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How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Oct 10, 2008 06:18 PM
from the expensive-gubmint-babysitting-castles dept.
from the expensive-gubmint-babysitting-castles dept.
Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
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Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it financially rewarding to learn and teach math.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Funny)
My thinking exactly....as soon as someone starts earning 7+ figures, is on TV, gets endorsment money from calculator companies, and all the chicks they can handle, then people will start migrating to and excelling at mathematics in droves.
Trouble is, you don't generally get famous and rich solving derivatives.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
The people that grew up with the moon landings on TV are getting old and replaced by a generation that did not have such great role models.
Case in point? I'm 35; Apollo 17 (the last Moon shot) splashed down the day I was born. I'm old enough to run for President, and nobody has been on the moon in my lifetime. There are good, well-known science, math, and engineering role models out there (Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Burt Rutan, Bill Nye, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku etc) -- but they're nowhere near as conspicuous as famous athletes.
What would help is some good publicity for all of the cool science, math, and engineering being done. MythBusters, despite what the purists would say, has done a lot to encourage a love of science -- or at least something resembling the scientific process. Junkyard Wars, and even the various robot-battle shows help get kids (and us older kids) interested in science and technology.
How about fewer popularity-contest "reality" shows, and more technical/scientific contests? You can pump up the "cool factor" and still have quite a bit of good science content.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
pro Athletes get paid a lot because they are a product that can be sold for lots of money, not because of some esoteric ruling somewhere. They top guys make millions because they are actually really good, the same general wage pyramid is found in most markets. Usually the guys who get paid the most are the ones who are best because there is a little supply of them and lots of demand.
You have the same thing with math, it's just in the US people have a value system that encourages leaving school to make money instead of hanging on as ivory intellectuals. You can't really fix that, since in the eyes of most Americans its not broken.
Parent
Not money: Self-esteem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is true, and I would like to add my $0.02 regarding the school system.
Part of the problem with our educational system is that we don't reward outstanding performance as we once did. I am told by a parent of a young child in a local school that they have an award ceremony where they now have the cut-off for rewards around an average of 70 and up. During the ceremony, at least 3/4ths of the class receives awards.
Anymore, there is simply no need to perform exceptionally well when most of the class is going to wind up with the same recognition. School officials are reluctant to recognize the students who perform better than--for example--98% of the rest of the class because doing so would be considered unfair to the others. Such "de-stratification" doesn't exist at the college level (yet) and as a result, many new high school graduates are dumbfounded to discover that they are no longer pushed through the system with the relative ease they've grown to expect.
The same thing has happened in mathematics. When a student merely needs to perform just well enough to make the grade, there's no motive to excel. We've stripped rewards and recognition for those who perform truly outstanding work in comparison to their peers simply on the basis of fearing for the self-esteem of the former. In short, we reap what we sow.
So, there you have it. Our society has fallen so far behind because we cherish mediocrity over bringing harm to the self-esteem of others. Yet, for professional sports, competition among athletes is encouraged; competition among students is increasingly discouraged. Is it any wonder why few children see a need to rise above their peers and become someone exceptional?
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
When a math teacher can get millions of people to watch commercials and thousands of people to pay $40 to watch them teach math for 2 hours, then they'll get paid as much as pro athletes.
Some use of mass media might actually make this closer to reality. The best math teachers could teach millions of students using video and the Internet -- with lower-paid local assistants to help one-on-one and answer questions.
But the current union structure of education makes experiments like this impossible. Unions don't want one teacher teaching thousands of students. They want the maximum number of union teachers teaching the minimum number of students. It's not about quality. It's not about productivity. It's not about achievement. It's about expanding the union payroll and nothing else.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Blaming teacher unions for unsatisfactory results is a kneejerk response. A few months back, the Wall Street Journal had an article on how many American educators are looking to Finland for teaching models, because Finland has remarkably high student achievement across the board. Yet, Finland and its fellow Nordic countries are marked by some of the strongest unions on the planet.
Furthermore, I suspect many individual American teachers, not just the union fatcats you imagine, would prefer teaching classes as small as possible. The best teachers get great pleasure out of directing young people and showing them that learning can be fun. If you have too many students, it's just too impersonal and the emotional contact is lost.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW, part of the delegation were not teachers at all, though involved in the field of education (and even from anti-union backgrounds). The high performance of certain other countries in education is evident to people from a variety of political perspectives.
Not at all, but if you want to keep great teachers who ensure productivity and achievement, you have to keep them comfortable, otherwise they leave for some other job. This is a basic rule of business.
Parent
Teacher satisfaction not at odds w/student success (Score:5, Insightful)
They do not exist to help children learn. That is simply not the reason the union exists.
This is true, but it's beside the point. The idea that unions exist to serve the interests of teachers isn't particularly problematic, because teacher satisfaction hardly precludes student success, in fact, it's rather dependent on it.
Not to mention that it's completely orthogonal to unions -- if teacher's interests were inherently at odds with genuine education, the problem really wouldn't be unions, it'd be teachers, and the remaining option would be non-professional educators...
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Funny)
Unless we bring back lynch mobs.
Those were the days.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
It already is; people just don't see the connection. Strength in math has done wonders for my career. It has allowed me to take on projects that would not otherwise be available to me.
The problem is related to probability in a way. Success at sports is highly rewarded but difficult to achieve (as defined by a standard of playing in a professional league at a national level). In academics, success (attainment of a graduate degree) is easier (number of people able to reach the goal) to achieve though still a difficult task.
What would promote "stronger" academics would be a pay grade within the academic realm for achievements.
Also, keep in mind that the patent and copyright system were designed to do exactly what you are saying. Promotion of the arts and sciences is why people are supposed to get exclusive rights to "their" idea. It is up to them to profit from it. There is an opportunity for success, but the problem is the link between the success and the academics is missing.
and to rile the anti-MS crowd a bit - Bill Gates is considered by many (of the non-programming crowd) to be the biggest nerd/genius in this respect. That is what a competitive academic environment would entail.
(sorry for my over- and mis-use of parenthesis)... (actually I'm not, but thought I would appologize anyways).
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Gates is considered by many (of the non-programming crowd) to be the biggest nerd/genius in this respect.
So true. Of course, to most of us real nerds the guy is one of the biggest assholes on the planet in every other respect.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it comes down to what's fun and what attracts girls. Which are somewhat inclusive.
If you're physically inclined you can attract a lot of attention (and thus popularity and girls) in school by becoming a star athlete. If you're not physically inclined then you can do the same by getting into the arts. Pick up an instrument, start doing drugs and attract a different kind of girl and become popular that way.
If you go into math and science most of the girls (and the people having all of the fun) will label you a nerd and want nothing to do with you because you are associated with courses that they find hard and boring.
I didn't know very many kids in high school who really thought about money all that much. Some of them had part time jobs to pay for their weed and dates but thinking ahead to making tons of money and being rich was something that you did via a) fun (playing sports or an instrument) and b) luck. Maybe my position is unique because I went to an arts school and played in bands but most of us figured we'd end up starving junkies trying to "make it". Money just wasn't something that we thought all that much about.
I don't know what the answer is. You're not going to make math and science fun for people who don't like it. The real issue is that it doesn't have mass appeal. I know there's going to people (I'd be one of them) pulling their hair out and screaming "WHO SAYS MATH ISN'T FUN!?" ... but the majority of people who I know simply don't like it. And thus it's not culturally popular. Of course this doesn't answer the question of why adults and mainstream media doesn't encourage academic excellence. Only why most kids don't chose to excel at it.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Do this and you will also be able to attract better teachers. I know multiple would-be teachers that won't teach because of the level of nonsense related to disruptive students that must be dealt with over and over again. Disruptive students are often ones who have become bored because they're studying things they aren't interested in.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Funny)
"Johnny is staggering home from a party but has to urinate. The parabolic arc of his piss-stream can be modelled by the equation 3t-16t^2. If Johnny's weenie is three feet higher than the ground, then how far will he pee? how long will it take for his piss to hit the sidewalk? What is the velocity of his piss be when it hits the ground? "
Make a textbook with similar examples and its 120-dollar price tag will be fully justified
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of our country's math teachers don't understand math well enough to make it interesting. They think it is just memorizing 'math facts' and memorizing cookbook ways to solve problems. They don't see it as understanding the underlying structure of the world or as creative problem solving. They see creativity as something for writing class and understanding as something you get from reading textbooks.
Parent
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
For crying out loud - MAKE IT INTERESTING. I remember doing what I referred to as "Math for the sake of Math". Show how it's useful - the easiest way is through teaching Science.
At least for me, you've hit the nail on the head there. I figured this out back in high school when I had the exact same problem with math - it was math just for the sake of math. Then one day I took a physics class and I noticed something... this is the exact same math I was doing in trig and algebra 2, except it's easy now, because there are real world things for me to relate it to instead of just a bunch of numbers that someone came up with.
Parent
Heaven forbid some students do better than others (Score:5, Insightful)
That will just make little Johnny feel stupid! So, instead, let's just make everyone stupid and pretend they're not. In no time, we won't even know the difference. Now, where's my Brawndo?
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
So set up and teach your child math at home.
This is what we just did last week. We pulled our kids out of school because we were so disgusted with the "tall poppies" attitude to academic achievement. I.e, the idea that the flowers that stand taller in the flower bed need to be pruned to keep them in line... or that the kids who want to learn more need to be force to do work that the find drudgery just because they can't move ahead of the rest of the class.
My 2nd grader's teacher was complaining that he wasn't doing his math worksheets or playing the adding games in class. I saw one of his math worksheets where he was so bored that he looked up Roman numerals in one of his books and taught himself how to do the whole homework in Roman numerals... and then I saw where the teacher then made him re-do the 'right-way'. We've had similar experiences with his past teachers and the principal has a similar attitude that he should do the same work as everyone else in the same way.
He's been home-schooled for only a week, and now he's gone past the adding 1-digit numbers that they were doing in class and is now adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with carrying and borrowing. He has no trouble getting his math worksheets done now. He's even said that "This is harder, but more interesting so I like it."
AND I live in one of the better school districts in the LA area.. where the teachers are well paid...
I'm a left-winger and I used to be all against school vouchers... but now I've seen the light. We need real competition, and we need to bust the teacher's unions to get the bozos out of our school system.
It's not that parents aren't involved... It's not that teachers don't get paid enough... It's not the burden of standardized tests. It's that our nation's schools are run by a bunch of bozos who pay teachers on the basis of seniority instead of performance, bozos who disparage being elite academically, but celebrate athletic elitism, and frankly that among the ranks of our teachers are some of the dumbest people in our society.
Parent
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes. I remember in the third grade when I got bored of doing simple addition and subtraction, and started looking into multiplication. This, of course, upset the teacher. Not because I was doing bad, mind you, but because I wasn't paying attention to her. She tried to convince my parents that it would be best for my education to drug me (Ritalin or the like) because I wasn't paying attention in class.
I'd say you did your kid a great service. Kudos.
Parent
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
It's that our nation's schools are run by a bunch of bozos who pay teachers on the basis of seniority instead of performance, bozos who disparage being elite academically, but celebrate athletic elitism, and frankly that among the ranks of our teachers are some of the dumbest people in our society.
Yes indeed. I'll give you an example that will tend to support your point.
... so in effect she was teaching remedial English.
I was engaged to an college English teacher many years ago. That didn't work out because she was also a selfish bitch, but that's neither here nor there. At the time, she was teaching first-year college English. Most of (and I mean, 80+ percent) of incoming freshmen couldn't write in full sentences. Seriously
She would bring home papers to grade, and I would read some of them. It was truly incredible. These were kids that (somehow) managed to graduate high-school, yet were very nearly illiterate. I remember that one of her first assignments was to write down every detail of their trip home from school that day, just to get a feel for their capabilities. A typical result would be something on the order of: "Left school. Side door. Went to car. Got in. Went home." How in the nine hells did they ever earn a high school diploma? Scary. And this was twenty-odd years ago, and I can't believe matters have improved much. Probably quite the opposite.
Worse yet, the school's star basketball player was one of her students at one point. Big black guy, very proud of his athletic skills (keep in mind that this school diverted a lot of funds to the team, and it brought in a lot of money each year.) So this idiot made it class once or twice the whole year, turned in no assignments and took no tests. Yet, he was very angry that he received a well-deserved "F". He told her flatly, "I'm just here to play basketball, why you fuckin' wit me." Actually, he said a lot more than that, stuff which would have put the bastard in jail if she'd had a recorder on. Anyway, the problem from his perspective was if that F went through, he'd be kicked out. For any ordinary student that would be tough bananas, but the school's President wanted this guy kept around.
She submits her grades to the school computer, and next thing you know her boss comes storming in, wanting to know how dare she give the star basketball player an F!!! She pointed out that he had only showed up a couple of times for class, and done no work. You know what he said? He said, "Huh. Any way we can get a 'B' out of this?" She told him no, because that was the right thing for the student. He agrees and leaves, and goes right into the database and changes the guy's grade to a "B", updates all the paperwork, and left my fiancee's name on everything so it appeared that she had approved it.
I told her that either this administrative asshole changes the damn grade back, or she should quit. A lawyer friend told us that if there were any repercussions from her supervisor's actions, she could be held liable. He wouldn't change it (naturally) so she wrote a formal letter of resignation, sent it to him and various other faculty members (so he couldn't just sweep it under the rug) and quit.
This kind of crap goes on all the time, I discovered, and it's not hard to see why anyone who actually gives a damn about the students or quality teaching might just say "fuck it" and go into something else.
Parent
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Insightful)
A little respect for people who are tasked with doing what is essentially AN IMPOSSIBLE JOB is due.
It's such an impossible job that every country in the world is just a big a failure as the US in teaching math??
If it is an impossible job then why do we bother spending tax payer money even trying? Seriously, why in the world would we as a society spend so much money to try and make something impossible happen?
I guess it being an impossible job has nothing to do with the fact that teachers in CA don't even work full 8 hour days and have teaching in-service days to make back any extra overtime hours that they might have accidentally worked?
I guess it being impossible has nothing to do with the schools paying people based on seniority rather than performance so that there is little incentive to try to improve upon the status quo.
We MUST do better by our kids. We must do better by kids of all ability levels. Why do we have special education on one end of the intelligence scale and not on the other end?? Exceptionally gifted kids are roughly 1/1000. Which means that most schools would have several, yet virtually no schools do anything to help these kids.
An example: my school district has a math/science magnet high school, but so many kids qualify that they have a lottery to give kids spots. This is because the standard is that kids have a C-average and be in the top 70% of standardized testing. This, in my view, makes the magnet essentially a scam to get gifted education funds from the state rather than an honest effort to help gifted kids. I could make similar points about most school districts in CA about their magnets and their GATE programs.
Parent
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
You know teaching kids to their full potential is a hard thing... but our schools don't even teach them to enough of their potential to do no harm. What I am demanding of our school system is that they stop damaging bright kids with the potential to do great things.
Einstein/Mozart/Newton/Jobs level intelligence is 1/1,000,000,000. This means that in LA schools there is a good chance of a little Einstein there somewhere... what do you think her odds are of being developed to the point where she can make some use of her potential? Now if she were a golf prodigy what do you think her chances would be?
Parent
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
You think? Anybody paying any attention to the current presidential election will see the Republican Party attempting to portray education = bad, ignorant= good. (Dumb) people buy it. It's a serious cultural problem in there here United States.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
The Republican Party is the only party where where ignorance and being average is actually sold as a presidential trait.
Because "average" people want their leaders to make decisions like they'd make themselves. Because "average" people don't want their leaders to treat them like serfs or proles or subjects or children. Overt contempt and condescension for "average" people is doesn't earn their votes.
"I hate them and their culture so much. Why won't they vote for me?"
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference between being intelligent and being condescending. You, like so many other people, are assuming that one necessitates the other, and that's at least part of the problem. And that issue is partly because our culture gets offended when its pointed out that some people are better than others in certain areas.
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
But in the context of the original post, there is not a difference. The condescension exists. The intelligence is still an open question.
Parent
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Its pretty clear to me, at least, that the Republican party has been saying that intelligence is bad because intelligent people are elitist, and pointing that out isn't condescending.
Elitism is bad. People who consider themselves members of the ruling class are elitists (among other things). A ruling class is bad because people should not be "ruled", rather they should be free. (The original post connected intelligence and elitism. I did not. There is a connection: elitists consider themselves intelligent. Note this does not imply that intelligent people are elitists, nor that elitists are necessarily correct in their self-assessment.)
Nor is it condescending to say that we should probably give some weight to people who are experts in their field of expertise.
If "weight" is a euphemism for ruling, then no. Experts should not be given "weight". Appeals to expertise are a common tactic to justify ruling people. I thank experts for their knowledge and guidance. I may be able to use it to make my own choices in my own life. Experts are not needed to make my choices for me.
When it comes to the president, being intelligent should be a very desirable trait.
Desirable, yes. Many things are desirable. But I would rather have a stupid President who wanted people to be free than a genius who decided he deserved to be my king.
Parent
It goes to the top (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It goes to the top (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, they're elitist because they don't trust individuals to make decisions about their own lives.
Sounds like you have confused statism [wikipedia.org] for elitism. [wikipedia.org]
A common, almost defining, error among those who think that working hard to meet high goals is undesirable.
Parent
Homeschooling (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Homeschooling (Score:5, Insightful)
It's great that you brought up this point, however briefly. I have had a rather low opinion of home-schooling throughout most of my life. The home schoolers I knew seemed to have a rather vapid curriculum (mainly focused on passing yearly exams and requirements) in contrast to all of the cool activities I had a chance to take part in at public school (like physics & robotics clubs, advanced science & math courses, etc).
My opinion changed dramatically when I attended a small liberal arts college with a significant proportion of home-schooled students. Many of these students had excelled well beyond high school curriculum to college-level study in the course of their home-school education. They were deeply involved in their studies, often side-by-side with parents who shared their academic interests.
The moral of the story:
Home-schooling is a double-edged sword. Some parents home-school because they can offer their children a richer education away from the time-wasting of the public education system, and they do so quite successfully. Other parents are home-schooling because they want to shield their children from the influences of their peers (or possibly everyone), and they generally rob their children of any education in the process. I haven't met a lot of folks in between.
Parent
Flaw in School Focus, too (Score:5, Interesting)
Even at the college I went to, a small, private liberal arts college that highly values education, sports achievement is made more visible by school. I was a music major, and computer science major; music majors are very busy with extra-curricular activities, but there is no Music Major Academic Achievement award. On the other hand, the school honors all athletes with high GPAs, because of the difficulty in balancing sports and academics.
I think even this trite example shows the sports-focus in a lot of schools. It's an achievement to be involved in sports on top of being a good student; it's a lesser achievement to be involved in music on top of academics.
Fixes for this? I don't know if it's just money. I think a focus does need to come away from sports. Part of that would be money (grants/scholarships for sports), but I think part of it is a culture that values entertainment and physical activity over, well, *thinking.* Even history seems to be going out the window because of fear of being politically incorrect or offending some people group or minority. Math and science are not taught because, IMO, kids don't "like" the as much, by default, as arts or sports (this coming from a half music major, mind you). This has definite effects on "thinking." "Thinking" is NOT always fun, but I think kids need to be taught that not everything that is necessary and good is "fun."
But that doesn't go over well in an entertainment-focused culture/society/world... nor an educational system that is more designed to please the kid than teach the kid, and more designed to push a worldview or agenda than real knowledge and the ability to think and come to conclusions based on factual knowledge, not interpreted evidence.
Recognition (Score:5, Informative)
Back when I was in high school, several times each year quite a bit of time was wasted in school assemblies. These always recognized the various sports teams, even the ones that were really not that good. It wasn't until my senior year that any academic achievement was recognized at an assembly. We had two students who (one that year, one the year before) had gotten perfect scores on the SAT and the academic decathlon team brought back a trophy. The two who had gotten the perfect SAT scores later told me that they would have rather not been singled out at the assembly. Never mind students who were going to various math and science competitions and bringing back awards. Who cares about that? (Not that any of the students really cared about anything at the assemblies. All it did was shorten the classes so that nothing meaningful could be done in any of them.)
Michael Sipser (Score:5, Interesting)
Michael Sipser is one of the most friendly mathematicians/theoretical computer scientists I've ever met. I am sure he is helping MIT's math department greatly, and maybe even the US and world.
A long long time ago, after my funding fell through (long story), I unofficially attended a semester at MIT taking a few math and computer science classes. I cleared it with all involved, and no one really minded my sitting in, although a few people just tolerated me.
Even though I was almost totally unofficial, Sipser took the time to meet with me and talk about my taking the class in depth. He even wound up writing me letters of recommendation for research programs and grad schools, and followed through about them! Although I "earned" the letters (I'm not bragging by any means - it was a real class, but not an excruciating one; I'm just saying that it wasn't soft-hearted charity), I didn't realize at the time just how far beyond-the-call-of-duty this kind of support was, and how fortunate I was to get that opportunity.
If you're an MIT student, take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome. If you're not an MIT student ... take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome! ;-)
It might not be a surprise then, that he has an incredibly well-written (although typo-laden) and accessible intro book on complexity theory, the standard for beginning undergrads, in addition to his papers. He really cares about his subject, and further, the teaching of that subject.
Some things that might be good on an edu TODO list (Score:5, Informative)
This does not guarantee you'll actually get significantly better results, it merely guarantees that the more obvious bugs are fixed and that exceptional minds are not destroyed by tedium and an abusive environment. There are likely many other bugs that will prevent maximal gains.
Cancel all high school sports. (Score:5, Insightful)
It costs money and does not generate any revenue (unlike college sports, which the colleges are now so dependent on for income that not even a 12-step program could help them). It makes heroes out of kids who are good at running, jumping, and throwing and catching balls. Yeah, those are skills the world really needs.
Put all the money spent on high school sports into hiring GOOD math and science teachers. The reason math and science teaching sucks is that really bright, charismatic people can find better-paying jobs elsewhere.
If we ban high school sports, college recruiters will go away and college sports scholarships will dry up, because nobody will know who's good at running and jumping. The colleges will have to play with whoever turns up, like they used to in the old days. College sports will be exciting and fun again, instead of being semi-professional. In the meantime, the sports scholarship money can go to recruiting math and science whizzes, who are the people that universities are intended for in the first place -- not runners and jumpers.
Make heroes out of the kids who win the science fair, or the ones who ace the math SATs. Load them down with scholarships. Print their pictures in the newspaper. Send 'em to meet the President. Hire hot models (male and female) to be in pictures with them to give the impression that they're sexy. The message will get out.
I remember what happened to Friedrich Gauss... (Score:5, Interesting)
The story is (and how accurate this is I'm not entirely certain) that when Gauss was a child in school, he was acting up in class, and his teacher assigned him the task of adding up all of the numbers between 1 and 100. 2 minutes later, he had the answer, and he showed the teacher that he had figured that 100 + 1 = 101, 99 + 2 = 101... and thus cut it down to 50 pairs of numbers that added up to 101. He then multiplied 50 by 101 to get the answer of 5050.
I mention this because if little Freddy Gauss had done something similarly in our current school system, he'd have gotten one of three responses from the teacher:
1 - "Class, look at what Freddy figured out! Isn't he smart?" This bit of gushing praise would get him pegged as a "teacher's pet," and after his "not-smart" classmates managed to re-arrange his face during recess, he'd decide better than to open his mouth.
2 - "That smart-ass attitude just earned you a trip to the principal's office!" This attitude of "you just made ME look not-smart, so you're going to pay!" will also convince him to shut up next time.
3 - "OK. In that case, add up the numbers between 100 and 200." (Tricky one, that - it's an odd number of elements!) Freddy would be kept busy, while the teacher figured out how to contact Mr. and Mrs. Gauss and suggest that they get their holy terror signed up for advanced math.
Would anyone care to estimate the percentage chance of each response? I'd say that no matter the school, there'd only be a 5% chance of the third option being taken... (and it's predicated on the idea that the teacher would be knowledgeable enough in math to throw a curveball like that last one).
Rand covered this a while ago (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a culture of stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problems I have encountered with teaching children mathematics is that children are no longer learning skills that promote memorization and logical reasoning. Much of these problems comes from the electronic media intrusion into their lives. Children are constantly assaulted with advertisements and other errata all day long. Mentally, they have to dispose much of it to make sense of their world. Lacking the experience, they have no idea what is important to remember and what to forget. The default is to dispose of anything that does not provide instant gratification. It is a shame to have so much and to be so bored.
The "instant gratification" and easily accessible entertainment destroys the logical reasoning learning. Children are no longer involved in hobbies or interests that require more than collecting pictures of anime characters off the web and searching for over-the-top Youtube videos.
When you have the rich (like Paris) or well known (Brittany) acting like stoned asses (nice they may be) and getting away with it publicly, why would they be interested in anything that doesn't resemble that life. Mathematics, or even literacy, is not on their radar.
If you don't believe me, look at some of the asinine responses previous to mine.
And, don't even get me started on some the stupid educational ideas that are being promoted as we speak.
The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a European who emigrated to the US, its very obvious how here in the US there is a damaging culture of PCness where it is unacceptable to speak ill or criticise anything or anyone else, no matter how bad they or it is. Consequently morbidly fat people get away with calling themselves 'large' and the bar for academic and other success is made so low that it doesn't represent any challenge just so that everyone can feel like they're a winner.
In fact just because I'm suggesting the US isn't perfect I expect some American with mod points will exactly prove my point by modding this down as a troll, even though I'm trying to be observational and insightful.
Re:Unattractive (Score:5, Funny)
Please. Lovable isn't going to make Americans want to do math.
We gotta make it fuckable.
Parent
Re:Unattractive (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. I propose, as a first step, that we rename the Riemann-Zeta function to the Riemann-Zeta-Jones function.
Parent
Re:Unattractive (Score:5, Funny)
71? Or maybe ln(2pi) [xkcd.com]?
Parent
Re:Sorry right wing but I have to do it... (Score:5, Informative)
Umm... Not to rain on your parade, but David Brooks is an archetypal neoconservative. His opinion pieces have nothing to do with the political leanings of the New York Times. Secondly, the New York Times, with few exceptions, is still one of the most reliable and trustworthy sources of new out there. While it may have a liberal bent, and the Jayson Blair scandal tarnished it's reputation, it is still a far better source of news than any of the 24 hour news networks.
Parent
Re:Microsurvey (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really scary conclusion to come to. Even scarier is that I don't think anyone knows what to do about it.
Parent
Re:Cultural problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Our society tells its young what is important by the amount of money you are paid. Look at the salaries that sport and entertainment stars get. Ask many students what they want to be and these occupations are very high (if not at the top) on the list.
Or, if those students were just a little bit more numerate they would realize that for every high-paid star there are 10,000+ burger-flippers who didn't make the cut. Its a lottery mentality at its worst that they can only see the exaggerated success of that 0.01% and not the corresponding failure of the other 99.99%.
But then, that lack of numeracy seems to be a real catch-22.
Parent