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A Mathematician's Lament — an Indictment of US Math Education
Scott Aaronson recently had "A Mathematician's Lament" [PDF], Paul Lockhardt's indictment of K-12 math education in the US, pointed out to him and takes some time to examine the finer points. "Lockhardt says pretty much everything I've wanted to say about this subject since the age of twelve, and does so with the thunderous rage of an Old Testament prophet. If you like math, and more so if you think you don't like math, I implore you to read his essay with every atom of my being. Which is not to say I don't have a few quibbles [...] In the end, Lockhardt's lament is subversive, angry, and radical ... but if you know anything about math and anything about K-12 'education' (at least in the United States), I defy you to read and find a single sentence that isn't permeated, suffused, soaked, and encrusted with truth."
From what I can tell, they all look to be the same length and size and hopefully are not older revisions of this paper.
My work here is dung.
I myself have gone through the US school system starting at grade 7 (lived in Switzerland and The Netherlands before then), I am currently in uni for a software engineering degree. While I have read only part of the article (the blog post) I wanted to post my experience compared to that of my cousin who went through school in The Netherlands.
Math at the schools I went to was catered to the lowest common denominator, the slowest person in the class, the person who would just not get it got the most attention and the rest of the class was stuck at that level until that person tagged along and finally got moving. Whereas in Europe and other places they place those students in various levels of math dependent on their skill level so that those that don't need the extra time are able to get to the higher level maths faster. This creates a gap between the math that is considered required at age 18 in the US and The Netherlands. My cousin was going for a degree in hotel management and food preparation (chef). He at the age of 18 had a better understanding of math, and had more knowledge of high level math (Linear Algebra, Calculus and others) than I did when I graduated High School, and the classes he were in were considered the slower less demanding classes since it was not as much of a requirement for the degree he was going to be pursuing.
This is the same with a lot of the classes though, history, english, and science classes. Especially for English, you don't get to think for yourself anymore, you have to follow exactly what the teacher told you. If the teacher says this is important for this reason, and you attempt to argue it differently in a paper you fail, everyone coming out of high school has been passed through a cookie cutter, there is no innovation left, there is no real thinking for oneself anymore.
It is sad, and the state the US educational system is currently in will not allow it to compete in the global market, it will not allow it to be innovate and provide new ideas, but what it will provide is people who are like sheep and are more than willing to follow the crowd and just do it because everyone does. These people will be easy to govern and control since they won't ask questions and least of all will they rebel and fight for their beliefs. In other words, the US education system as it currently stands is making zombies.
cat
For instance the ancient mayans used shapes for numbers, instead of 1, 2, 3
Psst! The numerals "1", "2", and "3" are shapes too!
F***in' indocentrists...
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Wow. Way to fail at correcting the parent. He was completely right, which is actually an aberration as far as my experience goes :( A queue is a line. If you cue someone or something, you give them the signal to start. So, cuing the other subjects is appropriate.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Before you troll and bash "fundamentalists" with no proof you should read a few books on why education in the US is in the state we now see.
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America By Charlotte Iserbyt
An Underground History of Education by John Gatto
Or read the Dodd Report to the Reece Committee which investigated Tax Free Foundations in the early 1950's.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
http://www.danicamckellar.com/
I can't believe Summer Glau is the chick geeks are hot after. Danica is Hot, has her name on a physic theorem, mathematician, and has written math books for girls.
Her acting career is full of geek as well.
Not to say either one of them is a geek, just that I scratch my head over why geeks prefer Summer.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on