

Six Reasons for Sudden Drop in Math Grade - brianl
http://parents.sabioacademy.com/2011/09/30/six-reasons-for-math-grade/

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Jach
> The transition into geometry is particularly difficult for some. In the
> United States, the typical high school curriculum suspends algebra after one
> year to teach geometry, then resume algebra again, calling it algebra 2.
> Thus geometry starts and ends abruptly. In my opinion, this is not the best
> arrangement, but that’s what the higher educational power of the United
> States decided, and I only work here.

I took algebra 1 in 7th grade and geometry in 8th grade, I don't really
remember anything from either class, not even the teachers really. Though
admittedly I don't remember much from my other classes at the time either, the
two most influential I think were a typing class that forced me (by punishing
non-two-handers) to go from 30-40wpm with 'finger pecking' to 80-100wpm using
both hands, and a nicely rigorous 8th grade English class.

Regarding the problem of arithmetic inability, I don't think it's that much a
problem. The real problem is teachers thinking students should be just as
proficient in the same areas as they were, learning the same things as they
did, and that's where public math education fails the most. "I agree that the
problem lies with the other people more than with the students. The most
profound engine of civilization is the inability of a larger and larger
fraction of the population to do the basic things needed to survive. Many
people fail to realize this." <http://www.theodoregray.com/BrainRot/>

I'm also disgusted with the way probability is presented, both here and in
most classes.

I thought his last point about abstraction was made weakly, especially when he
writes things like this: "Calculators become useless at this stage." Clearly
someone's never used a TI-89. (But you don't even need that amount of power
most of the time.)

Then stuff like: "This is the point at which studying by memorization fails."
When in fact most calculus classes go about memorizing a bunch of derivative
and antiderivative identities, formulas for Taylor polynomials, etc. There is
very little abstraction in high school/freshman Calculus, and from my own
experience and the experience of several teachers I've had people are usually
only weak in Calculus if they're already weak in Algebra. (Which feeds nicely
into his point about Foundations.)

The point that he hints at with the issue of infinities is better expressed
with the issue of implication, both logical and probabilistic. Even if you
can't actually add up all those fractions, following the math rules
deductively leads to the implication that they do without having to go out and
check. I think this problem can more easily be solved in the sciences, but
that's another can of worms.

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Tichy
How can more maths be applied to the everyday lives of people? I think it can
be, but I struggle to come up with examples.

For starters, I think we have to do some maths ourselves, like evaluating
investments. No outsiders can be trusted to make the best decisions for us.

Maybe if the "collect data about yourself" movement takes off, there will be
more opportunities to optimize our own lives with maths :-/

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mappu
I think there's a problem with thinking about it as just "maths". Of _course_
ordinary people aren't going to need multivariate calculus every other day of
the week, and some topics are deservedly esoteric.

Arithmetic is used by everyone every day. Statistics is used by a lot of
people too. Computer science is an oddly named branch of mathematics.

"Mathematics" is a very broad field, although the term is easily
misunderstood. It's very easy to think of real-world applications for game
theory, graph theory and cryptography. For instance, considering everyone's
position in a business deal, or fuzzy optimisation of critical paths when you
cook dinner.

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lurker19
If probability and statistics replaced calculus as the high school capstone
class, this country would be a much better place.

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ericxtang
Classroom setting is really not the best setting for studying math. Studying
new materials in math needs complete concentration, a 2-3 minutes mind-
wondering can cost your the entire period, since new concepts/abstractions in
math build on top of each other.

It's very difficult to concentrate for a 40 min period, especially considering
students just came from other classes that could be just as mentally
challenging.

I think Khan academy does a good job at this. A 15-minute long video is a much
more consumable chunk of knowledge.

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dkhenry
I think the drop in math grade[sic] is tied to our inability to compose simple
sentences.

~~~
ordinary
"Six Reasons for Sudden Drop in [My Son's] Math Grade".

