
What STEM Students Need to Know - jkuria
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-stem-students-need-to-know-1513642450
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eat_veggies
As a student currently in "the system," I think the biggest problem with the
math curriculum is that unless you're in an accelerated program, math progress
stagnates until seventh grade, where they introduce algebra (way too late imo)
and then it stagnates again, repeating the same algebra year after year.

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avenoir
I agree. Colleges and Universities end up teaching basic math concepts and
playing catch-up instead of being places of higher education. It must be
costly to be keeping this up.

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tyjen
It is costly, which is exactly why Universities and Colleges favor it.

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adamnemecek
The fundamental problem is that the US teenager has too much homework. You can
like cut it in half and it won’t make a difference (look at like Finland). The
gained time can be then spent on hacking and exploration.

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jkuria
Hmmh, really? I thought they spend 6 hours on social media and another 4 hours
watching TV? :)

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TrainedMonkey
I think there is no standard for amount of homework. Amount of assigned
homework mostly depends on the teacher. Students can choose electives which
does provide some control over the total amount. From what I can remember
amount of homework per-class features heavily on teacher review sites
(ratemyproffesor.com).

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Hasz
Math in the US needs a revamp. Kids get the notion early on that math is some
sort of ominous monster ready to devour their time and grades. It has a bad
rap, and this keeps people from getting into it early on.

What we need is someone to "popularize" math in a genuine and non-patronizing
way. Say what you will about Bill Nye/Neil DeGrasse Tyson/Carl Sagan/Issac
Assimov, but they've been incredibly successful at introducing advanced
scientific concepts to a wide audience.

Math needs these same kinds of "popularizers". Not only to introduce
interesting topics, but to validate and remove the stigma surrounding math in
the US.

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maxxxxx
I also have noticed that math and language learning are viewed by many people
in the US as something that's not even worth trying because it is too hard.
Pretty sad and I think this will hurt the country big time later. You can't
run a country with only extrovert MBAs and lawyers that manage foreign
immigrants.

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cofcoycpyfjc
The grand experiment is in progress.

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platform
observing as a parent, who was educated outside of US, but whose children are
attending a well-rated US public school 8th grade:

    
    
      (a)  my child is an 'A' student (getting over 92% on most tests)
    
      (b) the student cannot do basic algebra without help.
      
      For example cannot convert   a^2 + 2ab + b^2 , back into

(a+b)^2

    
    
      Does not even know what a geometric proof is.

Eg. proving that 2 triangles are equal when each of their sides is equal,
would be way beyond any knowledge that was presented in school.

    
    
      (c) Can do many simple problems 'quickly' and efficiently.
    
      However, cannot even approach a problem that should take say a genuine 1-2 hours. I am not even talking about more complex ones.
    
    
      So the whole way of thinking about Math (and science subjects)  -- is targeted towards 'secretarial/data entry' kind of activities.
    
      Quick tricks, filling in blanks, fitting answers...
    
      There is a complete lack of homework problems that require a creation of any kind of approach/ thought framework... 

(and then testing out that creation).

    
    
      Instead, they are overwhelmed with huge number of simple stuff.
    
      But, as I know form being in the industry, 
      it is that kind of job skills that being replaced by computers, or outsourced...
    
      (d) Student is trained (or may be brainwashed) to think that material in school and good grades -- is not just necessary, 
      but absolutely sufficient 
      (with exception of social work and leadership skills... always can do more of those...)
    
    

So the resulting mind set is:

    
    
      If I get good grades, and if I am tired and busy with 

all the homework -- then that's a sufficient indicator that I am doing
exceptionally well.

This makes it very difficult, almost impossible for a parent to penetrate
through this wall, (plus the social media, and peer-pressure cancers that
constantly compete with me for influence on the child).

    
    
      I feel like my kids are just being treated as 'head count', in some 'feel good' & 'reward for participation' virtual video game,
     whose purpose is to create a fake reality,
     to reduce their chances of being competitive,
     ... and I cannot do anything about it.
    
    
    

Apologies if I sound too frustrated.

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eat_veggies
That's super weird. In eighth grade (2013-ish, not long ago) we had an entire
course on geometry that was all about proving theorems and turning some given
information into "the shape satisfies the definition of a parallelogram
because..." The tests were exactly what you described you wanted: hour long
journeys where you applied the theorems and postulates we learned up to that
point to prove something about a shape. I struggled a lot but ultimately I
believe I am better at thinking because of it. If you want some books:

The textbook we used: [https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Ray-C-
Jurgensen/dp/039597727...](https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Ray-C-
Jurgensen/dp/0395977274/)

The Art of Problem Solving: [https://www.amazon.com/Art-Problem-Solving-Vol-
Basics/dp/097...](https://www.amazon.com/Art-Problem-Solving-Vol-
Basics/dp/0977304566/)

AoPS is pretty good but more geared toward math competitions. The reading is
ok but the problems take some serious thought and if you can get your kid to
do one a day s/he'll probably be better off for it.

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arkona
[https://archive.is/3HgG5](https://archive.is/3HgG5)

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jee1shi
How do you get past the paywall?

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emidln
I have a 'Via Facebook' bookmarklet. Something like this uri saved as a
bookmark:

    
    
        javascript:window.location='https://facebook.com/l.php?u='+window.location
    

Will redirect you to your current page via the Facebook link service (and thus
with a FB referrer). Most publishers are too desperate for traffic to block
FB.

If you go to my site[0] in Chrome or Firefox, you can easily install such a
bookmarklet by dragging the giant 'Via Facebook' button to your bookmarks bar.

[0] [https://emidln.com](https://emidln.com)

~~~
fibers
not only that but the referrer 't.co' (twitter's url masking service) also
bypasses the paywall. it also works for any other dow jones site and sometimes
FT if you block cookies

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fellellor
Help with the paywall?

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gravypod
This article is full of funny things. If you want to teach people _Computer
Science_ just teach them _Computer Science_. Why waste people's time with math
they will push out of their minds as soon as they're finished with the class?
I wish we had a specialization-based curriculum for high school. I wasted a
lot of time there that I could have spent learning more.

Some funny things in the article:

> Discrete mathematics deals with such problems as...

No it describes solutions to those problems. You could also describe those
solutions with other types of math. A computer Scientist wouldn't think of
this problem in terms of a formula first. They would likely think of this in
terms of a Data Structure and thing about the most efficient way their
representation's strengths can be leveraged to obtain a solution.

A "calculus-track" Mathematician may think of this as a shape and attempt to
frame this problem as an equation that describes the changes occurring in a
subset of the problem. Luckily 3B1B just posted a video demonstrating this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvCytJvd4H0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvCytJvd4H0)

> Students need classical math more than ever.

I'd say this is debatable. What's the work/value trade off for teaching
someone calculus? I just aced my college's calc program and I've already
pushed that crap out of my mind.

I'd say it's much more important to be able to learn how to do these things as
needed. Learn how to pick up a book, find the chapters you need to read, read
the material, apply it, and test your output.

> But discrete math is fundamental to computing and ubiquitous in the real
> world

I'd say it's not the only way to express those ideas.

> To understand software, you need a basic understanding of computers; for
> that you need some basic electronics education. [...] There are many ways to
> build a von Neumann machine—the world’s standard digital computer since
> World War II...

Lol. Who wrote that in the press release? I'd consider many micros with in-
chip roms as Harvard architecture.

I'm getting ready to laugh at the development and implementation of Common
Core 2.

