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Discouraging Students from Taking Math
Coryoth writes "Following on from a previous story about UK schools encouraging students to drop mathematics, an article in The Age accuses Australian schools of much the same. The claim is that Australian schools are actively discouraging students from taking upper level math courses to boost their academic results on school league tables. How widespread is this phenomenon? Are schools taking similar measures in the US and Canada?"
"Following on from a previous story about UK schools encouraging students to drop mathematics, an article in The Age accuses Australian schools of much the same. [...] How widespread is this phenomenon? Are schools taking similar measures in the US and Canada?"
I'm sorry, what's this "math" you speak of?
After a few generations of not taking any math, administrators won't be able to figure out why not taking math increased their average scores in the first place. At that point, they'll re-institute a math program, probably cutting out history, since that's over and done with.
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It was sweet. I went from six classes to four.
Oh... wait... I thought it read "discouraging students from taking meth."
My mistake.
Would it be bad to put my tinfoil hat on and say that this is because math is the ultimate expression of logic and truth, and society these days doesn't want anything to do with logic or truth?
KIDS: TAKE **MORE** MATH. THE MAN DOESN'T WANT YOU TO TAKE IT, SO TAKE MORE.
It would make a little more sense if this was college when you have an idea what you want to do with your life and realize it doesn't make sense to take calculus to finish out an art/language major. But really, a student that is not interested in going into the sciences is unlikely to use calculus or higher mathematics much, but that doesn't mean they should drop it just to boost their GPA.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I can't say that schools are taking similar measures in the United States (in particularly in Boston), since I was actively encouraged to take AP Calculus this year and to continue with higher-level mathematics courses for the duration of my college-level studies.
Math discourages you!
Teachers discover that if you don't teach them math, they don't have to write the exams and thus get low scores. This safeguards the teacher's unionized, establisment job that they have DESPITE not being able to do an adequate job teaching. What a great way to run a system. Every teacher in the UK, and Australia if this should prove to be the case there, and all school administrators should be sick with shame for pushing this kind of "fix" on the system.
The US doesn't do that, we just hide our heads in the sand and ignore the problem: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20205125/site/newsweek /
In my high school (it was a Georgia public school), you had to have skipped 6th grade math to get to super-basic (no AP) calculus in high school. Otherwise, you topped out at trig. On top of that, trig was optional even for what they called "college prep" diplomas. Guess how many people were in that class. That was going on 15 years ago, though.
It's not like math is an important part of everyday life anyway! Who needs it...
Procrastinators, Unite Tomorrow!
Back when I was going to school in India this was one subject where we could score a 100/100, boosting our overall grades. In any other subject (civics/history/english, even physics/chemistry to an extent) there is always some section where you need to write prose or some explanation of something and it leaves some scope for the teacher to maybe give us 4 out of 5 marks. With Maths the questions and answers were always unambiguous and so was the scoring. It was the easiest subject to max out your marks.
At my high school those of us in AP Calc and honors math analysis were bombarded with constant state/federal exams to make the school look really good. What about the regular math analysis students or the people who did not take calc? They were in the gym playing basketball. Good times...good times... That was at Redlands East Valley High btw. http://rev.redlandsusd.net/
This is what you get when schools do what it takes to look good. While they are too blame, the blame also lies on governments and parents who are looking for schools which turn out the most graduates.
Ideally a rating system should be based on the "quality" of those grades. What I mean by this is that the maths levels would be broken down into categories from easy to advanced. A school should be given higher marks if they manage to turn out a few good maths students as opposed to many low level maths students. I am not sure how this could be made to work in reality though.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Wouldn't it be easier to give everyone an "A" just for registering? At least society would get the benefit of 'whatever stuck to the wall' by the student's exposure (at least) to higher-math concepts...
We should cut more of those boring science classes and replace them with something genuinely useful, such as football and liberal arts.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
I, for one, welcome our new woefully innumerate overlords.
U.S. schools don't have to take similar measures, we already largely avoid mathematics. Really though, is it such a bad thing? Highschool is too generalized as is, instead of really letting students focus on what will be important and helpful for them in the future. Higher level math courses do not help most students and prove to be nothing more than a time sink. If you're going to go into a field that requires it, or simply want to soak up the knowledge, then take advanced math classes by all means. Otherwise, I'd say that anything over algebra and geometry (even those, perhaps) are largely useless to most folks.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
So it turns out that school administrators are willing to compromise the educations of their students in order to make themselves look good. This behavior is wholly contrary to human nature. How could it possibly happen?
I worked in a lumber yard one summer when I was in college. I worked on the end of line that spit out two by fours cut from logs. The pallets were always of different height, but always the same width - 10 units. At the end, you had to paint the total on the side. So if it was 14 units high, you'd have 140 pieces. Me being "just a kid" wasn't trusted to paint the number. The "senior" person busted out a calculator every fucking time. To multiply a number under 20 (the max) by 10.
"If a school wants to maximise their performance, they may feel that 'if we encourage weaker students not to take [advanced] maths, our results will look better',"
/. crowd is tired of having to share a classroom with folks who still can't wrap their heads around imaginary numbers...
As much as I hate the 'make out results look better' argument, the concept of pruning the mathimatically inept out of the advanced math classes. They're not getting rid of Math all together. They're just encouraging those with weaker skills in math to avoid the high end classes. Surely the
... 300 Math (grade twelve) was REQUIRED for University entrance. And based on the CURRENT entrance requirements of my alma mater, this is still the case. So, as far as I know, Canada is still good.
There is little reason for most students to take upper level math. As a historian and a writer, i never EVER use anything more than arithmetic or geometry. Not being able to do calculus has never ones been a problem in my education or work.
In fact, when i was applying for grad schools a year ago, i asked the head of the department that i am in now if my VERY low GRE math score would be a problem. The answer was very clearly "no"
at any rate...American schools need to give kids the option of doing a calculus track in math or a statistics track in math.
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
At my high school 10 years ago, I was not allowed to take Calculus senior year. An A or B+ average was required in trigonometry to take the calculus course. Other than pushing up the schools average on the AP exams, I didn't understand why I was not allowed to take the course. Trig is a small part of differential and integral calculus. Memorizing double and half angle formulas turned out to be a waste of time anyway (my professors later in life insisted that we be able to derive them ourselves, rather than memorize...) Besides, I had passed trig anyway. Why take trig again for a better grade? I calculus needed it for the university I ended up going to. I ended up paying out of my own pocket to take the course at a local university after school. Kind of a waste for me to be sitting in a study hall, while the class was already being taught at my high school. In the end, it worked out for the best. A university mathematics professor is a far better qualified to teach calculus than a high school teacher. I knew plenty of teaching majors that went on to teach high school math. Compared to engineering majors, they understood very little about mathematics.
I certainly saw a similar attitude as a student in the US although I suspect the motivation was slightly different. Rather than trying to maximize state mandated test scores I saw a belief that all students need high level courses to get into college but they shouldn't dare take one where they might risk the worst of all possible marks, the 'C'.
State mandated testing destroyed the local school's ability to define their own curriculum and teacher's freedom to offer unique courses. I think grade inflation has done even more damage as both college admission and scholarship policies favor excellent grades on trivial coursework over students who receive average scores in difficult material.
The study, called TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) Advanced 2008, measures how high-school seniors are doing in algebra, geometry, calculus and physics with students taking similar subjects around the globe. In the past, the American results have been shockingly poor. In the last survey, taken in 1995, students from only two countries--Cyprus and South Africa--scored lower than U.S. school kids.
This (in the US at least) is the legislators' fault. They don't understand math well enough to grade schools' performance.
At my university the GPA used a weighted average. Each credit-hour counted. My 4 credit Calculus courses weighed more than the 3 credit Philosophy 101.
That is how legislators should grade public schools (for No Child Left Behind, etc). One high school has 6 or so Calculus students with C+ averages. Another has all 10 of their students taking basic arithmetic with B averages. At the very least the Calculus high school should get some extra weight for the greater overall math skills.
shenanigans
I taught 8th grade science, and we were always encouraging students to take as much math as possible.
Unfortunately, students make short sighted decisions in 8th grade that determine whether they are on the calculus track or not. You must start on the path that leads to calculus in 8th grade or it is unlikely you can catch up by 12th grade.
We held an annual pep-rally for 7th graders encouraging them to enroll in math and science courses in 8th grade. If they don't, they are closing doors for future opportunity. Without calculus in high school, it is difficult to be accepted directly into technical/science degree programs in universities. At a minimum, some remedial college math is likely to be required. If you think you might want to be an engineer, scientist, doctor, mathematician, actuarial, astronaut, architect, etc. you should take the most advanced math offered by your school.
In fact, with few exceptions, if you want a high paying job that doesn't require graduate school, you are well served to take advanced math in high school.
That's ridiculous--the moment there's even a shadow of that problem, you weight upper-level classes with a 1.1 or so. The idea is not to punish someone for taking a harder class, after all. (High school math was probably trivial for all of us, but it isn't for everyone.) My high school weighted honors classes at 1.05 when they averaged them into your GPA, and AP classes at 1.10; a similar technique would work here.
Honors and AP, Advanced Placement classes are administered under the aspics of Special Education and as such our local schools have an incentive to have more students in Special Ed as it brings in more $$$ from the State.
They don't seem to 'worry' too much about standings here, they teach to the standardized test, then give it. You have to be brain dead to do poorly.
Let them deprive their children and let them show their children that they have no hope in them. This will be great and will keep Japan, China, USA, India, and other countries at a higher level than Australia all because they want a higher score.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Maybe not intentionally. But the way math courses are setup discourages many otherwise capable students from being successful in the subject. My middle school district did a poor job of coordinating math courses with the high school district. As such, I was behind by the time I reached high school and struggled the whole way.
Couple this with the ridiculous "integrated math" fad that plagued countless districts (at least in California). We barely covered trig functions, factoring, and other critical topics. (Anyone else have a thought about integrated math?) High school physical science courses did a poor job of incorporating math.
In college, I changed to a geology major that required calculus courses. Having struggled with math in high school, I had to start from intermediate algebra and work my way up. At least college math curriculums were organized in a logical and relevant fashion. It helped when the professor said, "Yeah, pay attention to this because you might have to derive the formula for centripetal acceleration in a physics course." Connections are important, especially when dealing with abstract math concepts.
My friends had similar experiences and, not wanting to blow a year taking bonehead math like me, decided not to explore their interests in astronomy, physics, chemistry, and other math-intensive subjects. It's a shame, really.
There needs to better curriculum coordination at the middle- and high-school levels so kids understand the importance of math and have a foundation that preps them for college. I understand how easy it is for a student's math foundation to get ruined. Such foundations, at least in my case, take years to build. Oh yeah, and (excessive) testing doesn't help -- but that's a whole other rant! If you want to encourage kids to take math, do a good job of setting up the courses in the first place...and tell them how important it is!
I'm not being facetious at all when I assert this. A normal student in public schools in America will take at least two to three years of algebra, sometimes more, plus a year of trig or geometry. The ones who are interested in such things will take more advanced stuff yet, but those aren't the ones we have to more or less force into math classes anyway.
So we're looking at three to four years of mandatory math classes. For someone not strong in math, isn't that enough?
I am not saying that exposing the students to the classes is a bad idea. But by high school age, it is usually fairly apparent whether or not the student has an aptitude for math or not. If he doesn't, there is no point in making endure a forced march through a bunch of crap he'll never internalize, fully understand, or find any use for. Indeed, the article states precisely that
And why should a student weak in math be encouraged to pursue it? Let him focus whatever talents he has in other areas. I, for example, am hopeless when it comes to math, but was always strong in English and decent at visual arts. I'd have been ecstatic had an administrator said to me, "Your scores are consistently low in math but high in these areas. Would you like to shift your credit focus to reflect the subjects in which you excel?" Hell yeah.
This "one size fits all" approach to education -- the idea that we must churn out "well-rounded" students no matter what an individual student's strengths and weaknesses may be -- is patently idiotic.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Is a C in an advanced math class equivalent to an A in a lower math class?
Fudge the numbers, not the students.
As a former mathematics teacher in Canada (Winnipeg, Manitoba if it matters) I can say that there is a worse scenario, it is not uncommon for school principals to put pressure on math teachers to give all students good grades. The logic being that since math courses are mandatory for graduation, failing a student will socially stigmatize them.
As a specific example, I personally had 3 students who did not attempt a single assignment and all of them had attendance rates below 50%. I was told by the principle that if I wanted to be hired on next year I would need to give these students an extra assignment for 'Bonus' marks so that they would pass. I refused and hence am a former math teacher.
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
They should do that with pretty much any program that guarantees that your entire career will be spent at or below minimum wage for the vast majority of graduates. "You want an art degree? Do you REALLY want to be bagging groceries for a living when you're in your mid 40s? Why not try our MBA program instead. You can still do all the drugs, but you'll have a six-digit earning potential the day you graduate..."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Personally, I chose not to take advanced math (ie. pre-calculus) in the twelfth grade leading up to my University application (Canada here). This wasn't the school advising me one way or another. Based on my average performance in Grade 10 and 11 math courses, I was given the option of taking the advanced math. Figuring I would either get a B+ in regular Grade 12 math or a C+ in advanced math, I enrolled in the former.
That said, I still couldn't make the grade pre-requisite for 1st year university calculus and ended up having to take the Math 100-level course, basically re-treading the Grade 12 course and then some. This time around, it was MUCH harder, and it took me a few semesters to recover that Grade Point Average. I don't know if the Advanced Math course would have prepared me any better because I obviously didn't have the grounding to begin with.
I can't say there's a 'moral of the story' other than to study hard in High school so you don't have to pay in your University years -- there's more than enough stress to deal with by that time.
Math still has its place. If you want to go to graduate school in humanities, then you may still need some advanced math. In particular, many students from medicine, political science, humanities, and the arts, do advanced multi-variate statistical studies as part of their post-graduate studies. Understanding the tools used in these advanced statistical studies typically requires first or second year statistics skills. If you want your Master's degree, you need your undergraduate math.
As such, a significant number of undergraduate degrees require "Math for Humanities" or "Statistics for Non-stats Major" courses. It is a good idea to keep math throughout high school. It gives you many more options when you reach university.
The article just says "upper level", but doesn't hint at what the courses are.
I took Calculus in high school. I'm sure i got A's in it. Everyone did. All six of us. The course was offered, and we self selected. We were the ones who were going to get it. But the article was about not encouraging weaker students. As far as i know, everyone who didn't take it self selected out of it. But really, with such a small class, if there was a weak student, they'd get lots of help. So, i don't see how it would bring down the school grade point average. It's the MEAP test that schools care about, as far as i can tell, not their GPA.
Taking Calculus in high school did nothing for my SATs. The SAT exam didn't cover any calculus. What it did is give me two semesters of engineering math head start. I knew that's what i was going to do.
-- Stephen.
Insane curves seem to be the new strategy. I've taken math classes that answering 3 out of the 8 questions correctly got you an A- on the exam.
If you never learned calculus or any higher maths, how do you know that you would have never used them? Math is used for all kinds of research in history: population extrapolations, statistical correlations, dynamic modeling, hypothesis testing, etc.
You're like a blind person who has found ways to cope with what you're missing, but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't benefit from sight.
If I remember correctly from the days when I was in high-school, here in Quebec (Canada), you get rated higher for taking harder classes (and from what I know, it's the same in the US). Because each student's rating is what they look at in the end, having students take easier classes won't be helpful to the school. And, say you take the more advanced math class, you still have to do the normal math test at the end of the year, which is really easy for anyone who took the advanced class. Because you can fail the harder math test but still get your diploma by doing fine in the normal test; and because almost everyone who took the advanced class passes the normal test with higher grades, schools have more to lose if their students take the easy way out.
How are they doing it? Giving first-year students all NC-Complete problems the first day with no explanation?
I'm almost sure that anyone who really wants to know about mathematics will learn mathematics, regardless of what recommendations student advisors make.
Math is the basics to any technical, engineering, scientific, and business areas. While it won't help you with your everyday life, it can help you understand what all of those "mad" scientists are talking about and possibly help you call their bluffs. If you need some real world application, think finance and gambling. Most people simply take things "on faith" in these areas and get burned really bad by it. Had you had the basic math background to understand what's really going on, it will make you less prone to getting ripped off and help you with your finances.
I'm against any school attempting to restrict or reduce the requirements on students, partially because I felt that going through stricter requirements helped me out in the end. It took a while, and it wasn't necessarily "fun," but in the end it eventually comes together and you'll learn a lot. If the curriculum keeps getting watered down, the students will become lazier and end up less aware. They'll start questioning why they even need to learn anything in the first place. If the curriculum is so small, they may not even find anything that stimulates them.
Schools need to focus on expanding their curriculum or teaching students more. That is what education is about, not test averages, drop-out rates, or acceptance rates. It's about learning something. Until schools and the general population gets that, all of these stupid changes will only fail.
My school district emphasizes getting students into "advanced placement" classes as defined by The College Board. I resent this because we're basically funneling money into some company's pocket but no one else seems to see it that way. The consensus among the AP teachers is that this push dilutes what's supposed to be a rigorous program. More kids in AP classes makes the school look good to parents and newspapers and whoever else outside of teaching is paying attention. The truth is that a number of students take AP classes for the wrong reasons.
Our ratings (I teach math) are based on the state's NCLB test, which is a test of "Algebra and Data Analysis." Algebra I has long been a requirement to graduate high school in Maryland. In fact, Maryland recently increased the number of math courses required for graduation to 4, up from 3. To this end my school district has created a class called Algebra III, which is the first half of our Precalculus class, but spread out over an entire year. We're hoping to get the "D" students from Algebra II to take Algebra III instead of Precalc. I was at the meeting where the course was proposed and the rationale was that these students get frustrated by the pace of precalc and thus learn nothing. That's been my experience teaching precalc also. The class goes too fast, they learn nothing and get frustrated, I also get frustrated. It's not that they're not trying it's just the class moves too fast.
So it seems like we're doing the opposite of discouraging students from pursuing mathematics. Most of the classes we have are not what you'd call upper level though. This may be different even in other parts of Maryland.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
Schools in the US and Canada have made it policy to discourage upper-level math. Its only news because other countries are beginning to follow suit. Who here grew up in a US/Canada high school that actually -required- more than a year or two of math? My high school was one of the best ranked public schools in the nation, and it only required 2 years of Math and Science, but a full 4 years of English and Social Studies. So what do you think the majority of students did? OPTED to take upper level Math and Science? Hell no. The schools all but said "you don't need to know that."
If you can't find a real troll, just mod down whoever you don't agree with!
Innumeracy is pretty widespread even among people who, by all rights, should know better. It seems to me that statistics and probability are what give most people the most trouble; my personal experience is that these subjects are often about as intuitive as quantum mechanics--for obvious reasons that shouldn't come as a huge surprise. The book Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos is an interesting look at the subject, but the presentation is a little flawed. While there are in this book many germane examples, it is on average pitched a little high--I've taken calculus, linear algebra, and even some statistics (and did fairly well), but some of his points weren't as obvious to me as he seemed to think them. Still, if nothing else, it's an interesting and fairly quick read.
When you are being bred to be a bunch of mindless controllable sheep?
A country of dishwashers and burger flippers dont really need an advanced education.
Eventually it will backfire of course, when the country slips into place as a 3rd world nation that cant even support itself. But until then, it keeps the ones in power, in power.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If there is any question that you might not like math, PLEASE drop it before you get to Analysis or P-Chem.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...to boost their academic results on school league tables. If taking easy classes boosts academic results, then the people making those tables probably didn't take any upper level math courses either.As long as they do not try to discourage them from taking Bath...
Education majors at the University where I teach are discouraged, which seems so crazy to me.
Screw math, we need a class on general problem solving and trouble shooting. In IT we have to understand *everything* in order to help someone. My CIS teacher told me "The client doesn't know what he wants or needs, you need to find this for him" and the client being the owner/CEO/whatever. "my speakers stopped working" = the *green* plug is plugged into the *blue* port next to the *green* port.. WTF?! This is your average person. How can the speakers stop working if they couldn't have worked in the first place. We need people capable of figuring out stuff on their own and researching. Once we can start getting this down, math will come naturally. The only thing I've learned as IT is "Never underestimate the stupidity of average intelligence." I love working with and helping people... but wow.. it's never ending
out there who doesn't understand the concept of "unintended consquences" this is a case study.
On both sides of the aisle, we have a bevy of nitwits who can't further than the next election cycle and who are barely familiar with the idea of rational thought (one politician was apparently in a library, once, perhaps even on the same floor as several books on logic).
And it happens consistently on both sides of every argument: In this case, conservatives want measurable outsomes with rewards and consequences (which results in teaching to the test and the kind of don't-lower-our-averages thinking in this story) and liberals want touchy-feely "how-does-math-make-you-feel" classes (which results in children who can't do basic arithmetic).
The solution is balance, which in our increasingly polarized society is unlikely.
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And I got lucky enough to take Sequential I, and move in the middle of my Junior year, in the middle of Sequential II. So when I got to the next state...
Huh, you don't know shit. Go take Algebra. So I aced the first half of class, since that was all covered in SeqI, and was lost in the 2nd half since I never had the rest of geometry, etc.
Ah, the fun.
My mom says I'm cool.
It makes me sad to see that there are actually comments here that claim most people only need arithmetic and fractions. Well, first of all, the majority of people I know have trouble even doing that. I'm convinced that it's because elementary school teachers (at least here in the US) are *education* majors and can get through college without taking even a basic college level math class (the remedial courses are *not* college level).
But, since one of my majors in college was math, I have seen the valuable skills math gives you to go into any science or tech field, most business fields (in fact if more business majors did *real* statistics in college, they'd be much more valuable to the companies that hire them), and even law.
Proof, logic, and statistics (which requires calculus if you do it right) teaches people to think.
But perhaps by "upper level" people are thinking abstract? It's true that abstract math is mostly a play field for us mathies, but even some extremely abstract stuff has proven to be very important in computer science hundreds of years after it was merely played with. (See:cryptography, error checking codes/coding theory, Galois theory.)
I was also a computer science major and continue in that vein for work; some of the best computer scientists and programmers I have met were also originally math majors.
"Hermione, you're a girl." "Well spotted Ron!"
In high school, they took the me and other 49 or so kids that were taking more than 2 AP classes aside for an entire day of testing in the school library. We had snacks and were able to take breaks. They did this so that we would have a calm, cool, environment to do the best we could and thus bring the school scores up. Far from ethical, but better than denying others the same test.
Working now in education and having worked with a very large school district, I've seen a similar system practiced.
So I called and had chat with her maths teacher, and asked about putting her up to the next level (what they call "accelerated" maths). They were quite co-operative about her changing classes once I made the suggestion and she is now in the "accelerated" maths subject, but I am nevertheless disappointed that the teachers didn't make this suggestion themselves - or put her in the advanced stream in the first place.
I am a Statistician. One false move and you are a Statistic
I currently teach at a public HS in an affluent Phoenix suburb. Before that, I spent some "hardship post" time out in a notoriously bad district, too. In Arizona, at any rate, it's a mixed bag.
On the one hand, some schools have relaxed the number of math credits required for graduation, from four to three. I've also had experience with a bad counselor counsel students out of my 2nd year Physics class in favor of AP Basketweaving or something because she thought "Yale would much rather see AP 'anything.'" That was, however, a personal problem.
On the other hand, one of the few bright sides of standardized testing is that it's requiring us to bring up math scores across the board--and mostly from the abysmal low-score population. If we counseled out students out of math, we'd do even worse--it'd be like cutting our own throats. That's causing a huge emphasis on math and progression up the math class tree.
High level math classes are also very heavily teacher-driven. In my current school, we offer math courses all the through 2nd year Calculus, and 2nd year Physics. Teachers campaign hard to get students to sign up, because they're a major perk--I'd rather stretch my abilities and teach a 2nd year physics course than suffer teaching a section of Frosh science any day! We do class talks with underclassmen, explain the college/career options, put up flyers, etc. There's definitely more of an atmosphere of encouragement.
Our administrations are also generally supportive, for a variety of reasons. High level math is not just a major bragging point; it can net cooperation from the local community colleges, who cross-list our HS classes and kick back half of the tuition--for some of our schools departments, this can mean a serious boost to the budget. That extra $$ isn't just used for expensive classroom crap; we've often used it to "buy sections" of classes--in other words, to pay a teacher. This lets us lower class sizes, or to offer classes that might not attract enough students to make them viable for regular funding (say, 15 students, instead of the 25 the school might need for state funding).
For reference, I've got a BS in Engineering, so I kind of went to the dark side when I became a teacher. That definitely put HS math and science education in perspective, though, and I'm really glad I didn't go the tradtional route to teaching.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
The expected change in ability will roughly follow an S-curve. Those who know very little will need to learn a lot to advance just a little. Those who know a lot must learn a lot more for it to make any difference. Those in the middle have the tools to learn rapidly and will do so.
All you need to do is have a test at the start of the year, extrapolate from prior years the constants needed to define the curve, then use that to determine where the student can be expected to be at the end of the year. The end of year exam is then normalized the same way. Your actual grade would then be equal to ((normalized end of year) - (normalized start of year) + (mid-point score)) * (multiplier needed to stretch/shrink scores over traditional range).
If you do this, any student who works consistently will score consistently. Any student who achieves better than they could have been expected to will always score well, no matter what their abilities are like compared to others of their own age. Likewise, someone who learned a lot once upon a time and is now sleeping through lessons will automatically fail, no matter how good their knowledge.
To make this system fair and easy to apply, you've also got to stream classes. Mixed-ability classes would not work well with a relativistic rating system. Ideally, each subject would be broken into 5 or 7 streams, giving you 2 or 3 subdivisions from neurotypical ability on either side of the bell curve. For large enough schools, I'd expect such a system to use standard deviations from average. With smaller numbers, you'd need to narrow the bands more. You'd also have multiple classes of the same ability, as needed. You need an age-appropriate number of instructors per student in each class, but no class of any age should exceed about 15-18 students.
The multiple classes would allow you to cover different styles and methods of covering the same material, so students who did poorly with one style/method could find one that worked better for them, as learning - not ability - is the part that is truly individual. Ability places demands on learning, but has no direct impact at all.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Maybe it would be better to start kids with base-seven math or computer programming instead of the traditional base-ten stuff. Better yet, intelligence is poorly defined in the traditional IQ tests given to children. Perhaps logic would replace math nicely for those lacking certain aptitudes.
A lot of people are arguing that you don't need these kind of maths unless you go into a math field, and while that might be true , I still don't think it justifies the school in discouraging students to take higher maths. To turn the argument around, if I know I'm going to be a computer programmer why should I be required to take art or know how to diagram a sentence? I'm probably not going to use what I learn in a lot of the humanities classes I'm required to take. They're required though, because a school wants to encourage a certain standard of knowledge, including working with numbers and abstract concepts. Regardless I think it's important that a school encourages students to learn and challenge themselves in all areas especially in high school where you still haven't necessarily figured out what you want to pursue.
The point of public education has always been to keep the population as dumb as possible. Oh wait... You went to public school? Now I understand.
I'm a math/science junior-high/middle-school teacher in Atlantic Canada. I've been a teacher through two different curriculums (see below).
Schools in Canada are not graded, nor rated, based on provincial or national testing; neither is funding dependent on any testing.
Students are never persuaded against an advanced course, unless they are unable to do it. (If they can only get a 50 in grade-9 math, they're certainly aren't going to do the high-school advanced-stream course.)
There is only one set of mathematics courses in grades 7 through 9; the old curriculum (pre-2002) had an academic and advanced. At that time, placement was determined by your performance. You could stay in the advanced courses if you could hack it.
High school has three streams: basic, academic, and advanced. Students who have coasted through junior high with bare passes may also end up doing the basic stream, mainly because they don't have the foundation (through lack of effort or otherwise). Students with moderate to severe learning disabilities would probably also do the basic stream.
Any student completing an academic or advanced stream can still gain University or College entrance. The advanced stream gives the option in grade-12 of Calculus readiness courses and AP courses.
In the past students were often told that a 75 in an advanced course is better than and 85 in the academic course, and so should do the advanced.
Canada still has problems, however. Our new junior-high/middle-school/7-9 curriculum has been adjusted to integrate analysis of concepts (eg. "Explain why 45 x 10^3 isn't scientific notation."), representing concepts in different ways (eg. "Represent y=2x-3 in words, in a table, in a graph, symbolically, and pictorially."), and solving in different ways (eg. "Use fraction circles to estimate 3/4 + 1/5."). The problem is that students don't get a full grasp of the mechanics of math before they are asked to analyse, discuss, and so forth. As well, the curriculum still covers the same content, though we (teachers) have to teach it several new ways, without any extra time.
The end result is that students often finish high-school without a full understanding of the concepts -- they often lack the mechanics. They can handle high-school tests and exams, but can't handle the university/college tests and exams. University expects rigorous understanding ("Factor x^2-5x+6 symbolically."), while high-school requires a different version of understanding ("Factor x^2-5x+6 using a table or algebra tiles.")
As an engineer in the present-day workforce, I welcome the lack of competition. As a person who will soon live in a world that will be designed, built, and run, by the next generation, it scares the hell out of me.
From my view, Mathematics is as exciting as art. The mistake is often that math is presented as "weeder" subject rather than presented as one of the great achievements of civilization. I started one of the first math blogs (http://fermatslasttheorem.blogspot.com) and the good news is that the math blogosphere is growing! :-)
I hope that this news story is a blip in education history like the schools that forbid the teaching of evolution. It is really just embarrassing all the way around.
-Larry
... that students are largely unmotivated and undisciplined, and that's mostly because their parents don't instill in them any motivation to exert themselves at school.
My wife has retired from public school teaching after 25 years. She can't bear the insolence, lack of respect, apathy, and disinterest in her students.
There was a time in America when if you swore at your teacher you would receive some minimal punishment. Today, it's just as likely that the teacher and/or school will be sued for defamation, as the parent defends their child. It's not that teachers get a big kick out of falsely reporting students with foul mouths. It's also amazing how many of their parents are verbally abusive, even obscene. My wife reached her limit when a parent told her there was "no *!^{ing way my child would use that language!". Well, anyways... Her students whose parents were interested did ok. Students whose parents were not involved didn't do so well.
And my wife has seen a steady decline over the past 10 years. She's given up.
I don't recall having much choice of what to study in high school (I graduated in 1972), so I'm not very savvy on the current school thing, where students choose to not take math. I was expected to take 4 years of math, English, sciences, phys. ed. (ha!), and history. 2 years of foreign language, and that left me with not of available time for elective courses.
Somehow we've lost sight of the basics in schools. It's not as simple as mainstreaming 'special ed' students (in Maine, some school districts have 30% of their students in 'special ed' classifications, and expect to be over 50% by 2010 - not so special any more), or some imaginary need to prepare our students for a 'global economy' or 'technological age'. If we really wanted to prepare our students, we would be focusing even more in the 3R's, wouldn't we?
Our schools are failing because our parents are failing. Kids today get away with a lot. If a group of kids, even just one, want to cross a street whether the traffic has the green light or not, around here they can just do it and you screech to a halt and wait. While they give you the look of 'piss off, I can do anything I want'. No, I'm not advocating running down anyone who decides to cross the street without regard for the traffic. I'm advocating waiting for the light.
I watch a regular stream of neighborhood kids walk through my back yard as a shortcut. I really don't begrudge them a shorter route, some time in the shade on a hot day, but once when I came around the corner and we nearly collided, I got the 'Who the &*(# are Y-O-U' look. Wait, this is MY property. Since when do they give me attitude? Since they are invulnerable. What am I gonna do? At best, I go to jail. All I want is a little respect, apparently what the kids want. No, I haven't put a gate up. I just remember to go wide around the corner. It may be my property, but it really isn't my domain any more. I just pay for it.
My wife gave up on public school teaching because of that specific 'Who the %^^$ are Y-O-U' attitude. It wasn't always like this. But it's not good. And it will cost us.
BTW, I was a skater before skating was at all cool. I don't remember trying tricks in crowded areas - back then, we figured spitting our boards into parked cars and pedestrian shins was wrong. we didn't have parks yet, so we skated when it was quiet and isolated. We still got rousted. I'm aware of the rebellious attitude of youth. I just don't recall being deliberately disrespectful.
I am getting old. But that doesn't make wrong right. And this is just my opinion. No doubt, you hve yours.
Flame on...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
There is a bunch of math out there that isnt all that hard, but isnt taught to kids. Graph Theory, Topology, Probability and statistics, even some linear algebra isnt too horrible.
The lack of math education is as crippling to our youth as learning only one language. And just as inexcusable.
Storm
I not so long ago, in an Australian high school, faced this very problem. The issue isn't that teachers actively discourage taking harder maths courses, the curriculum and assessment authorities, and I suspect with the approval of the education department, don't give enough weighting for the difficulty of the harder course when grading it. This leads to this common situation where as a fairly smart student you are faced with a choice.
Take the easy course which you know you will get 100% on most tests without any trouble and get a very high grade at the end. This also has the added bonus of not needing to study so frees up time to concentrate on other subjects.
OR
Take the hard course and get average overall marks (you do get a markup on your final score but it isn't enough to match what you could have got by doing really well in the easy course) and learn something new. If you are going to go to university it will also mean you won't be behind on maths from the start.
So given these choices which would you take ? Its a individuals choice but for most people in high school thinking goes about as far as 'How can I have the most free time on the weekend to go out and party?' So naturally there are less and less people every year taking the hard maths courses. In my final year of high school I chose the hard maths course, along with 4 other people out of maybe 100 to 120 people and from what I've heard the story isn't much different at many other Australian high schools.
I have news for you--ever since test scores became The Holy Grail of modern education, schools have been gaming the system to the detriment of their pupils to look good.
I know someone (who will remain nameless, hence the AC) who teaches in the Chicago public school system. Their principle actively counselled parents of the brightest students NOT to send their children to "gifted" programs at larger magnet schools, instead leaving them in the local schools. The principle claimed the magnet schools were "so competetive" and it would hurt the children. Of course, the real reason is to keep local test scores up.
This is the system we built, and what it rewards. To be honest, people who really care about the kids on an individual level are at a disadvantage, are less likely to get advanced, and are more likely to get fired, then the ones who game the system. It's a classic "you get what you measure for" problem.
Oh, yeah. The principle described above just took a lucrative position writing education policy in Washington, DC. One of the primary reason was the principle's strong track record.
My middle school had two different 8th grade classes. An advanced, and regular math. I wanted to get into the advanced math, but there was not enough teachers to teach it. Ok, fine. But during high school the only way to take calculus as a senior was if you took precalc in as a junior, which required advanced math as a sophomore, etc. So what I did was I took precalc during my junior summer at a local college so I could take calculus the next year in high school, my grades weren't great, but I passed. But the school didn't take the credit, regardless of grade. So I had to take precalc... again as a senior. Hilariously, I retook precalc in college for a better grade. I am now a college graduate with a degree in... yep, mathematics. And yes, I still know my trig identities. Plug: Anyone hiring? I also have a degree in CS which is worth its weight in iron. =]
US schools don't have to discourage kids from taking math- the students don't want to take it in the first place. American kids have to feel like they're good at something to be interested in it. So they can be good in english class because they know how to read/write and can memorize some grammar rules. Math doesn't come as easily, and the kids don't want to take the time to work at it. Once they get to high school, they think they're not good at math and don't want to take it for fear their gpa goes down and they can't get into college.
But geometry isn't very useful without trig unless you don't want any actual numbers. Sure, you can get clever, but you're still doing it the hard way.
And calculus is pretty much just a combination of algebra + geometry to which you add an understanding of limits via the fundamental theorem of calculus and voila, you can now integrate and differentiate.
Honestly, I wonder if we wouldn't benefit more from teaching folks the more powerful mathematical tools rather than the ones that show you how math was originally developed? I remember feeling like a lot of time had been wasted when they first taught us Laplace transforms after we spent so long learning old solution methods that worked on exactly one class of differential equation.
Not to mention all the other "minor" tricks that aren't really part of any one specific domain, like adding and subtracting two equal things written two different ways (yeah, you _think_ that's soooo obvious, and then you find out just how many variations of that stupid trick there are and how it saves you ridiculous amounts of work).
Or all the foreign professors who kept ragging on US mathematics because _they_ apparently learn things like differential forms way back in high school...
Whether this is good or bad depends on if students are being encouraged to drop math altogether, or merely to avoid taking advanced math courses. Let me explain.
/lot/ of calculus classes in my day. There's a consensus growing within the undergraduate math education community -- and very visible at my school -- that calculus is being pushed way, way too hard, at the cost of more important, basic math. In the US, one of the metrics used to evaluate high schools is how many AP exams their students take; it's in the school's advantage to toss kids into advanced classes whether they're ready or not. Kids muddle through a compressed algebra sequence by relying on their calculators, and then get to advanced placement calculus having no idea what they are doing.
I'm a fourth year math PhD student at a school with a top-notch engineering program, so I've taught a
The result is this: In our freshman calculus course for engineers, SEVENTY PERCENT of the students have taken a calculus course before. They are no better prepared -- and often worse off -- than the students who have never seen the material in their life. That senior calculus sequence was a waste of an entire year for most of these students. The problem is that they are taking calc before they are ready -- they have no command of basic algebra skills. Here's a nice example of a mistake we see all the time:
sqrt(a^2 + b^2) = a + b
This is a mistake that a high school sophomore shouldn't be making, much less a college freshman. It's too easy to teach these kids to pass a multiple-choice national calculus test without ensuring that they actually know what's going on, and if calculus is pushed at the expense of algebra skills that's exactly what will happen.
The point is, it's good that weaker students are being discouraged from taking calc. The course is a waste of their time, and it will ultimately hurt them in college. They should instead be taking more basic preparatory classes that will prepare them better.
... continue to develop our position of natural leadership in world sport, not just on-field but even more so in sports administration, sports medicine and sports media.
That's enough aspiration for twenty million who still run one of the world's great quarries as well as exporting vast quantities of naturally processed water from our already very dry land.
It's all still just bread and circuses and the margins are better in circuses.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
It's very important Americans get stupider so that they compete with Chinese and Mexican workers. Otherwise, we'll never get all those jobs back!
At least that what President Cheney says.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
This reminds me of the situation when I graduated High School. My best friend filled her schedule with all AP courses, had not study halls, etc. I took what I had to, AP courses that interested me (math and physics), and things like drafting and small engines, and made sure I always had a study hall.
:)
At the time in Wisconsin the top two students at each school got full state scholarships. According to the school she was ranked #2 and I was ranked #6, because the school weighted AP courses at 4.5 and gave you a higher ranking for more quantity of credits. Big surprise at the end of the year when the school let us know that the state ranked me #2 because it just went off straight grade point average. She had to give the salutatorian speech, but I got her scholarship from the state. Surprising she's still my friend
When I was in high school (2 years ago), we were required to take 2 math courses at least to get into a decent university. The year I graduated, they cut this requirement down to 1. Now they've restructured the math program to make it FAR simpler. Universities have also lowered their expectations, BUT the first-year math courses haven't lost any of the intensity they had when I entered. And, since students are less prepared to deal with this, they're dropping (out) like flies. Odd? Meh. One point of interest, the university I'm at won't take proper statistics in its first year. I wonder why?
I am in total agreement. I have always viewed the schooling I received, when I was younger, as brain exercise. It taught me two big lessons; how to think critically, and how to survive in a system.
Many US schools don't require any math programs at all. I, myself, took Symbolic Logic in place of a calculus course.
Income Inequality
In America, the top one-tenth of one percent of earners make about the same money per year collectively as the millions of Americans in the bottom fifty percent combined. This is putting a tight squeeze on the middle class, while leaving millions of others in the cold.
This week, David Brancaccio talks with Pulitzer prize-winning financial reporter David Cay Johnston, as well as author and advocate Beth Shulman about the state of our country's vast income divide and how it's hurting those just trying to make ends meet.
This is relevant to the main story in that education costs are rising AND even getting an education doesn't mean you'll be doing that much economically better than those who didn't.
I am in year 10 at Merewether high school in Newcastle this is a selective school.
The reason that students are encouraged not to do the top mathematics course at my school is a simple one. people who are not good enough to get through (most people but only a few at my school) tend to crash and burn as this subject tends to have not only your standard school maths but also higher maths. for example the prerequisite for computer science is either a minor in mathematics if you live in the ACT or Extension 1 maths if you live in NSW. Extension 1 maths is not even the difficult course, The Top course is extension 2 maths. "Mathematics" is a 120 hr/yr course "Extension 1 Mathematics" is 180 hr/yr course and "Extension 2 Mathematics" is a 240 hr/yr course. If you have one hour periods this equates to 4 , 6 or 8 periods respectively. most people move from SC (yr 10 mandatory) maths to either 2 or 3 unit maths as 4 unit is just such a hard course. (note 4 unit maths is only offered in Yr 12.
While I understand how some students do not have interests in math and therefore don't want to take it, but I have a problem when schools are encouraging them to drop those classes. The kids do it to have a better GPA and the schools do it so their average GPA is higher. There is something wrong there. I disagree with a grading system in general (this is not because I fail, in fact I got all A's). The purpose of schools is to educate kids. The purpose of education is make sure that we have all the knowledge necessary is succeed in life. Grade school education is supposed to give students general knowledge so that they may choose to specialize in whatever they want. Encouraging kids to take "easy" classes just so they and the school has a higher GPA is just a way of the school getting profit. It seems that greed and ambition is invading even our schools. Schools, like churches, shouldn't be made or run to garner a profit but rather to teach in whatever they are supposed to.
Curiosity is a cruel master. Not quite as bad as ignorance however.
As a teacher, I see this kind of sillyness happen once in a while...It's usually corrected quickly.
We used to hear about the students who took typing, home-ec, and homemaking to have a better chance at keeping all "A"s rather than trying to take calculus. The system fixed that by giving extra grade points for tougher classes.
I recall when students were discouraged from taking AP exams if they only had a 75% chance of passing, because the school got bonuses when more than 95% of the students taking the exams passed. These exams gave college credit to those who passed. I took a few AP classes in high school, but was told not to take the exams for college credit because I was failing spanish, even if my grades in the AP classes were high. (Mrs. Green's History class, 1993, Martin HS, Arlington, TX)
This will be corrected. There is one comodity that no school system has ever been short on - doo-gooding-beurocrats! There are probably a million of them flocking to the halls of the aussie parliment to correct this as we speak.
Andy Out!
And get the fuck off Kuro5hin while you're at it.
Aussie and the UK are not the only places that discourage complex study. When I lived in New Zealand the school actively discouraged studying math and indeed encouraged my daughter to take the hair dressing option. (As an aside I should mention that my daughter is now an economist with an economics masters degree) The 'dumbing down' schooling was one of the main reasons we decided to leave NZ for North America. Despite all the problems of NA there is at least an attempt here by certain schools to encourage higher educational aspirations. In NZ (or at least in Auckland) many kids were encouraged to leave school at 16.
The simple fact is that to get a high score in your TEE exams (which determines your TER, which determines which universities and what courses you're eligible for) you need to do well in four of a maximum six TEE subjects.
In theory then, in order to avoid having the students pick the easiest subject (for example, discrete mathematics rather than calculus, the former being the lowest level of TEE maths) all the scores are scaled up or down to some extent in order to compensate for the inherent (lack of) difficulty in some subjects. However, in practice, this scaling system gets abused to the point that it can reward students for picking easy subjects - it isn't just in the best interest of the schools for the students to pick the easier subjects. For example, a friend of mine, although recommended to do calculus, did discrete mathematics. That year, she scored highly (as is to be expected) in discrete mathematics, but was also scaled up far more than calculus students were.
Also, many Australian universities ask for only two of calculus, physics and chemistry for their technical courses. So effectively, not doing calculus means it's easier getting into university, with the possible side effect of having to complete an extra maths unit to catch up.
"I think they should take the same approach in this situation."
I'm an Aussie with two grown kids and a partner who selects students for a university degree in the state of Victoria. I can attest to the fact that your post describes the way the system works in Australia fairly accurately, the math to determine the final "score" is quite complex and the "score" cannot be determined before all year 12 students in the state have taken the test.
Truth is some people can't do math just like some people can't kick a football or paint a picture. To be able to do the "hard math" in the final year (year 12) the student must do the preparatory "hard math" in the preceding two years, if (as many do) they can't cope with the year 10-11 "hard math" I can understand why teachers suggest a less demanding course. It's the same as a kid who never practiced football but suddenly wants to be picked for the school's senior team, it's simply not going to happen that quickly.
Personally I dropped out of high school at 16 and ended up going to uni at about age 30, however having dropped out of HS I could not just waltz in as a mature age student, I had to do a year 12 math course by correspondence and sit the HS "hard math" test to meet the selection criteria (also it was a good way for the uni to see if I was serious).
A good high school "score" is important when you are young because it gives you an advantage over others entering the workforce/uni. It's basically societies reward for your efforts to complete the "grasshopper" stage. It's not a guide to "intelligence" or "wisdom" any more than a fat wallet is, and it's most definitely not a "make or break" moment that follows you around society for the rest of your life.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The most effective and deep learning (notice learning, not testing)is not measured with a multiple-guess test. Multiple-guess, at best can only measure lower levels of learning, basic facts, which is fine in some cases. But effective, deep learning has to be measured longitudinally, not in a snap-shot multiple guess. It must be evaluated with a variety of evaluation tools, most of which require much more effort by the students than filling in bubbles, and by the teachers much more than running scantrons through the machine.
Multiple-guess at best can only give a snap-shot of discrete, limited, factual knowledge. It doesn't measure "learning"
I find the entire concept of "raising school" scores disgusting. Discouraging students to NOT learn is antithetical to teaching. Teachers' professional role is teaching students, regardless of their scores and abilities. We should never stoop to "raising the esteem" of the school in the eyes of the public or the government.
Seeing as student prescriptions of amphetamines such as Ritalin are at an all-time high.
To be honest, I would rather have said I graduated from Dartmouth College than from Upper Canada Shlabotnick University.
A long time ago, I was going to a 'university' So was a friend. His parents always said "Ahh yess- our son attends Univeusattey".
When someone asked what I was doing, I just said simply "I'm going to school".
I was studying Physics- quantm mech, etc.. whats the point of elaboration?
My friend's parents quickly pointed out he was "deeply involved in sociological tautological fundamental crapological theory" or some such shit. The questioner nodded sagely.
So who gives a fuck.
I was graduated. He wasn't.
Face it- it's all BS. Until you face the HR recruiter guy...
.
- aqk
F U
If you don't take maths, you'll be livin' in a van down by the river!!!!
The game.
I'm currently doing the International Baccalaureate, which is an excellent program in almost all respect: very well rounded, academically stimulating and well received by universities. You have to take 6 subjects: 3 High Level and 3 Standard Level.
The course is great: except for its Maths component. Unlike other HL subject, where a student who is getting B+'s in year ten can do reasonably well in, HL Maths is insane. You have to be super-brilliant to do it. So this means that most semi-advanced students, like myself, can't do HL and get a decent grade.
So if I want to do a maths-heavy course at Uni, like engineering or physics, I'll need to take bridging course. Which is a shame.
kill all the fucking niggers
About 1970, I was advised not to take any more math courses because my grades were too low and they'd prevent me from getting into college (where I should study something that requires no math).
I took some math courses in college, but studied it a lot more on my own. By the time I finished my studies I'd developed multidimensional statistics based on continuous wavelet transform. I take pleasure in proving the counselor wrong who told me not to take math, but I take even more pleasure in knowing he doesn't have anywhere near the mathematical knowledge to understand how much more I know than he does.
Would you go to a doctor to find out what that noise is under your car's hood? Why listen to someone from outside of a field as to whether you should pursue it? Had a mathematician told me, I'd have been more likely to listen. But knowing me, not enough to do what he said.
I don't recall where I first heard it, but "I learned more in spite of school than I did from it."
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The Indiana Academy of Math, Science, and Humanities is a two-year public boarding high school that Indiana students can apply for and attend for the junior and senior years.
The school offers placement tests that will place juniors up to AP Calculus BC, and offers math classes beyond that. There are two or three juniors in multivariable calculus, and plenty of people in linear algebra and physics C (as their first physics course too). They also offer their own differential equations course. Most of their classes are taught be teachers with doctorates.
Students that go beyond that can easily take classes at Ball State University (I think one high schooler got past ODE before) because the Academy is on the Ball State campus. The Academy has the luxury of offering all this, and it's positively amazing for kids that actually want to achieve something.
Even assuming that they forgot, why don't they say [b := a] and then immediately see that their answer is patently wrong? Or by applying a geometrical equivalent - a triangle?
Yes. In the same way 'ads' is short for 'adsvert' and 'abs' is short for 'absdominal muscle'.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
..but why telling this, the larger half isn't listening anyway.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
After college, nothing makes sense ever again.
My dear fellow-
I am too old now to have any sense of shame. That is a prerogative of the young.
Mind you, I do still have troubling dreams involving either
an ex-wife or more mortifyingly, my mother, who died 30 years ago.
Gotta make sure I keep taking those meds!
.
- aqk
F U
California doesn't require 4 years of math to graduate from high school, or so my daughter claims. I told her California might not but I do!
A lot of students here in Malaysia like math at the high school levels because it's easier to get high grades.
With high school math it's pretty clear when you're right or not.
Whereas stuff like art is subjective, and same with stuff where you have to write essays/papers - where it can be a matter of taste whether you get an A or not.
My school, in Queensland, was the same. All of QLD schools were rated ona QCS/Average value. If they had more students doing Math C (higher level) and getting lower grades, it meant less than a Math A (easiest) getting a high grade. They didn't want students pulling down the schools over all rating. I definitely saw this over the last year when we were required to take QCS- Queensland Core Skills Test, to determine our OP (overall position), that allowed us to get into University.
the schools here drop large portions of the test scores to fudge the paperwork.
come to think of it, all government workers fudge the paperwork.
Most of America is just plain dishonest.
Damn my parents for teaching me ethics. They really get in the way of my success.
They're using their grammar skills there.
In *general* (not in *all* cases but in the majority of them) people tend to do whatever they have been given incentive to do. When you judge the success of a school by how many A's they give to their own students, you have given them just as much incentive to exercise statistical manipulation and practice grade inflation as you have to provide an education.
I believe that the people who test students, and the people who educate students, should be different people. The educators should not be able to rate their own success by giving whatever grades they please to their own students. Instead, the public school should only provide the education. Then, at the end of the year, the students are sent off to take some standardized tests which are graded by people who do not work for the school board, and who focus primarily on objective criteria.
Since the educators will no longer be able to determine the grades, and since the grades will still be used as a determination of the success of the educators, they now have to focus their efforts on the providence of a good education (rather than the grade inflation and what have you).
I think it would help. It would create its own set of problems (schools trying to expel special-needs students rather than help them, for example), so it is not a perfect solution. But I do think it would help.
But if you can "raise the esteem" of the school, you'll increase the funding that the school gets. That in turn will allow you to teach the children better.
Therefore to teach the children better, you _must_ stoop to "raising the esteem" of the school.
Call me cynical but if you don't learn math you can't see what a bad deal large home loans are. Australia has one of the highest personal debt in the world and most of it is because people think that borrowing 90% or more of the value of an oversized house at huge interest rates is a good idea. The less people that learn math the longer they can keep the whole scam rolling. (a cynic is what an idealist calls a realist - Sir Humphrey Appleby)
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
Westfield Sports High School in Fairfield, NSW, Australia requires students who select any mathematics course (not only upper levels) to take a preselection test. If a student isn't brilliant at maths, Westfield Sports High School will not let them enter a maths course.
I briefly read the article. The idea is to discourage certain high school students from taking a class which (a) they are likely to fail or at least do poorly, and (b) they will derive little or no benefit from, namely higher level mathematics. The key problem is how to determine if both (a) and (b) apply to a particular student.
Personally, I'd prefer it if first year science and engineering students knew something about matrices and complex numbers before they begin their university studies, but only if what they know is correct. It would also help students who need statistics.
On the other hand, it helps nobody if certain underprepared high school students struggle, crash and burn in higher mathematics.
So, maybe discourage those who fail ordinary level mathematics in Year 10 from taking higher mathematics in Year 11 and 12 (NSW system). But, maybe encourage others, especially those who keep on going with puzzles, maths competitions, etc. (ie. mathaholics, Parabola readers).
It's really amazing how if stupid people really work at it they can do the most amazingly stupid things.
That's all we need, a generation of people who can't read, write or add two numbers together. They will be completely usless. On the plus side, there McDonalds will be fully staffed but seeing as they cant count, would they know that?
I agree with you whole heartedly. As a teacher in the UK, the systems may be different but the problems are still the same. In the UK colleges are measured annually on the following things: Student Retention - that is % of students still enrolled at the end of the year compared to the start of the year. Student Achievement - that is % of retained students that passed. Success Rate - that is % of students that enrolled at the start of the year that passed. If a college runs a course which scores below a national benchmark for 3 years on the above stats below, they risk losing government funding for that course. The theory being that another college not too far away can run it better so they will get the money. The practical upshot is that these statistics become more important than teaching quality, student progress and learning real competence. Imagine the following situations, actually happening where I teach: Towards the end of the year a large % of students on a particular course have not completed all units successfully. This will result in scoring below the national benchmark. To counter this teachers recall students and virtually dictate essay content to their students in order to gather "evidence" that shows the students have passed. This is done under pressure from middle management and leads to teachers under great stress. It also leads to students having a qualification "on paper" which they have not earned and which indicates abilities and competences they do not have. This then has a knock on effect on any future employer accepting their qualification in good faith. This is just one symptom of results only based measuring. Anyone can skew the figures, but long term it is merely an exercise in gathering bad data. Other ways of measuring thje quality of education provided by a college are needed which will actually encourage real honest self analysis, rather than the facade that is currently built every year.
"When you are in a minority of one, the truth is the truth." Mahatma Gandhi.
This is clearly backwards. It's the schools that are doing poorly that need more money, not the schools that are already doing well.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
The unions will never allow merit-based pay. We need to move to private schools to improve the system.
Then you set up a moral hazard. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard ). A school would have the incentive to not improve, because improving would mean being punished with their funding being cut.
Fun fun.
Yeah, that's a very elementary mistake.
Even college freshmen should realize that sqrt(a^2 + b^2) is not an lvalue.
At an elementary district my aunt used to work at, it caused something of a scandal when auditors discovered that for years the schools had been prohibiting their "not so bright" students from taking standardized tests, so as to artificially boost their API numbers, win various awards, etc.
If you read Freakonomics (which isn't actually about Economics, but stats), the author shows how Chicago schools used stats to discover that a large number of their teachers were cheating on standardized tests -- they'd wait till the students when home, then erased and re-filled in correct answers for the students. Under statistical analysis, it would show up as a huge spike in year-to-year analysis of students' scores. Suspicious teachers were retested (well, their students were), while under adult supervision, so to speak, and the classes which suddenly fell back down to average numbers got new teachers the next year.
Public school leaves you dumber than a box of rocks. If you were lucky enough to go to a university you have a good education. You learn more in the last 4 years than all twelve of the others.
you cannot proceed from A to B without learning what is A. math is bloody systematic. so you have a student who flunked some basic staff. still our public schools don't let him/her to get a failing grade (there was an article in NY Times on that subject, a while ago). so the student move to the next grade, of course, can't comprehend what's going on. still move on, probably with the lowest passing grade possible, etc etc etc.
from my personal experience while doing volunteer math tutoring at CRLS (Cambridge Ringe Latin High). A girl, probably in 7-8th grade, needs a help with inequalities.
So I tell her that it is basically the same like equalities, except for a single value (or a single point) we now have a range of points (an interval). Show her a few equalities, and see completely blank look on her face.
Well, I write very simple equation, something like
x + 1 = 3,
and ask her to solve it. Again, a blank look on her face.
Well, now I tell her: x = 3-1. So what is x. Her face finally brightens up, she pulls down a calculator from her purse and computes 3-1.
I ask her: how about doing that computation without a calculator? She can't.
As far as I'm concerned, she is somewhere on the 1st grade math level. Yet I'm sure she'll finish school, probably getting the lowest passing grade on math. For her and her likes it is probably a good idea *not* to study math at all. She's lost. Hopelessly lost, and no tutoring will ever help. Period.
When I was in middle school, the "honors" math program (basic algebra exposure at an earlier age, etc., but I stress that it was very simple stuff) was used as a tool of oppression. Teachers picked favorites and sent them into the "honors" classes, which covers things that, in later discussions with foreigners, I discovered that other nations expose their children to at a younger ages. Meanwhile non-favorites were sent to slower classes, which basically never caught up. This was decided when kids were 11 or 12, but based on feedback from their teachers when they were 9 or 10.
I always figured that the fundamental error that these teachers made is that they thought that algebra was something that kids can't do at age 11 or 12. This is something I very much disagreed with at the time, and still do today. From there, it really did feel like teachers were targeting kids they didn't like, and deny them algebra as a means to keep them behind.
This is pretty stupid, if the US wants to feel like an intellectual superpower, yet intentionally leaves kids behind. As I said, later I got to know people from other countries, who told me about their childhood education. The math and science they were exposed to was more rigorous and started at an earlier age.
I guess the other thing that they didn't understand was that a child's mind is more fluid; children are shown to learn new skills faster than adults. Language, for example, is something we learn as children through pure intuition. It is incredibly difficult for an adult to learn a completely new language, and yet every child can be said to master one without any instruction. Why not, then, let children develop an intuition for mathematics by exposing them to it earlier?
Actually, it's not backwards, it's correct. And in fact, that's how we behave all the time. If a store has lousy customer service, people tend to stop going there and instead go somewhere else (all other aspects being equal). Thus poor service leads to less money until service improves. Stores that cannot provide good service go out of business. And for most industries, this competition works pretty well.
The corollary would seem to be that if we expect schools to serve their students well, we should provide a similar sort of environment. Some advocate privatized schooling, but you don't need to do that to apply the principle. Even public schools could be run in a system where parents get to pick their kid's school, and schools that lose too many students get shut down.
As always, the devil will be in the details, but it seems like a solid approach to me.
Cresswood [On the phone to Brian Hunter] - No Brian everything is under control. I've just ordered psychiatric evaluations on a couple of the key trouble makers. I can do what ever I like, it's my school, Commissioner. ...
Brian - Loretta what the hell is going on here?
Cresswood - It's the trouble makers. You can't run a top school with trouble makers in the mix.
Brian - Okay, so what exactly is a trouble maker?
Cresswood - Someone who has no interest in education.
Brian - Oh c'mon, that includes every teenager I know!
Cresswood - Can't you understand that nothing is more important than a good education?
Brian - Except for the basic right to it.
Cresswood - The point is I have the highest S.A.T. scores in the state.
Brian - Yeah but how?
Cresswood - I stand by my record.
If schools where competitive businesses rather than a socialized service, you'd be absolutely right. Unfortunately, if a school is providing poor service the students can't go anywhere else. They are legally obligated to go to school, and in many cases choosing another school is not feasible.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
but being from the Land Down Under (Where beer does flow, and so on...) I feel obliged to point out that this seems to be a very real and disturbing trend.
Whilst I'm long since done with school and not really bothered for myself, my (much) younger brother's school which shall remain nameless recently stopped offering the highest level VCE (Final year high school) maths subject. Due to a "lack of interest".
Interesting given that from what he's been saying at least 10-15 of just the people he knows were looking at doing it.
It wouldn't seem such a big deal, sure "just do the easier maths then", but having done that subject was when I graduated and, though to a lesser extent, still is a very strong factor (Prerequisite in some cases!) in getting into a number of "high-end" university courses...
You Americans speak English right? The correct shortening of Mathematics is MATHS. With an S. Math is not a word.
Students could learn math a lot faster if they recognize that God is at the center of mathematical consistency.
I'm not sure about this... You hear it all the time but really, it's a bit much to be saying they're not doing enough, looking at last year's figures: (from http://www.vtac.edu.au/pdf/scaling_report.pdf )
Key:
2006 Study Mean St. Dev. 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Mathematics:
Further Mathematics 27.55 6.8 18 22 27 32 38 44 50
Mathematical Methods 35.63 7.0 25 31 36 41 45 48 50
Specialist Mathematics 40.63 7.4 29 36 41 46 50 53 55
Numbers meaning score after scaling, from key at the top.
These are out of 50 so using these numbers, what you'd commonly regard as a borderline pass (25) in the highest level subject scales to a 36.
Where a 40 (Or ~80%, the entry level for top-level distinction at most universities here) in the lowest level subject scales back to a 38, leaving hardly any difference.
I don't see that you could reasonably push them any further than this either way, let's be honest, if you can't manage a pass with a reasonable amount of work then you probably should be in the lower levels. Yet giving more than a lower level subject's top end marks for a borderline pass would be just a little brutal...
Take the hard course and get average overall marks (you do get a markup on your final score but it isn't enough to match what you could have got by doing really well in the easy course) and learn something new. If you are going to go to university it will also mean you won't be behind on maths from the start.
This is even more dubious, yes you will be behind.
These subjects aren't only 'harder' or 'easier', the actual content being taught is almost totally different.
Any sort of real maths at a university level requires prior knowledge of topics that simply aren't taught in Further Maths and any sort of science or engineering degree will require a strong basis in a number of topics that only show up in Specialist.
That's even ignoring the fact that quite a number of university courses acknowledge this by simply requiring Methods or Specialist for entry. (Or offering substantially increased chances of entry for Specialist students)
It's far more than just a mark that's making the difference here.
FWIW, you say you only had 4 people in it and it seems common but that may be a recent thing or a Public/Private school gap. I'll admit it's been a few years since I graduated but we had 30+ students doing Specialist, all also in Methods plus quite a few more only in Methods, from a year level of just under 100 and the vast majority had very good results (40+) for both.
I believe it was 2 moderate classes of Specialist, 3 large ones of Methods and 1 very small class of Further.
In my experience, Junior high (grades 7-8) were the best predictor of how someone would do in college. Things start to change when you get older and start to find out your genetics are not as perfect as you would like.
Not trolling. Genuinely curious. I keep hearing people declaring the death of education, but nobody appears to have any solutions. Surely (taken en masse) the kids of today are no dumber (or smarter) than those of previous generations, yet public perception seems to imply that this generation cannot learn effectively. That's a scary proposition.
Another question: My parents taught overseas, where two year contracts are the norm. If somebody stinks, their contracts aren't renewed. Is there a problem with implementing something like this stateside? Again, just curious.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
I don't think a principal has that much power, so there must have been other reasons.
Did you take the matter up with the school board and/or the teachers' union?
What was the response?
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Come ON you homosexual deviants in Cupertino. QUIT FUCKING AROUND and update your fucking software every so often. You mincing faggots are worse than Debian....
Good. "Education science" is one of the worst frauds perpetrated on the public by colluding business, government, and academic interests. I have the profoundest respect for science, but "education science" is right down there with "parapsychology" for misappropriation of the science mantle, mixed with profound philosophical confusion and ignorance.
There is also another factor to consider. The quality of a school is effected not only by the quality of the teachers, but by the quality of the students.
In the UK, schools that are mostly populated by students from deprived backgrounds (e.g. missing fathers, long term unemployment, high crime etc.) tend to get the worst reports as schools.
To close a school is surely to transport at least a fair chunk of the reason for the closure to another nearby school, causing them to begin to struggle with results.
I don't think it is as clear cut as closing the school itself. If the school is doing badly because of teaching quality - sack the teachers and get new ones. If it doing badly because of poor resources - invest more money. If it is doing badly because of the culture the students bring with them from their home life - then will closing the school really solve the problem, or merely transport it elsewhere?
"When you are in a minority of one, the truth is the truth." Mahatma Gandhi.
I believe teaching Magic the Gathering in school would be a good way to get at least some more people interested in basic math. The beginners would use simple decks to master basic skills. Advanced students could handle complicated decks such as slivers. This would definately introduce X new ways to tackle math.
Unfortunately, some people would get mad at the teachers for using "fantasy/magic" in class and call them "Diabolic Tutors" or accuse them of spreading "Tendrils of Corruption".
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Chinese schools have been doing this for decades, and developed many methods to boost student scores in exams without actually boosting their knowledge or intelligence. No big deal though, all this does it to generate some Ph. D who can't find jobs.