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How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement
Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
Maths are simply not lovable
Unless we bring back lynch mobs.
Those were the days.
My thinking exactly....as soon as someone starts earning 7+ figures, is on TV, gets endorsment money from calculator companies, and all the chicks they can handle, then people will start migrating to and excelling at mathematics in droves.
Trouble is, you don't generally get famous and rich solving derivatives.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A good example calculus problem would be:
:)
"Johnny is staggering home from a party but has to urinate. The parabolic arc of his piss-stream can be modelled by the equation 3t-16t^2. If Johnny's weenie is three feet higher than the ground, then how far will he pee? how long will it take for his piss to hit the sidewalk? What is the velocity of his piss be when it hits the ground? "
Make a textbook with similar examples and its 120-dollar price tag will be fully justified
Hell, I'm only an elitist because I'm better than most people. :-)
Drop the tech the test system
What does technology have to do with education tests?
Bill Gates is considered by many (of the non-programming crowd) to be the biggest nerd/genius in this respect.
So true. Of course, to most of us real nerds the guy is one of the biggest assholes on the planet in every other respect.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...that math teachers despise calculators, and not just the ones that can do symbolic algebra. My current math prof (college algebra) had to resort to lying in his syllabus to get people to not drop the class the instant they found out they don't even get a 4-function on the 3 tests that make up their grade.
You want to get people interested in math again? Stop fucking everyone by forcing them to do FOURTY 3-equation quadratic systems AND forcing them to do it using a given method instead of whatever mathematically functional one gets the correct answer AND without a calculator AND without the formula written down somewhere.
Rote memorization does not produce anything but an arrogant fool that thinks because he can solve some things quickly without a calculator because he's memorized them, and who will make many mistakes in life because he can't admit that he doesn't actually KNOW what he's doing.
Start rewarding the students that can figure out how to solve something they're unfamiliar with by figuring it out on their own, reward the kids that find new and more efficient ways of solving things, reward the people who when confronted with an evil little problem pull the answer out of their ass and verify it's right. Don't reward people for learning the theme to fucking gilligans island and solve 20 quadratics with it before getting stumped on the one problem that isn't just some outright copy of something they've already done.
And get rid of the goddamn gordon rule requirement for math classes for people going into majors like law and english.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
That's male bias in the problem set. Toss in some female anatomy also to even it out:
Sallies breasts jiggle at a rate of 1.3 times per second when the temperature is 82 degrees and at a rate of 1.6 times per second when the temperature is 55 degrees. Assuming the jiggle rate is linear to temperature, what is her jiggle rate at 72 degrees?
Table-ized A.I.
Actually you could perform a first-order approximation for the weenie-tip by using a sinusoidal oscillator and get a probability density of where it will hit and the expectation values for velocity, how far, how long, etc.
I dunno, that example has something of an Emily Dickinson flavor to it. She may be teaching the next Robert Grenier or Aram Saroyan.