There is the model, the model inside, and a model the model exists inside.
I believe most disciplines and life experience needs a shot of mathematical intuition (for me just to make it enjoyable). Some philosophy as well.

>>8298806
>Positives
1, 2... infinity
>Negatives
-infinity ... -2, -1
>Your thoughts
If you don't know which numbers are positive and which are negative the education system is really shit.

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>>8304846

>>8298829
our autists and asians are better than other countries' autists and asians

>>8298806
After a few years in college, I'm finally upgrading my high school math/physics. When I was in high school, it just never felt like an environment to learn in. No teacher was interested in fostering interest unfortunately. I feel that at this point I finally have an appreciation for maths

Canada btw

>>8301623
Four classes from 7ish to 3 with an optional "zero hour"

>>8298993
"u have 2 b smart"
They do though, otherwise they'll be dumb.

>>8301936
>implying your IQ is relevant in highschool

>>8298939
Physics 1 or whatever its called doesn't require calculus.

>>8301756
>120 iq
>wasted potential
You can't blame the school system for your problems brainlet

>>8304846
Op here. I guess I should have said pros and cons. You misunderstood.

I remember this one Calculus problem that ended with me needing to find the square root of 1. I put 1 or -1, and the teacher marked off half for the partially incorrect answer. I don't remember exactly why- something about not being able to get the root of a negative number. I do remember that it annoyed me greatly.

Sometimes higher math feels like I'm a cat trying to catch a laser point.

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>>8301756
>120 iq
kys filthy brainlet faggot subhuman trash

>>8306305
...1 is a positive number, wtf? Indian here, my teacher always told us to write it like:

√196 = ±14

>>8299433
Remembering formulas and convergence tests isn't calculus.

>there is a perfectly intuitive geometric explanation for this thing
>professor gives the modern axiomatic definition by derived functors which uses brown representability

>>8306521
I know that feel. The thing is that theorems get prettier when you use formal explanation.
If someone asks you what a limit is, and you give the "intuitive" explanations, you will be seen as subhuman trash, if you give the epsilon-delta definition you will be seen as a decent person.