

Finding Unity in the Math Wars - kalid
http://betterexplained.com/articles/finding-unity-in-the-math-wars/

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dvse
Some really nice suggestions in the article that for whatever reason are not
often brought up while discussing maths education.

A good way to bootstrap the "math avengers" website would be to get people to
write up running commentary to some classic maths texts, e.g. Silvanus
Thompson (out of copyright), Halmos, Rudin etc.

Essentially all high school maths programs are less than great to put it
politely and often created by people with rather limited appreciation of the
subject. Better university textbooks are not readily accessible without an
instructor. Running commentary from several authors giveing additional
motivation, examples, clarifications or alternative derivations can be of
great help to students and wikipedia style platform can be great for
organising such a project.

Sites like wikipedia and mathoverflow / stackexchange are great for specific
questions but lack structure - centering the efforts around certain
"canonical" texts can help to organise the material which otherwise would be
overwhelming.

~~~
kalid
Thanks for the ideas. Exactly, something like running commentary / different
approaches could work. I greatly prefer text to online videos [not sure why, I
think I get impatient that I can't read at the exact speed I want?] and would
go through those.

Wikipedia is self-described as a reference [not teaching tool], stackexchange
is good for point-fixes [q&a], but some more "guided tour" could be useful.
Especially to help appreciate math as an art/journey vs. pure problem solving.

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charlieflowers
There are no "Math Wars!"

There is only the Khan Academy, doing great stuff, and a group of disgruntled,
jealous math teachers such as the author of this post, who have levied silly,
petty, baseless criticisms against the Khan Academy.

After launching the silly criticisms and stirring up a little controversy (but
by no means a "war"), they now want to cast the whole hullabaloo as a "war"
because it glorifies their role in the whole thing.

It's like a flea trying to recast his battle against the St. Benard he rides
on as a "war."

Khan Academy is doing great stuff, and getting great results right now. If
you're a jealous math teacher who thinks you have better answers, then quit
spewing a bunch of FUD-like rhetoric with no substance, and fucking DO
SOMETHING to help some people learn math right now. If what you do is so much
better than Khan Academy, then it will become obvious in short order.

P.S. And by "help some people learn math right now", I don't mean your day job
as a teacher/professor. Do something that helps improve the effectiveness of
math education on a grand scale ... as Khan Academy is doing.

P.P.S. The whole thing makes me grumpy as hell, and I'm sure that comes out.
But the reason is this -- if the "math teachers" side of this "war" is so all-
fired passionate about disrupting the status quo and raising the overall
quality of math education in the world, then why on Earth would you take
potshots at Khan Academy, who is doing so much towards that very goal??! If
that truly was your goal, you'd celebrate and help. I think the potshots show
that the greater motivation is jealousy that some outsider has gotten so much
more traction on the problem so quickly.

~~~
kalid
Hi. I appreciate the comments and if you're open to it, I'd like to understand
your point of view.

The "Math Wars" actually reference a longstanding struggle about math
education in the US (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_wars>). That allusion
is more apparent to people in the field however.

I thought I gave the debate a fair and nuanced treatment and I'm curious to
see what _specific_ points are silly or baseless. If it helps, I actually ran
the essay by an online buddy _at_ Khan Academy and he liked the tone and focus
on solutions. So I'm very confused where your offense is coming from.

I totally agree Khan Academy is doing great stuff right now (I recommend them
often). Other educators are as well. The problem is the entire movement is not
cohesive, and the entire online learning movement is losing the attention
battle against individual pop stars.

I don't believe quantity is a direct proxy for quality (see said pop stars),
but if it helps: I've written among the most popular online tutorials for
exponents, natural log, imaginary numbers, introduction to calculus, Bayes's
theorem, Euler's theorem, radians, combinations and permutations... [just
google for any of those topics]. They've collectively reached many millions of
people and are used in dozens of courses.

~~~
charlieflowers
OK, I appreciate your openness to understanding my point of view. I will
articulate/respond respectfully.

First, some quick points:

1\. I must apologize for misinterpreting "Math Wars". I though it was
referring to the recent little "skirmishes" between certain math professors
and Khan Academy (as found here, for example:
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-
sheet/post/khan-a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-
sheet/post/khan-academy-readers-weigh-in/2012/08/02/gJQA83rW9W_blog.html))

2\. Your tutorials sound fantastic. I haven't had the pleasure of working
through them, but they certainly sound like they are raising the level of
worldwide math education.

So, before I go any further, let me ask -- are you at all entangled with (or
even on the periphery of) the skirmish referred to by the link I posted above,
between Mathalicious founder Karim Kai Ani and Khan Academy? Or the skirmish
triggered by some of Frank Noschese's criticisms, as in
[http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/you-khant-
ignore-h...](http://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/you-khant-ignore-how-
students-learn/) ?

The reason I ask is because this is what I (perhaps mistakenly) though you
were referring to, and it is many of these criticisms that I feel are baseless
and petty.

If those criticisms really have nothing to do with your current post or even
your current mental outlook, then all that's left for me to do is apologize
for jumping to conclusions and getting overheated for something that has
nothing to do with you.

If those criticism are relevant to your posting and current outlook, then
perhaps it would make sense for me to continue onward by listing those
criticisms that I feel are baseless. If so, I will proceed.

~~~
kalid
Hi Charlie,

Really appreciate you taking the time to explain. I strive to understand
people's point of view, especially when they disagree, because there's
probably some insight or viewpoint I'm missing.

Nope, I'm not personally involved in any of the current incidents but have
been asked several times (privately) to comment. I see the current debate over
Khan Academy as the latest unfortunate incident in the general Math Wars which
have consumed much of the education community's attention [I'm not a formal
teacher, just a programmer who likes math, and wants to explain things as I
wish they were taught to me. I'd really appreciate any feedback if you get a
chance to read any tutorials].

I agree that some silly arguments have been made (on both sides of the debate)
and when egos get involved, tensions rise and it's hard to work towards a
common understanding.

So, not personally involved, and that said -- I'd still be interested in
hearing your thoughts if I've made unfair statements in the essay!

~~~
charlieflowers
OK, then to sum this up quickly:

1\. I was wrong in lumping you in with the criticisms others have made of KA,
and I apologize.

2\. My mistake came from the term "Math Wars" in the title, followed
immediately by your link referencing the "skirmishes", which points to those
criticisms that I find so baseless. Not knowing that "Math Wars" is actually a
specific term, I concluded that the wars were the Khan Academy skirmishes you
linked to. I think a decent percentage of your readers might make a similar
mistake, so maybe this can help you clarify your post.

3\. I didn't see anything I'd call unfair in the essay. You don't explicitly
say that Kahn is a "bad teacher", but you might be implying it. If so, I
disagree and many others would too, but I don't know that the claim is unfair.

4\. I really can't wait to dig into some of your tutorials. The desire "to
explain things as I wish they were taught to me" sounds very promising.

~~~
charlieflowers
OMG! After ALL THIS, I flipped over to glance at some of your tutorials, and
what do you know ...

I HAVE WORKED THROUGH SEVERAL OF THEM AFTER ALL!

lol

In particular, a few years ago on a snowy day I dug into the imaginary number
tutorial, which I found to be fantastic. I had learned about them in school,
of course, but never to the depth that you explained them.

I was actually doing some hobby reading on quantum physics, and needed a good
review of imaginary numbers. Your tutorial was all that and more. I even
tweeted "Imaginary numbers have the rotation rules baked in: it just works."

Small world. Pleased to have had a conversation with you, even if it did start
with me misunderstanding you and harping at you for no reason.

~~~
kalid
Haha, what a small world! Happy to have the conversation too -- in my years as
a blogger, I've realized many disagreements just boil down to
misunderstandings.

Glad if it was able to help you get into quantum, that topic has been on my
to-study list for a while.

~~~
charlieflowers
Do me a favor, and write a good intro to Category Theory! (I'm shutting down
my laptop and going to bed, and I saw all the Category Theory tutorials I
currently have open in other browser tabs).

~~~
kalid
Thanks for the suggestion - that's been on my topic list for a while! So much
math I want to learn :).

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BigTigger
Sorry, I'm not usually a pain with comparisons but comparing "Super Bass: 268M
views in a year; Khan Academy: 175M views in 5 years" is illogical as Super
Bass, from my quick Googling is around a song lasting 2m30s to Khan Academy
which probably on average has around 10-20minute videos.

This doesn't even go into the fact that people could easily passively listen
to Super Bass in a non-active window while Khan Academy requires much more
active watching from the user.

(i.e. I could have super bass on my iPad in my car while I drive somewhere as
background noise but Khan Academy requires me to be sitting in front of my PC
focused on it).

~~~
kalid
Yeah, it's mostly a tongue-in-cheek comparison :). The meta-point is that the
entire online learning space has a small fraction of society's collective
attention, scraping by against the popularity of a rap artist who will be
forgotten in a few years.

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dinkumthinkum
Curation isn't the answer. It's just cute and it has a pretty interface. But
it's like ice cream against a nuclear holocaust. There is no silver bullet.
The big issue is that just can't deny the role of parents in the education
problem.

