Bigotry of low expectations: San Fransisco's decision to delay algebra to 9th grade backfires

[pbrower2a]

The fundamental problem is still the way math is taught and not the students.

I am a teacher so I have a lot of insight.

The problem is, modern education doesn't focus on basic math skills. Children are expected to master basic math skills at a young age and continue to move on to more advanced skills. But children who grew up in poverty are less likely to master basic math skills. Than they get to high school expected to do algebra and calculus, but can't do basic math.

I think we need to drastically reform education away from the classical renessiance type of education. Most people don't need algebra, but would benefit from mastering basic math skills. And learning more practical math concepts like taxes, economic data, data managment in the workplace, starting a business etc.

Here's my understanding: most people never ue algebra, geometry, or trigonometry in their vocational lives, but these studies make one more adept at abstract thought. Attorneys need only basic math on the job, but fleibilit of mind is desirable in both.


Without question, nobody should go into algebra before having mastered basic math. Without that algebra is a farce. Far too many American youth graduate from high school without having mastered basic math. This said, such kids have not failed to learn basic math because they have been 'rushed' into algebra. Geometry turns out to be the course whose sucess is the sharpest divider between college and non-college youth.

Of course I see the Renaissance/Humanist approach to the obecties of education appropriate. These can improve a person who has the basics down pat. This is essential for getting youth to recognize that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"...and that such things as material indulgence, bureaucratic power, and display are both inadequate and expendale as objectives in life. 

Neoliberal economics, the norm so long as the most powerful people in America (plutocrats, corporate executives giant farmers, and slumlords) can still enforce the tenet that "he who owns the gold makes the rules" through their political choices. It depends upon cheap, submissive, scared people doing jobs that look dreadful to those who do not do them but in which the employerinsists upon a constant display of a theatrical smile that expresses love for capitalism at its harshest. The least successful students in K-12 education and those who make bad early choices in life will be stuckin such roles.

Some people are ready to do algebra in the seventh grade. Some are never ready.   

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

The fundamental problem is still the way math is taught and not the students.

I am a teacher so I have a lot of insight.

The problem is, modern education doesn't focus on basic math skills. Children are expected to master basic math skills at a young age and continue to move on to more advanced skills. But children who grew up in poverty are less likely to master basic math skills. Than they get to high school expected to do algebra and calculus, but can't do basic math.

I think we need to drastically reform education away from the classical renessiance type of education. Most people don't need algebra, but would benefit from mastering basic math skills. And learning more practical math concepts like taxes, economic data, data managment in the workplace, starting a business etc.

Here's my understanding: most people never ue algebra, geometry, or trigonometry in their vocational lives, but these studies make one more adept at abstract thought. Attorneys need only basic math on the job, but fleibilit of mind is desirable in both.


Without question, nobody should go into algebra before having mastered basic math. Without that algebra is a farce. Far too many American youth graduate from high school without having mastered basic math. This said, such kids have not failed to learn basic math because they have been 'rushed' into algebra. Geometry turns out to be the course whose sucess is the sharpest divider between college and non-college youth.

Of course I see the Renaissance/Humanist approach to the obecties of education appropriate. These can improve a person who has the basics down pat. This is essential for getting youth to recognize that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll"...and that such things as material indulgence, bureaucratic power, and display are both inadequate and expendale as objectives in life.  

Neoliberal economics, the norm so long as the most powerful people in America (plutocrats, corporate executives giant farmers, and slumlords) can still enforce the tenet that "he who owns the gold makes the rules" through their political choices. It depends upon cheap, submissive, scared people doing jobs that look dreadful to those who do not do them but in which the employerinsists upon a constant display of a theatrical smile that expresses love for capitalism at its harshest. The least successful students in K-12 education and those who make bad early choices in life will be stuckin such roles.

Some people are ready to do algebra in the seventh grade. Some are never ready.  

What actual evidence is there that these studies make one more adept at abstract thought?

Or, that only these studies make one more adept at abstract thought.

Or that one becomes more adept at abstract thought as the brain develops and it's purely coincidental that this math is taught right around the same time that the brain finishes developing.

Because the concrete harm of teaching these maths, especially in the abstract way that it is taught, is well established:
1.Higher levels of school drop outs caused solely by this math.

2.An inability to get into anything higher than community college for students who excel at everything other than this abstract math.

3.People who believe they are 'bad at math' when they actually almost certainly aren't.

I would probably have no problem with teaching of these maths if it were taught much more in the way that Paul Lockhart advocates rather than what the elite math snobs who control the curriculum have been mandating for decades (of course I'm sure that math teaching has changed at least a little since the 'new math.')

That is 'makes one adept at abstract thought' is the propaganda these elite math snobs have been using for the 50 or so years since the 'new math' debate.

[Open Source Intelligence]

The fundamental problem is still the way math is taught and not the students.

I am a teacher so I have a lot of insight.

The problem is, modern education doesn't focus on basic math skills. Children are expected to master basic math skills at a young age and continue to move on to more advanced skills. But children who grew up in poverty are less likely to master basic math skills. Than they get to high school expected to do algebra and calculus, but can't do basic math.

I think we need to drastically reform education away from the classical renessiance type of education. Most people don't need algebra, but would benefit from mastering basic math skills. And learning more practical math concepts like taxes, economic data, data managment in the workplace, starting a business etc.

If you can't do algebra I question how you could be able to do any of those things you state after. Kids do basic algebra in Kindergarten, or at least I did, you just don't recognize it as algebra. Asking a kid to fill in the triangle for 2 + triangle = 5 is algebra, it's just the x got replaced with the triangle. There's a simple game you can do online called Nerdle which is a math version of Wordle. My son is in first grade and loves doing it. Obviously I have to do the multiplication and division for him, but "I have this answer and I have this number over here, what do I fill in the middle with?" is algebra. If you can't do that, I question how you'll ever be able to do taxes. And I do my taxes every year and I believe being able to do your own taxes (not Turbotax does it, you do it) should be within the capabilities of every high school graduate.

The problem with:

But children who grew up in poverty are less likely to master basic math skills. Than they get to high school expected to do algebra and calculus, but can't do basic math.

...is that these kids don't understand core concepts but get promoted up the grades anyway in the school system because holding a kid back is considered horrible practice by modern school administrators. My wife's a middle school counselor and I've had this argument with her a few times. I was trained in Six Sigma unfortunately and "kid doesn't understand the basics well enough but we're moving him from 3rd grade to 4th grade anyway" is so "moving metal", where you don't do the process correctly at one station and instead of stopping it and fixing the problem there, you move it on to the next station stating to yourself "someone else's problem", where the next station then has to deal with the part that is not to print.