Kids Have 'Math Anxiety' Thanks To Parents and Teachers, Report Finds (vice.com) 228
A new report out of the University of Cambridge studied the experiences of a total of 2,700 primary and secondary students in the UK and Italy and found that primary and secondary school girls had higher levels of both math anxiety and general anxiety than boys. "The study also focuses on how parents and teachers shape math performance and attitudes, perhaps without even realizing it," adds Motherboard. "In the same way that anxious parents can shape their children's anxiety, math-anxious mentors can shape how kids view their own math anxiety." From the report: The new study builds on previous research by highlighting the importance of teachers and parents' own math anxieties impacting students. Most students that the researchers talked to said that their anxiousness started when the math topics became more challenging, and they felt like they couldn't do them. Another reason the students' said they were struggling was because multiple teachers were teaching them math, and it became confusing across teaching styles. "Importantly -- and surprisingly -- this new research suggests that the majority of students experiencing maths anxiety have normal to high maths ability," Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said in a press release.
Several of the excerpts of the interviews conducted by researchers with math-anxious kids are heartbreaking: Many described feelings that they knew the answers but panicked, or tried to battle through initial confusion. One child, around 9 or 10 years old, said: "Once, I think it was the first day and he picked on me, and I just kind of burst into tears because everybody was staring at me and I didn't know the answer. Well I probably knew it but I hadn't thought it through." Another described doing a fractions test: "It means like enormously [nervous], and enormously means like massively... I felt very unwell and I was really scared and because my table's in the corner, I kind of just like tried to not be in the lesson."
Several of the excerpts of the interviews conducted by researchers with math-anxious kids are heartbreaking: Many described feelings that they knew the answers but panicked, or tried to battle through initial confusion. One child, around 9 or 10 years old, said: "Once, I think it was the first day and he picked on me, and I just kind of burst into tears because everybody was staring at me and I didn't know the answer. Well I probably knew it but I hadn't thought it through." Another described doing a fractions test: "It means like enormously [nervous], and enormously means like massively... I felt very unwell and I was really scared and because my table's in the corner, I kind of just like tried to not be in the lesson."
Anxiety for 1200 Alex (Score:3)
What is something we all felt in high school?
But, math anxiety? Wow. If it existed, I rather convincingly suspect it was in back of dozens of other, considerably more important at the moment, social concerns.
Re:Anxiety for 1200 Alex (Score:4, Insightful)
What is something we all felt in high school?
But, math anxiety? Wow. If it existed, I rather convincingly suspect it was in back of dozens of other, considerably more important at the moment, social concerns.
The anxiety is probably the enforcement of the ideological dictate that women are equal or better at math than males.
When proficiency in math is actually based on individual ability, not the person's genitals.
That doesn't matter to the idealogues, they attempt to force math proficiency on young ladies who may or may not have the individual traits.
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That moment when you're not sure if sarcasm may have already been implemented. We've already seen that hilarious video of the female university student insisting that science should study black magic as much as actual physics.
Your suggestion doesn't sound all that far fetched in comparison.
Are M&Ms involved? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Making math fun probably helps a lot. For some reason I remember a 3rd grade teacher that had us writing story problems. I just remember some of my classmates really getting into it and being creative in ways that may not be considered appropriate for 3rd-graders, but the teacher didn't care as long as we were doing the math and getting it right.
But whether it's that or M&Ms, I think showing the practical applications of math makes it more interesting and helps students grasp the concepts better.
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You're talking about arithmetic, not math. Arithmetic is to math as spelling is to composition. Roughly.
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The article talks about the case where "math topics became more challenging", which clearly excludes simple arithmetic.
Always refer back to the classics (Score:2)
Once, I think it was the first day and he picked on me, and I just kind of burst into tears because everybody was staring at me and I didn't know the answer.
Not quite the same thing [youtube.com] but there's no crying in Mathematics!
Music (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should listen to Death Metal while doing homework to reduce that anxiety...
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Wouldn't you rather listen to Fingerbang?
Not anymore, (Score:2)
New math (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of it is because of constantly changing the way students are taught to do math. Especially as their parents cannot help them if they don't understand. I learned math in the 60s and 70s. There was nothing wrong with the way we were taught, and students today should be taught the same way! A couple of years ago a friend's grandchildren were trying to learn division. Their teacher was having them try to do it some weird and torturous way. I showed them how I learned to do long division, and they remarked how much easier it was than the method that they were being taught.
I know that these days everyone has a phone, tablet or a computer with a calculator program. That does not help if the person does not know how to properly formulate the problem.
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The math hasn't actually changed.
And the reason the parents can't help is that they don't actually do that sort of math as an adult.
If a parent can't read the book and understand it right away, they shouldn't even be trying to "help." Math is something that has to be exactly correct to be correct, you can't half-remember something from decades ago and start saying, "oh yeah, I know how to do that..."
Re:New math (Score:4, Insightful)
The algorithm they're teaching *IS* different. It is substantially different and it is more confusing than what they were teaching when I was in school.
For example, they INSIST that to do 8+5 in the second grade, the kid MUST decompose it into 8+3+2, 8+2 = 10, 10+3=13. Decomposing it into 5+5+3 is WRONG, simply remembering that 8+5 is 13 is WRONG.
If the 5 doesn't have two lines coming down at roughly a 45 degree angle with a 2 and a 3 at the other endpoints and a circle around the 8 and the 2, it is WRONG.
Damnit, now I hear the teacher in the wall yelling "WROOOOOng, do it AGAIN!".
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This, right here. Exactly what concept are you claiming isn't gotten here? If you can count you know 100% of the underlying concepts in addition, every single time, without a requirement for a proof. You aren't introducing anything new by breaking it into smaller pieces.
A lack of comprehension of the underlying concepts of basic arithmetic isn't an issue for most anyone without brain damage and with an IQ over 80.
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Hell if you are going to insist they expand the problems at least expand in a useful way. 2 + 3 becomes 2+2+1. 10 + 3 = 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1. At least that would teach them to reduce problems in a way that provides ready translation to computation.
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I have a second grader. There was one week where they did practice grouping things into tens, and for that exercise grouping into tens was a requirement. The rest of the time it's just regular addition, as far as I've seen. At this point she's into two-digit word problems, and just lines them up and does the arithmetic like normal. Also, I've never seen anything with lines and circles the way you describe.
There could be any number of reasons for this and I don't know the answer. It could be different distri
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It could also be a good teacher that knows that isn't working and so went back to the tried and true.
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My daughter was doing ratios (I think in 5th grade?), and I couldn't understand the method she was taught. I taught her to cross multiply and solve the really basic algebra equation. She completed the assignment, I double-checked the answers and they were correct. Turns it in, zero for a grade because "she didn't follow the correct procedure." Teacher didn't even believe she did it, so had her do several problems on the board, which she did. "Well, sorry that's not the right way to do it."
I'm all for easier or just different ways to do things, but arriving algorithmic-ally at a correct answer should NEVER be "wrong."
If I was a teacher and my 10 year old pupil turned in homework using a different method than the one I'd taught, the options are (a) they're a child prodigy or (b) someone did their homework for them. I know which I'd assume first.
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If I was a teacher and my 10 year old pupil turned in homework using a different method than the one I'd taught, the options are (a) they're a child prodigy or (b) someone did their homework for them. I know which I'd assume first.
There's also option (c) they learned another method from someone else.
But then you would have to acknowledge that schools aren't the only possible source of knowledge that exists.
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I'm all for easier or just different ways to do things, but arriving algorithmic-ally at a correct answer should NEVER be "wrong."
I agree. It should never be wrong, but it might not fully meet the objective of the assignment. If the point was to learn an alternative method to do the same thing, then partial credit should be given. For things like arithmetic, if they have learned any method to reliably get the correct answer, I think it should count for 75% or more. No need to overly penalize kids when they inevitably "don't get" one of the methods as long as they understand at least one method well enough to get the right answer.
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OF COURSE I'm talking about arithmetic, the kids learning this are in the 2nd grade! I'm sure not going to insist they learn algebra before they learn to add 2 digit numbers successfully. But note that the educators call this "math" and that's the word they teach to the kids.
And I'm not exaggerating. I wish I was.
As for you, I suggest going back a couple grades further and learning how to interact with people without sounding like a braying ass.
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I think it's perfectly reasonable to memorize the table for single digit additions. I have no idea where you got 8+13 from.
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And the reason the parents can't help is that they don't actually do that sort of math as an adult.
This is probably true. I've forgotten most of the higher math I learned in college simply because I never really had to use it in my career. I would hope I would be able to help most students who haven't yet graduated high school. I'd probably have to read the textbook if they were in calculus or maybe even advanced algebra.
Then again, I've seen people in restaurants pull tiny cards out of their wallets so they could figure out how much to tip. Nowadays, there are apps for that. And some of those peopl
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That isn't because they don't know how, it is because they are too lazy to actually work it out and too out of practice to quickly calculate it.
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Maybe ten years after I graduated I found that the first years were doing noticeably harder integrals than I did at the same point. There's a pattern: students actually do progress further and faster these days than the good old days some of us like to brag about.
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I learned long division, but it's not been very useful in later life. Far more useful is the ability to estimate the answer so that I know when I use the calculate that the result looks right. Of course just through repetition I can do a lot of divisions in my head without much effort anyway.
I don't know what the modern technique for teaching division is but as someone who does a fair bit of maths for work I find this, and a good understanding of algebra, to be far more useful in everyday life. Maybe we sho
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You must be confused somehow. Long division in the '70s certainly didn't attempt to resolve the least significant digit first. How the hell would you even do that and why?
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Nor the 80's or 90's.
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He must have confused division with addition, after all the symbols are nearly the same, aren't they.
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"Its not really a very useful skill to learn though."
It is useful because doing long division helps you to actually understand how division works.
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Still don't see the point of getting kids to memorise and perform division algorithms at school.
Think of it as introduction to algorithms if you must. It's basic literacy, a accessory to actual math as opposed to arithmetic. I would not want to drive over a bridge designed by an engineer who couldn't do long division.
That isn't "math anxiety." (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual math anxiety stems wholly from the fact that any sane person would be anxious if you told them you were going to force them to practice various riffs on elementary algebra for twelve years and call it "math."
Re:That isn't "math anxiety." (Score:4, Interesting)
We did set theory (and hence elementary logic) in elementary school. Probably the mart that was most useful to me later. A few years later they dropped it because it was "too hard". I never noticed that, I think this was purely the adults projecting.
Set theory (Score:3, Informative)
In Argentina, during the last right wing, US backed, dictatorship set theory was also removed from elementary school.
The reasoning was (translation is mine) that it 'promotes the Soviet idea of the collective, and of grouping as an indispensable relationship in problem solving'. I wonder how much of red scare factor was behind the similar move in the US.
Huh? (Score:2)
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Contextual anxiety related to social settings.
Actual "math anxiety" that isn't just mislabeled social anxiety would be something you feel when doing math. That isn't what is described. What is described is anxiety that is related to being in math class, especially, being called on and having the class focus on them, or the pressure of taking a math test. And it seems to affect students who are good at math the most, which makes perfect sense for social anxiety, but not for math anxiety.
People who are good a
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So, stop calling on kids in class. Simple.
Re: Huh? (Score:2)
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various riffs on elementary algebra
I suspect that you don't know what elementary algebra actually is. [wikipedia.org]
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Maths is often singled out because it's so important, one of the basic skills you need to learn lots of other stuff successfully. It's widely seen as both difficult and something that people have an innate aptitude for, and conversely an innate ineptitude for too.
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My daughter will be entering High school next year. She's above grade level in Math and doing well. The High School has an excellent teacher that teaches a geometry class - it's about euclid's postulates and how you can use them in geometric proofs. It starts with a handful of postulates and shows how to do a proof step by step. The big deal is apparently putting in the time to learn the postulates and then get the knack of churning out the proofs
Many kids find it hard, in part because it is a different kin
More testing (Score:3)
Allow the really smart to enter the more advanced math classes.
Put the average and well below average into math classes with math set to their ability.
The best students get to college on merit and ability.
The average and well below average get to study math they can understand.
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Its stops all non academic considerations.
Pass the same text under the same conditions and anyone smart wealthy/on a full scholarship gets in.
Wealth would just offer no loan, no need for a scholarship. Approval would still need a great result on the same exam.
The same academic ability would be needed.
Within a generation the USA would have the best students in the world again.
No more non academic considerations for college.
Sport? Get a
Well, math anxiety... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's long been known that when kids are learning math:
* They have family who generally have had bad experiences when they learned math.
* They have teachers in their early years without the interest, ability, or confidence to teach math
The message comes across loud and and clear - math is hard/confusing/not for mere mortals.
Re: Well, math anxiety... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's true for any subject that isn't predominantly just talking about shit. Any topic with objective measurements of success and failure is cause for anxiety from those who can't do it. Other subjects you can bullshit through, parrot a few sentances, and your teacher can subjectively pass you. As soon as there I an objective measure, you have kids who are objectively failures.
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It's not objectivity. After all, middle school history is still a lot of date memorizations. And science too. ?The problem is a lot of teachers struggled with math specifically. And so did a lot of parents. Hell, compare the social reactions you get from "I am illiterate" and "I never understood algebra"
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Maths and "talky" subjects are more similar than you think.
At least back when I was at school you had to show your working in maths. If you didn't you couldn't get half the marks on the exam, you had to demonstrate you were using an appropriate method to solve the problem.
Same with English Literature. No good just parroting the notes for that Tom Hardy novel, you had to demonstrate some grasp of the techniques used to tell stories and explain how the different elements were constructed.
Part of the reason fo
Re:Well, math anxiety... (Score:4, Informative)
That explains why I liked math as a kid.
My parents were both naturally good at math but in college one was an art major the other philosophy. They both took extra math and science classes as electives. So they had a confident but relaxed attitude towards math.
And on the last day of 1st grade, they put a bunch of surplus math worksheets from grades 2-4 out on a table, for students who wanted to take home something to look at over the summer. I took one of each home and completed them by myself, so the teachers didn't have a chance to taint me before I could figure out that it is actually all very simple, just following steps in order.
It took years of awful teaching for me to start hating math class, but I was never confused about it; I always knew I liked the math, just not the class!
Collect the dumb kids together (Score:5, Interesting)
The pacing of math is wrong for the vast majority of kids. Many are bored to death, just as many are confused and barely skating through. But our math education is all laid out on a rigid timeline. We need to not just get of rid of the idea of grades (4th grade math is a stupid concept), but we also need to actively collect dumb students and smart students into their own groups early on.
Math education should simply be standardized tests that you can take when you feel ready. Any other form of grading or advancement will inevitably lead to a poor education for the majority of the students.
Great, except that wouldn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
We do not structure our classes the way we do because they are the most effective for learning. We do it so the most kids can be reached per staffing dollar. Your class format would simply be unteachable. Kids often need help and explanations for each topic. Non-mathy kids (most) struggle with texts. If you personalize lessons to each kid, then you would need an incredible amount of teachers. Maybe as a society if we truly valued education, we could afford this. The bald truth is we do not. So, we don't.
In private schools, they do what really works which is have smaller, homogenous classes of about 10-14. This is good because students really do learn well from talking to each other. You can also read body language and give fast help as needed. This type of intervention is probably closest to what the OP meant.
The seriously bad mistake that has been introduced into the class since you have been in school is the idea of differentiated learning. Some genius had the idea it is more important to make kids feel good instead of actually teaching them at their level. So, math classes are no longer tracked in any meaningful way until late junior high. All kids of all ability levels are in the same room. The teacher is supposed to come up with lessons to reach all students. Which means you have to cater to less strong students. The average students quickly learn to play dumb so they get less work or at least easier stuff. The brighter kids just get bored.
The one year I was in this system, I had honors kids mixed with special ed. It was not effective for anyone. The thing is, the special needs kid could learn math, but you had to go slower and re-explain. If he was with similar ability, then he could have advanced well. Since he was outclassed by most of his peers, he felt like a bother, which made it harder to reach him because he did not want his friends to get impatient. I truly loathe the administrators who came up with this scheme. It was so frustrating.
The best solution is to probably reduce class sizes to levels like private schools. Sadly, I do not foresee this happening. The other factor is that the U.S. spends more per student than any one else. What you might have never heard is that more than a lion's share of that funding goes into administration. So, even if you offer more, it won't go to the kids. If we want change, we need to change the culture of the schools and how they are ran. I am very pessimistic about such a change because there is way to much money being made by way to many. That sort of corruption is hard to conquer.
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Wish I had mod points.
Re: Great, except that wouldn't work (Score:3)
Those resources are only limited because we waste so much on things like intramural sports and teaching world history to 2nd graders. Of course it requires more resources to apply private school style math education to all students, but at the same time everyone keeps claiming that math is super important to anyone operating in the modern world. We need to put our money where our mouths are.
And to be clear, I'm not suggesting we don't teach the kids and just wait for them to learn an pass on their own. Like
There's no dumb or smart from what I've seen (Score:3)
Wishy Washy Rationalizations (Score:2)
Re:Wishy Washy Rationalizations (Score:4, Insightful)
Subjective emotions are important. Ultimately, the reason things like computers and technology are good is because they make people happy.
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But ultimately, that's not the reason they work.
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because the kids are learning math differently (circles and lines everywhere, aka 'common core') than their parents did...
90% of people complaining about "Common Core" don't even know what it is. It is mostly just normal math, and understanding "circles and lines" is a very important part of math. Math is more than just arithmetic.
Re:perhaps kids are like this in the u.s. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know at least how they want people to do addition, and it's crap. Arithmetic needs no circles and lines. It is an algorithmic process.
They attempt to teach the kids mental shortcuts before they even know the long way, and that's why it fails. Worse, they teach the shortcut wrong.
And the nonsense about marking a useful thought process that arrives logically at the correct answer wrong because it's not the official holy thought process is wrong headed in the extreme.
Educators are constantly harping on parental involvement, but then they shove parents out of it by insisting on their odd approach to math where not only do the parents have no idea what the teacher wants to see for an answer, but if they start from scratch and teach THEIR child how to do arithmetic "the old way", the child will flunk even if he never produces an incorrect answer.
Why WOULDN'T that produce anxiety?
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Arithmetic needs no circles and lines. It is an algorithmic process.
You can approach it algorithmically and end up being able to get the right answer without understanding, or you can approach it algebraically and learn concepts that will be essential later.
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God I hated that, mom and dad basically grounded me till I got them memorized, but once I did, it stuck with me for life.
When doing anything math related to multiplying, I don't have to sit and think usually, I just know the answer.
Is the new math (some people are calling Comon Core?) methods not using any rote memorization and ways of teaching that seemed perfectly effecti
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The idea is to teach the algorithm. The child gets to see that it works and gets a sense of accomplishment. Then they learn why and how it works. Then they learn how to do it faster.
That seems a lot more likely to work than hiding the algorithm behind a mysterious process that ALSO gets memorized without understanding, and then expecting a connection to magically happen.
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Arithmetic is not more than just arithmetic.
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I was impressed to find my kid being taught something about symmetry in grade 5, something they may return to if they ever get to advanced physics.
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What is the difference?
Way back in the dark ages when I was in school....they were synonymous terms.....?
Re:perhaps kids are like this in the u.s. (Score:4, Insightful)
I tried to understand the results of Common Core but I can't find any data to determine if it's helping....or if it's just different.
The answer most likely is "neither". It isn't helping much because it isn't different. Common Core is just a standardization of normal math education.
It's too polarizing of a topic to get non-biased data about as far as I can tell.
The polarization is mostly from idiots who have no idea what Common Core is.
Most of the anti-CC kooks on the right think Common Core comes from the UN or the Federal government. It doesn't.
Most of the anti-CC kooks on the left think Common Core means teach-to-the-test, and disempowers teachers. It doesn't. CC doesn't specify any particular tests, and it was designed by teachers.
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I have actually watched simple math problems being solved the common core way. It's cuckoo. Adding the common core way doesn't teach concepts because you need to be able to add BEFORE you can really get the concepts.
If THAT is just standardizing how they've already been teaching math (apparently after my time), it's no damned wonder there's so many people who can't do arithmetic if their battery goes dead.
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I have actually watched simple math problems being solved the common core way. It's cuckoo.
Got any links? Common core is a US thing, so I don't really have a clue about it. I dont even really know how maths is taught in my own country any more since its been a bery long time since I've been in the primary or secondary education systems.
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Best bet, go to youtube, search on common core math. You'll get pages of relevant videos.
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It makes sense once you are already comfortable with doing the arithmetic, it does not make sense when you are just learning to do the arithmetic in the first place.
Re:perhaps kids are like this in the u.s. (Score:5, Informative)
It looks crazy because of four reasons:
1) You didn't grow up with it, and it's really unfamiliar to you.
2) More than likely, you've seen a bit of the middle, but not the fundamentals necessary to get there.
3) What you think is being taught is likely not what's being taught.
4) The teacher teaching it didn't grow up with it either, and may not be all that good at teaching it.
To the third point, where we learned one thing by rote learning, kids now are instead learning several methodological skills that accomplish the same thing, but which can later extend into higher order math. Rote learning doesn't provide that foundation. We look at them and say, "Why the hell are they making multiplication so fucking difficult?" In reality, they're not teaching multiplication, at least not the way we learned it. Entwined in what they're teaching are some linear algebra concepts and some matrix math.
Instead of doing rote memorization of times tables, they're teaching the process to multiply any numbers together. What's really confusing is that they're doing this at the point in school where we all just memorized the times tables up to maybe 12x12. If you don't understand that what they're teaching is fundamentally different than what you were taught, yeah, it looks crazy if you're expecting those kids to be memorizing what 8 * 6 is. That's not what they're doing.
"Why not just teach multiplication?" It's a valid question, but that presumes how we were taught multiplication is the best way. We really learned most of our math by brute forcing it all on rote memory. As that's our muscle memory, it seems to us that that's the easiest path forward. When we got to linear algebra and some of the higher order math, for a lot of us it was the same "new concepts, smash until understand" process that we learned in our earlier math classes. The idea with this new way of teaching math is to dispatch with all of that, and instead build in methods and processes from the beginning that can be leveraged in later math classes.
Fundamentally, it's pretty damn sound. Unfortunately, we're living in the first generation of a new way to do mathematics, and dealing with that sometimes rocky transition.
To the last point, I think that the next generation of math teachers will likely do a much better job teaching it, because they grew up with it. But it's a chicken and egg problem - kids can't learn a new way to do math if the teachers don't teach it, and the teachers can't teach it until they learn it. Unfortunately a whole lot of teachers haven't really learned it yet, in part because of the same cogitative dissonance we experience when looking at it. It's going to be a generation or two until math teachers are good at it, and unfortunately we're the ones that are suffering through it in the mean time.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here but I suppose it doesn't create anxiety because this is regarding anxiety in girls in the uk and italy, not the us.
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Your comment makes me think of its opposite number in the UN cooling technology thread that claimed all liberals want a return a pre-industrial hunamity because NAAAATUUUUREEEE MAN.
Its of course ridiculous. That's not even what a majority of liberals think. That's a vocal fringe group.
And your comment is exactly the same but flipped the other way around.
No, most people who criticize common core do not think its some crazy UN conspiracy. Most people who criticize common core do so because it is a very stra
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Usually people are talking about arithmetic. You can't do arithmetic without knowing what you are doing. For that stuff you are better off just being a human calculator.
Re:Not my daughter. (Score:5, Insightful)
Girls can definitely do math. However, it seems like its more socially acceptable for them to brag about how they're bad at it. Maybe that's the real problem here.
Re:Not my daughter. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's more socially acceptable for girls to give up or never try at all. Doing so does not hurt their social status or dating chances.
Girls are born valuable and they know it. Boys have to earn their place and they know it too.
Just look for the "neckbeard" or "incel" comments as proof. What is the female version of those two terms? They don't exist, because no woman is without value.
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Just look for the "neckbeard" or "incel" comments as proof. What is the female version of those two terms?
Crazy cat lady?
(Then again, its almost orthogonal to most of what's being discussed here.)
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Just look for the "neckbeard" or "incel" comments as proof. What is the female version of those two terms? They don't exist
"incel" was a term coined by a woman about herself.
It was co-opted by a very nasty, woman hating movement who have thoroughly poisoned the term. A comunity I suspect you're a part of because one of its defining attributes is pretending women have no troubles in anything at all ever.
Despite the whole thing being started by a woman.
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Just look for the "neckbeard" or "incel" comments as proof. What is the female version of those two terms? They don't exist
"incel" was a term coined by a woman about herself.
It was co-opted by a very nasty, woman hating movement who have thoroughly poisoned the term. A comunity I suspect you're a part of because one of its defining attributes is pretending women have no troubles in anything at all ever.
Despite the whole thing being started by a woman.
That may be how the word was initially used, but language evolves quickly. The only time I see people use the term incel is to insult men who have a differing view about a topic that mainly concerns women. Granted, most of the people being called incel appear to be assholes, but I don't think I've ever seen it applied to a woman in a derogatory way.
The 'world' is urban dictionary? What about BBC? (Score:3, Informative)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
Seriously, Wikipedia is a site where everyone posts what they think with little oversight but UD it's a joke site, that doesn't even try to be a serious definition.
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You want to present Urban Dictionary (or any crowd-written internet site) as an authoritative information source? Ahahahaha....
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Of internet slang terms? Sure.
Further, it is language, its definition is common usage. Sure they are cheekily phrased but consistently exactly the opposite of what the GP suggested, as is all usage of the term I've seen here (the only place I see anyone using this term).
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Girls can definitely do math. However, it seems like its more socially acceptable for them to brag about how they're bad at it. Maybe that's the real problem here.
Females who can do math can do math. There is an important and critical distinction there.
In out time of flexible everything, from gender to claims that anyone can be anything they desire if they only try hard enough - the article is kind of correct - parents and teachers are causing a problem.
But this problem is going the wrong way. The poor young ladies brought to tears are perhaps not good at math. Not everyone is. Not all people with penises are good at math either.
And it is not necessarily the
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5 in AP Calculus
Ah, a failing grade, then.
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Well, you could use more is a) the selection was better and b) there was more real-world connection.
Re: Math is stupid & useless. (Score:2)
Liberal agenda? I think it would be news to most that people like the Rockefellers were liberals.
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Well, the Rockefellers were never socialists, to be sure. But "Rockefeller Republicans" is (or at least used to be) shorthand for the liberal wing of the Republican party.
Re: Math is stupid & useless. (Score:2)
Perhaps, but that's more of a semantic argument, as liberal today means something quite different from what it meant during the Gilded Age. The modern parallel is libertarian.
Re: Arithmetic (Score:2)
When did you unilaterally decide arithmetic was no longer a branch of mathematics?
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When did simple arithmetic become mathematics?
In ancient Greek, "mathema" meant knowledge or learning.
"Mathematikos" meant a person who is fond of learning.
From there it became the Latin "mathematica," and then Old French "mathematique."
It became "mathematics" in the late 16th century when it was borrowed by English from the French.
Unfortunately, I didn't find any Minoan references that would hint at where the Greeks got the word. The roots are definitely deeper than stated.
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This 'nerd' is associated with everything considered smart.
That explains why you're an arsesmart farmer.
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This 'nerd' is associated with everything considered smart.
That explains why you're an arsesmart farmer.
arsesmart? I have questions.
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Or maybe we need to start emphasizing actual valuable skills and achievements like math and disparaging clowns chasing pointless pursuits with no purpose like their "social image."