> You know what I do during my lunch time? Trying to re-prove Fermat's Last Theorem.
How many other students did you know who did the same? There are some people (you, in this instance) who like Math in the current form it is taught. But the sad truth is a large majority of the world's student population (that includes Asia) find Math a boring, dry subject that forces too many drills upon you for not much practical application later.
> The problem is no so much that they dump down math. The problem is that they alienate the students from math. When you do math, all of it, the result is made of your sweat.
Wolfram advocates using programming to drive the concepts better by making students write programs to solve the problem. You can't do that without really understanding the concepts behind it.
> I hope you see my point: there is no elevator to interest in math. Math lovers must have toiled and slaved over stupid calculation over and over, until a point that they could actually produce the trace of math working, just like the zone in programming or any other art. That trace, that focus, that absorption builds the love for math.
Again, that definitely has worked for some percentage of the population. But it in no way is a guarantee that there aren't ways to better it. The 'elevator' to interest in Math might just exist.
The point of the talk was that Math the way it is being taught only teaches students to do hand-calculation, but doesn't give enough importance to other crucial aspects (asking right question, modeling and math formulation). It also brings in Computers as a great tool to help students understand Maths better: by procedurizing learning and using programming to help students understand concepts better than just handsolving problems repeatedly.
> You know where self esteem is from? It's from holding a piece of paper on which a problem has been solved and solution has been neatly presented; it's from the overcoming of frustration and challenges that the problem presents.
It's also from running the program you wrote which solves a challenge well. That is an important idea that Wolfram presents in the talk (it is by no means new, but nothing much has come of it yet). How is understanding 'how' to solve a Mathematical problem and translating it into executable code less 'frustrating/challenging' than learning by rote a specific method to attack a specific pattern of mathematical problems and using that technique mindlessly to solve them?
I find that the comment fails to address those actual points in the talk, but instead raises rote learning and hand-calculation drills as something worth aspiring for, and something that separates the chaff from the grain. I disagree. There are many students out there who find Math (the way it is being taught now) boring and worthless, but would have loved the subject if it (the teaching style) appealed to their intelligence better.
(also, please don't overwork the students any bit more. its hard enough already for most)
How many other students did you know who did the same? There are some people (you, in this instance) who like Math in the current form it is taught. But the sad truth is a large majority of the world's student population (that includes Asia) find Math a boring, dry subject that forces too many drills upon you for not much practical application later.
> The problem is no so much that they dump down math. The problem is that they alienate the students from math. When you do math, all of it, the result is made of your sweat.
Wolfram advocates using programming to drive the concepts better by making students write programs to solve the problem. You can't do that without really understanding the concepts behind it.
> I hope you see my point: there is no elevator to interest in math. Math lovers must have toiled and slaved over stupid calculation over and over, until a point that they could actually produce the trace of math working, just like the zone in programming or any other art. That trace, that focus, that absorption builds the love for math.
Again, that definitely has worked for some percentage of the population. But it in no way is a guarantee that there aren't ways to better it. The 'elevator' to interest in Math might just exist.
The point of the talk was that Math the way it is being taught only teaches students to do hand-calculation, but doesn't give enough importance to other crucial aspects (asking right question, modeling and math formulation). It also brings in Computers as a great tool to help students understand Maths better: by procedurizing learning and using programming to help students understand concepts better than just handsolving problems repeatedly.
> You know where self esteem is from? It's from holding a piece of paper on which a problem has been solved and solution has been neatly presented; it's from the overcoming of frustration and challenges that the problem presents.
It's also from running the program you wrote which solves a challenge well. That is an important idea that Wolfram presents in the talk (it is by no means new, but nothing much has come of it yet). How is understanding 'how' to solve a Mathematical problem and translating it into executable code less 'frustrating/challenging' than learning by rote a specific method to attack a specific pattern of mathematical problems and using that technique mindlessly to solve them?
I find that the comment fails to address those actual points in the talk, but instead raises rote learning and hand-calculation drills as something worth aspiring for, and something that separates the chaff from the grain. I disagree. There are many students out there who find Math (the way it is being taught now) boring and worthless, but would have loved the subject if it (the teaching style) appealed to their intelligence better.
(also, please don't overwork the students any bit more. its hard enough already for most)