How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement 888
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?"
Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it financially rewarding to learn and teach math.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
FWIW pro Athletes are paid so damn much because of a ruling long ago which decided that they are entertainers, and should be paid as such(too lazy to look it up, google it). Think about them as being well-paid actors in a weekly movie series. The prestige lies not in the money or physicality so much as the Hollywood-ality of it.
I think it's simple as how many people are interested in watching, the movie, tv-series, sporting event or the math battle(?). And how much people are willing to pay, simple as that. If nobody is willing to watch or pay for it then the athletes and performers would not receive that huge paycheck.
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.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
It's simple supply and demand. Top-quality athletes have a much smaller supply than teachers.
Hogwash. Top-quality teachers are probably just as hard if not harder to find than top-quality athletes.
The difference is that amazing athletic ability is something that something like 90% of the population will gladly pay to see, or will at least sit and watch so that someone else can sell advertising on their eye-ball time.
Great teachers have a harder time drumming up those kind of audiences. There simply aren't as many consumers interested in the product they are offering.
So, it's all about supply and demand, yes, but you picked the wrong side of that equation. The supplies aren't that different. It's the difference in demand for watching athletes jump up and down vs demand for listening to educational lectures from skilled teachers.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
This is counterbalanced by the 20 or 30 other athletes competing for the same prize, mostly working as McDonald's staff, security guards, etc. Sports salaries are a lottery: you have to factor in all the losing tickets people buy to make a sound investment in it. You also have to factor in the risks of becoming drug-addicted, getting your limbs mangled in a sports injury that destroys your career, and giving up the best years of your life to a generally very hard and strenuous lifestyle.
But that would mean understanding math.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow...where do you live that math teachers (any teachers) make $100K a year?
Re:Answer: Darts. (Score:4, Insightful)
You make it sound like you get any say in it at all.
Millions of people enjoy watching sports on TV and voluntarily shell out big bucks buying tickets to sporting events. Because people love spending money on it, it only makes sense that people involved with professional sports would make a lot of money.
Now look at education. People value it so little that many people eschew the very idea of paying for it themselves, and want other people (aka the government) to buy it for them. Big surprise that people doing jobs nobody wants to pay for won't make very much money. People don't mind paying for "higher education", and you rarely hear college professors bitching about their pay. The funny thing is, if you wanted to pay a teacher more, you probably couldn't - it's all controlled by the government and teachers unions.
Don't take it personally, but your opinion doesn't matter. The majority of people just don't think education is very valuable.
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?
Re:Not money: Self-esteem (Score:5, Interesting)
The horribly scary thing about your response is that you were in HS in the late 90's while I was there in the mid 70's before you were born. Yet, the decline apparently remains evident even over a much shorter timeframe. From my personal experience, the false "self esteem" crap (as I recall it was referred to as something like "damaging the student's psyche" back "in the day") has been around in "progressive" areas for many more years than some may realize. Sigh...
I could elaborate, but the risk of exposing my human identity to some web crawler some day 20 years from now is too great
I fear our (USA's) only hope at this point is to allow unlimited legal immigration to anyone with a higher degree from an "accredited" (not sure how to determine that list, but that's probably easy) educational institution in a "strategic" field (such as math, physics, computer science, chemistry) and continue to exploit the traditional "brain drain" that has helped the USA in the past. It's rude, but we can either compete with incompetent "high self esteem" individuals or attract qualified individuals from elsewhere (our gain, their loss). My impression is that offspring of educated first and second generation immigrants don't much go for this "false self-esteem" crap and deal well with it at home by setting expectations from the home rather than relying on the busted public school system to do so. Unfortunately, the USA is at an important cusp -- if we continue to practice protectionist immigration policies, within twenty or thirty years we will cease to be a place smart educated people want to immigrate to and since we have poisoned our multigenerational American base with "self esteem" and "competition is bad" crap, I fear we are facing the demise of America as the world power. (Although, since I don't have kids, what do I care - all the kids of today's politically correct soccer moms will bear the cost of their parent's stupidity around the time I'm dying of old age).
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.
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Answer: Finland. (Score:3, Informative)
The article in question. [wsj.com]
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
My father was a college level teacher for over 50 years. Tenure and unions are very important aspects of college career. Here's why:
During the civil rights movement, my [white] father held on to his job while being able to protest blacks *not* being allowed into university. If it wasn't for the tenure, he would certainly have been let go.
You see, universities teach science, philosophy, and other disciplines which frequently go against the cultural fad of the day. It is important for freedom of thought to be part of education; without it, teachers would live under constant fear of being fired for simply expressing non-PC views. Think of the number of nuts who want creationism taught as "science" in school.
Universities are turning more and more to private enterprise for funding. This is dangerous, because it lets pointy haired MBAs treat education like a for profit enterprise, which it shouldn't be. Education funding should only be given by the state, federal and individual. Special interests need to stay out. If you think I'm wrong, just look at our congress.
There is another factor - $$ in college are allocated disproportionately to sports programs. Just take a look at the budgets of university sports programs in comparison to other departments. That's where your tuition goes - not to the pittance salary your professor gets.
As far as your other union related comments - I kind-of laugh and flinch at the same time. It's very vogue right now to look down on unions, to think that your "sheer skills" will somehow catapult you above all your peers, and that anyone who is in a union is a slacker.
To some extent, this may be true. However, unions, social security, and other social programs came about because of one very important factor: greed. It's the same greed you see today in Wall Street. Prior to the advent of unions, people suffered tremendously at the hands of companies. Do your homework - read up on why they came about. Time changes little - today in the US system companies would love you to be slave labor (read: WalMart). What do you think WalMart would pay its employees if the federal or state minimum wage wasn't in effect?
In the end, extremes encourage strife. Government, business and people need to live in constant tension, and in balance. There should always be a tug of war happening between all three, with government erring on the side of its people whenever possible.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that you have a slightly revisionist view of tenure. The "intellectual life" used to include more than just your narrow field of research, and indeed taking a moral stand against abhorrent aspects of society was at least implied as a tenure right. (Notice that sometimes they intersect; for example the Tuskegee airmen experiment. What sense would it make to protest that in a researcher's capacity, and ignore racism elsewhere?)
Nowadays, education is industrialized and with it comes a narrowing view of tenure. I think Vernor Vinge was right; in the near-future, the research class will be replaced by neuro-engineered savants-on-demand.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
This assumes the result of "productivity and achievement". That result is not in evidence in much of the educational system. That's why change is in order. If the system were already great then you might have a point. But it is not.
No change can happen though. It is disallowed by the union.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not malicious. It's what unions are. Unions prevent change that might, in any way, be a negative to their members or the hierarchy or the size of the union. They also promote change to benefit the members of the union.
They do not exist to help children learn. That is simply not the reason the union exists.
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...
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
You, sir, are full of bullshit and don't what the hell you're talking about. Sometimes that happens. Do you know member of a teacher's union? Have you talked with him/her? Do you know what the stated priorities are of any union in your local area?
Look, I was thinking about this today. The teachers are the ones in the classroom, working shoulder-to-shoulder with students, seeing their needs, hearing their cries. The alternative is to put all the power in administrators -- actual fat cats who make more than teachers -- who never see, hear, or deal with students. All they care about is money figures in a spreadsheet. You can dig up enormous numbers of stories where it was the teacher's union fighting for student safety and welfare, and the administration fighting them every step of the way.
Here's an example. I used to teach in Massachusetts at community college with a pretty weak union; a cranky dean ran everything pretty much as a fiefdom. Students failed the physics final? Pass 'em anyway, more money for the school. Teaching basic math/science? Not interested, give me a "sexy" new class like cybersecurity to advertise. Observe what's going on in the classrooms? No time for that -- I had to beg to get an assistant dean into my room one time a year, for like 5 minutes, and scrawl some smoke-up-my-ass about how everything's great (and demonstrating that he didn't have a clue what I'd been teaching).
A fellow teacher tells me about this kid who's in the engineering program. He took Calculus I three times before he just barely passed it. Now he's in Calculus II and failing that for the second time. The kid's obviously not cut out to be an engineer. Can anyone tell him this? No, because that would be less money for the school, and the dean would crack your nuts if he found out anyone had advised the student about that. So off they went, sucking money out of this hapless student year after year.
Now I'm in New York with a strong teacher's union. Instead of a dean, here my boss/employer is the department chairperson, a teacher herself. First thing she tells is do _not_ pass students who are unprepared into other classes. Last month she fought with administration to get smaller basic remedial classes, where students are really struggling. Here I get observed regularly -- every semester a different teacher comes into my room for a whole class period and writes up a 5+ page document on exactly what I did, puts it in my permanent record, and we have a 1/2 hour discussion about I can do to improve. Here I would feel very confident that I could politely advise a student on their own best-interests, even if it meant less tuition money to the college.
That's what the union is doing, specifically on the ground this week. Guess what's the #1 priority of the administration in their negotiating sessions? "Get rid of the chairpersons as union members." Remove their responsibilities to deans who are in administration, not teachers, not dealing with students.
It's really just common sense. Who's going to have a greater emotional connection and allegiance to students? Teachers in their classroom every day, or administrators in an office crunching budget figures? Those are really your only choices.
Look at this month's issue of "American Educator" magazine, from the American Federated Teacher's union. (http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/fall2008/index.htm) It's all about how to better judge and analyze how well teachers are doing. There's an article on peer review with what will be a surprising result to you -- it is the unions *fighting to fire more bad teachers*, because it hurts our profession, whereas the principals who hire them don't have the guts or care to start the process (p. 37). At one school where the union got involved in teacher evaluations, dismissals went up from 1% to 12% in the first year. You can see quotes from principals, surprised as you are, about how much more aggressive the union was about firing bad teachers than the administration would have been.
So to conclude: You are completely full of bullshit, ignorant on this issue, and don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Sometimes that happens; you can become more knowledgable. Maybe with luck this has been... educational.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
My mom left the teaching profession because she was tired of fighting with the unions. Teachers with seniority got to choose what they taught first, even if they were grossly unsuited. Teachers with seniority got paid more, even if they were blisteringly incompetent. If there were budget cuts, and someone had to be fired, guess who it was? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the teachers with seniority.
Start teaching at a school early on, and relax! Once you've been there for three years you'll just never be fired, no matter how awful of a teacher you are.
The teaching unions are a blight upon the country.
Now, I'm not blaming them for all the problems. You're right - the painful lack of funding is an issue also. But I find it hard to believe the situation would be *worse* without them, given what I heard about what it was like with them.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Pay the Teachers enough to make more Science and Math majors WANT to be teachers (in other words support the union).
The Union wouldn't allow that. Part of supporting all members is that history and english teachers (which there are too many applicants for) make the same as math and science teachers (who there are usually not enough of). The seniority based pay scale the teachers unions insist on hurts as well, a teacher makes decent money in most states if they stick with it long enough, but how many people who just graduated college (and probably have major debt) are going to want to take a job that doesn't pay anything in the short term? A flatter wage will get you more teachers, even if there's more churn. (not necessarily a better situation).
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Public education IS a profit industry, but the profits are long-to-very-long-term, which is why it doesn't get enough money attention in nations that adopt the "maximize medium-to-short term profit" even at the expense of the long-term health and wealth of the nation itself.
Paradoxically, those same nations see no problem in spending trillions of dollars into the military, which is not exactly what one would call a 'profit industry' by any means ...
'nuff said.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine the wages they would get without unions. Or having someone to back them when needed. Look at the run of the mill parochial schools versus public schools, where they have teachers that are not unionized. They make diddly squat, have few benefits, and can be fired for stupid things like who they marry or don't marry.
Schools should be for students. They were not originally intended to be run solely for the benefit of teachers. The union doesn't care about the students because the students don't pay union dues.
Why should the rest of society fund an entire institution entirely for the benefit of teachers?
And the individual results aren't so amazing with their students; their high scores are simply because these schools can cherry pick students.
When you get the best results, you don't have to make such excuses.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Answer: Money (Score:4, Insightful)
My student athletes have people skills all up and down the spectrum. Some of them do learn valuable lessons from sports such as how to take a loss and learn from it, how to work on a team, how to lead others to pursue a goal. Others are just playing a sport so they can hit people. Or else they learn above all an us-them mentality in which they always deserve to win, regardless of which team played better. I don't think your theory is correct that playing sports corresponds to having useful people skills.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some fields are tournaments; most go home with nothing, while the extraordinary few make astoundingly large amounts of money. Some are slogs; if you put in the hours and have the basic ability, you will do reasonably well but never make the big time.
Math is one of the latter; if you're good at it, you will have a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, but there are almost no chances to bag a multimillion-dollar payout. So is my field, medicine; there are no poor doctors, but there are vanishingly few who hav
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Funny)
Unless we bring back lynch mobs.
Those were the days.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure much of the devastation in our economy today is directly attributable to propeller heads, math majors, who took their computers to Wall Street and thought they could rule the world's economy using math, for example by writing algorithms to assess risk of Credit Default Swaps, and to use computerized trading to keep investment banks and hedge funds with 30 to 1 leverage from imploding. They failed. Maybe teaching math isn't always a good idea :)
You might save American education if you could
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).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I just don't get your connecting the difficulty of sport and math.
Playing in the national league of a sport is nothing like getting your basic degree.. The basic degree says you have a good chance of trying out for your local amateur team. Getting a PHD, and tenure and research post in a good university.. Now that's playing in the national league. And it's also exceedingly hard to achieve. And carries nowhere near the kind of take home pay that a premiere league sportsman has.
There is a pay grade
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Or show the alternative? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not as if the media were ignorant of the trends. They have seen the future and made fun of it [imdb.com].
The current trends are worrisome, not only in the US, but in the whole world. The easiest way to become a millionaire seems to be in sports or music, and in many countries, including a large part of the USA, being a "scholar" means studying religion.
And don't think that a long-lasting total cultural decadence cannot happen, because it has happened before [wikipedia.org].
This is no joke, if mankind forgets math, we will suffer
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.
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.
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.
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:4, Funny)
I dunno, that example has something of an Emily Dickinson flavor to it. She may be teaching the next Robert Grenier or Aram Saroyan.
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.
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?
Darn right, I'm bitter (Score:5, Interesting)
But at least it hasn't made you bitter. ;)
When I first moved to LA, I lived in Pasadena and I volunteered to be a math tutor at a local high school. The kids didn't know very basic stuff that they should have learned in elementary school... but that's not the scary part. These kids were trying very hard to figure out the material, they weren't just coasting (the tutoring program was voluntary). I was helping a girl with fractions and I explained them to her in like 15 minutes and a light went off, and she got it. She wasn't having trouble because she was stupid or wasn't trying... it was just that no one had ever explained it to her before. No one had ever sat down with her for just 15 min and explained it. AND the worse part is that kids at other tables dropped what they were doing to come over and listen too. It was so sad, and it really made me feel bad for how the school was failing them.
After that experience I was determined to try really hard to get my kids into a good school district. Buying a house in such a good district was a real hardship, and required us to get one of those 'sub-prime' loans. So now I have one of those time-bomb mortgages where the rates are going to shoot up in a few years... all to get into a school district which turns out to not be much better than the one in Pasadena.
So, yeah, I'm a little bitter.
Microsurvey (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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?"
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.
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.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not seeing the condescension, nor am I seeing the connection in the context of the post. 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. Nor is it condescending to say that we should probably give some weight to people who are experts in their field of expertise. When it comes to the president, being intelligent should be a very desirable trait. Whether or not I could have a beer with the candidate and have a friendly chat ranks barely above what he eats for breakfast in the morning.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.)
Elitists are bad, but people can be elite without being elitist. People who are good at things are elite. But they aren't elitist if they don't hold the belief that they should be making decisions for me. That's the difference between elite and elitist.
People should not be elitist, but we should value people who are elite. Not just in intelligence, but in charity, ethic, and other areas of life.
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.
Weight means that if an expert says something is true we should probably at least take a serious look at that
Re:Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
An expert saying that we should do something is not equivalent to them trying to run our lives.
But people trying to run your life will claim expertise as qualification for the job.
But look at Bush's policies, and what the republican party has been doing, and then tell me that they don't dream of being my king.
Last thing I heard, deregulation was what the Republicans did wrong. Before that, it was tax cuts. They prevented the government takeover of health care. They wanted to move Social Security to a private-sector system. They got rid of the 55 MPH speed limit. They opposed a government enforced minimum wage increase many times. What kind of kings are these who want us to keep more of our own money and make more of our own choices?
Bush has 3 months left. Then what? Which choice do you think will lead to more power in the hands of government and less in the hands of individuals?
I do not support him, but at least with McCain we might get some bills vetoed. Then we can try again in 2012. Maybe the country can find a pro-freedom candidate by then.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Now you are arguing a totally different point. You are claiming that being pro-government is inherently elitist. The argument before was about representing the people versus being dictatorial. If it is in the peoples best interest to increase the size of government, and the decision has support of the people, then to do so is not elitist.
Kings may not care what their people do, as long as they (said kings) get to line their pockets with 'tax reimbursements' that favor them greatly over the general populace, no-bid contracts to companies they are heavily invested in, etc.
On the other hand, the Republicans want to control what women do with their sexual organs, want to prevent parents from getting their daughters vaccinated against potentially life-threatening diseases (cancer causing HPV strains), and want to create laws dictating whom you may or may not marry in order to enforce their religious beliefs.
By the way, some of by far the freest countries in the world have nationalize healthcare, and it works EXCELLENTLY.
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.
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.
Today???? (Score:3, Informative)
Today? Was it ever otherwise?
I come to this as a "child of Sputnik:" I entered elementary school in 1957, and I can tell you that the "culture of American society" as found in any public schools I ever saw never came anywhere close to encouraging academics of any sort, much less mathematics. And these were far from poor schools or inner-city, they were districts where college graduates were the majority of parents.
I know some very sharp people from my high-school graduating class. They fall into two categories: those who were socially successful and those who made the mistake of letting other students find out that they had brains.
Example: Lynda Carter (yes, Wonder Woman) is now known as a very sharp businesswoman. Forty years ago, she was the quintessential airhead.
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.
Cultural problem (Score:4, Informative)
I agree, in the US, it's not "cool" to excel academically. 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. Until US society gets its priorities straight, we will continue to decline.
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.
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.)
Depends on the recognition and requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
This is news? (Score:4, Informative)
The main cause of all this is that academic achievement gives you no social status amongst your peers until later years in your life. Hours spent increasing your knowledge and academics are hours wasted improving your social standing, and can lead to complete cuts from social communities, ie, how 'geeks' are truly born. The sad fact is that in most young cultures the driving force are the most 'mature' (in a twisted sense of the word) ones. The ones that go out, party, and experience the darker sides of the world the fastest, are usually the ones who take up the reign as the popular crowd. And are usually the least inclined to diligent study.
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.
I got your patch (Score:4, Insightful)
get involved with your kids school.
I volunteer to coach a Lego robotics team; which was created because another volunteer did it.
My wife volunteers for art programs, and other school activities. She thought the display case should be changed more often to reflect what's going on. She took ownership and gets it done.
She was the president of the PTA last year. She got programs going that brought money into the treasury; which was used to by expensive things for the class rooms.
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.
The News Is? (Score:3, Informative)
Both the NYT and Sipser should be ashamed for hyping such well worn material as though it were news. The only thing surprising here is that someone had the guts to publish it. Not only have we in the US known this for a long time, so have other countries and they've let us know repeatedly that they know. If I write an article that says it's possible to send voice over a wire like a talking telegraph, can I get into NYT too?
Throw money at the problem (I did) (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Welcome to my childhood! (Score:4, Interesting)
Year after year I, and one other kid, scored in the 99th percentile on our standardized tests. Every year when we took the "Stanford Achievement Test" we kicked ass. When we got to high school, who did the teachers praise? The dimwitted fucktards who could run fast.
So many years later, those jocks are lucky to have a job pouring concrete and I'm a software developer. The other 99th percentile kid is the head of software development at a nearby company.
LK
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.
Teachers don't matter (Score:3, Informative)
Don't blame teachers. Don't blame low teacher pay eaither. The reason kids don't study math is becuse they see little reason to. If they did then the kids and their parents would be willing to fund "anything".
Why are there so few Basket weaving teachers? Simple because we all see little value in teaching basket making. If basketmaking paid $250K per year we'd see parents putting their kids in expensive private basket making schools.
There has to be a demand for people with math skills other then as math teachers
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: (Score:3, Funny)
I was going to ask "Are you an American?" but I see you put an "s" at the end of your mathematics abbreviation, so you are probably not. There you go, spoiling a perfectly good burn!
Re:Unattractive (Score:5, Funny)
Please. Lovable isn't going to make Americans want to do math.
We gotta make it fuckable.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Please. Lovable isn't going to make Americans want to do math.
We gotta make it fuckable
Society and the internet are trying their best. 69 and 34 have broken the ice... who knows what number will be the next pornographic integer!
Re:Unattractive (Score:5, Funny)
71? Or maybe ln(2pi) [xkcd.com]?
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.
Re:Unattractive (Score:4, Funny)
Fuckable, [xkcd.com] you say?
Re:Sorry right wing but I have to do it... (Score:4, Informative)
In case you missed it, George Bush isn't a right-winger. Most conservative right-wingers want to get rid of the Department of Education and government out of education all together.
If you want to blame someone, blame everyone. Just read this article [nytimes.com] about how brainwashed kids are becoming. They are making kids religious zealots, although its not Christianity.
Maybe you should read this book, [deliberate...ngdown.com] The deliberate dumbing down of america. The author of this book was one of the top people inReagan's Department of Education.
You should also check out the Reece Commission, which investigated the tax-exempt foundations in the 1950's. Then you'll find out that this was completely deliberate. You'll also find out it has nothing to do with political parties or the false left-right paradigm we're fed on the TV all day long.
Of course you'll probably just call me crazy without looking at the documents. All I ask is you look at it yourself, then call me crazy ;)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you met a reasonable sample of second-generation Asian-American students (oh, say, more than four)? There's no way you can convince me, that culture doesn't have a whole lot to do with their strengths (and weaknesses). Eastern Europeans? They don't seem to have as consistent a trend in performance here, and again I believe largely cultural.
By the way, I believe in g (although its interpretation is a matter of subtlety) and its heritability; also its explanatory effect about performance in large populat
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On an only vaguely related point, one of the first uses of calculus was Newton attempting to determine a limit on the second coming of Christ based on population stat
Re:Get rid of religion (Score:4, Insightful)
"Reason" isn't a boolean value. All living human beings, atheists and theists included, have certain areas of their life where their thoughts and beliefs are rational, and other areas where they are irrational.
The original poster's attitude of "people who don't agree with me are wrong and don't deserve to be treated with respect" is indistinguishable from the theist version, and is equally as terrifying to me. His claim that eliminating religion would somehow greatly increase the value of intelligence is laughable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're a great mathematician, and someone needs a great mathematician, and they hate your fucking guts... ... they'll get a regular mathematician, and a great fucking calculator.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Drop the tech the test system
What does technology have to do with education tests?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In college? Yes.