Why is Math the Super Accelerated Subject?

[Anonymous]

Math achievement in the US is lagging behind its peers. And math education is the path to STEM careers. I am not sure what we need to do. But most countries have HS kids at advanced math levels if they plan to pursue STEM. They are also better at math than the average American student. This is true whether you are talking about a country like S Korea ir Finland who have very different educational philosophies. It is evident when you go into a graduate school class where you have a reasonable number of international students - they were just better prepared. So no, we can’t drop math acceleration because it would hurt us as a country. But we need more on ramps than just through acceleration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Math is rules-based and therefore can be crammed.

2) Sophisticated written expression often depends on reading at an advanced level. Including archaic and ponderous books that are no longer mainstream. This is very time consuming and modern culture works against finding the time for it.

3) Jobs that involve more math in the job (or just higher math level attainment) tend to pay better so there's a reinforcement loop there.

4) Math is still associated with men doing well/specializing in it. So it has a little bit of patriarchal halo.

5) Calculus has evolved into an agreed component of the selective college application arms race. I believe sheer AP count is an equivalent phenomenon.

lol typical low IQ trying to justify not being good at math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Math achievement in the US is lagging behind its peers. And math education is the path to STEM careers. I am not sure what we need to do. But most countries have HS kids at advanced math levels if they plan to pursue STEM. They are also better at math than the average American student. This is true whether you are talking about a country like S Korea ir Finland who have very different educational philosophies. It is evident when you go into a graduate school class where you have a reasonable number of international students - they were just better prepared. So no, we can’t drop math acceleration because it would hurt us as a country. But we need more on ramps than just through acceleration.

Liping Ma wrote a fantastic book “Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics” that I highly recommend for anyone interested in the subject. It is a fascinating comparison of American and Chinese teaching approaches. It’s been years since I read it, but as I recall she found that American teachers tend to have a more superficial knowledge level of math and focus on teaching the methods, while Chinese teachers may look at elementary math on a deeper level (not necessarily more advanced), but focusing on the underlying concepts and considering how they connect to each other.

[Anonymous]

Math and Humanities are both accelerated now a days but the Humanities requires more to get meaningfully further ahead.

Math is linear, rules based and the concepts build upon one another to be easily explainable and understood. If I teach you 2+2, once you grasp the concept, understanding 3+3 is easy. Similarly, I can breakdown 2x2 back to its addition. This continues all through math. Meaning once you grasp the concept you can solve the problems teachers place in front of you. The challenge comes into applying the math in unsolved problems or using it in other fields to explain the info in a universal way(ie Science).

Humanities on the other hand(say English or History) requires a greater body of knowledge. It requires understanding of diverse languages, cultures, history, nuance. The mechanics of certain writing styles can be taught but the understanding comes from consuming more information including experiences in life. It’s the same reason you can read Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies in 8th grade but if you read it again or thought about it at 30 it takes on different meaning (or at least you understand it with greater depth).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Math and Humanities are both accelerated now a days but the Humanities requires more to get meaningfully further ahead.

Math is linear, rules based and the concepts build upon one another to be easily explainable and understood. If I teach you 2+2, once you grasp the concept, understanding 3+3 is easy. Similarly, I can breakdown 2x2 back to its addition. This continues all through math. Meaning once you grasp the concept you can solve the problems teachers place in front of you. The challenge comes into applying the math in unsolved problems or using it in other fields to explain the info in a universal way(ie Science).

Humanities on the other hand(say English or History) requires a greater body of knowledge. It requires understanding of diverse languages, cultures, history, nuance. The mechanics of certain writing styles can be taught but the understanding comes from consuming more information including experiences in life. It’s the same reason you can read Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies in 8th grade but if you read it again or thought about it at 30 it takes on different meaning (or at least you understand it with greater depth).

Spoken like a true "I am not a math" person. Really, that is what you think of math?

Both math and humanities can be learned and practiced at a much deeper level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in AP Calc BC in 10th grade. If there was an accelerated pathway for writing, she'd take it. But she can't, because the electives aren't any better than AP Lang and AP Lit (taken respectively in 11th and 12th), so there's no point. The English curriculum in MCPS is really bad. Thank goodness she reads and writes for pleasure, at home. She's in all AP classes for other things like APUSH and AP Physics C. All of it is easy for her.

Math is the one discipline where logical and critical thinking skills are all you need. Maturity and social skills are not needed. If you think about it for half a second, you'll recognize that all other disciplines need some basic level of understanding of human relationships. Very young, immature people can do very well in math. It's truly for anyone with the patience to cogitate.

This is why math, above any other subject, has been prized by scholars over the centuries of human civilization.

This is a very weird take. Math has definitely not been prized over other disciplines. It is currently the only discipline kids are allowed to accelerate in public schools because we have dumbed down the rest of the subjects, but the dumber-downers are not actually smart enough to dumb down math. they try by blocking advanced course work but that is all they can do.

Unfortunately, they are.

For instance, some schools no longer offer a direct path to Calc BC, forcing students to take a (yearlong) Calc AB first instead. They've also watered down Precalculus (can you say "AP Precalculus" - a reduced curriculum, with 25% optional and thus not taught.) The teaching methods are short on practice, devoid of anything remotely challenging that requires students to think, and full of crap like "talk to your partner about this function." It doesn't help when talented students (who say take Precalc in 9th grade) are put in the same class with math delayers who take Precalc in 12th. Traditionally homework intensive courses like Algebra I/H and Geometry H are now such that students work on a much reduced workload and are allowed to finish their work in class. Calculators are encouraged as early as the 4th week of Algebra I. Participation in any kind of math contests (AMC8/10/12, MK, Mathcounts) is pretty much infinitesimal in terms of student population.

I've seen this all first hand, and it requires a constant fight with teachers and administration as well as substantial work at home (AoPS) to ensure that our child has a chance to get the education I did where I grew up.

[Anonymous]

Race to nowhere.

The path for extreme acceleration (>2 years) should have a very high bar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading and writing at a sophisticated level requires life experience that children haven't lived long enough to attain.

Wrong. Many children are exceptionally bright and sophisticated in their reading comprehension and are absolutely ready to engage with more sophisticated material. Some kids excel early in math... others excel early in language arts.

My kids are like this, precocious early readers with spongelike brains, and you are still wrong. To truly comprehend books that include topics like romantic relationships, parental angst, teenage hormones, rape, mental illness, war, jobs stress, or whose drama is based on societal unwritten rules a kid wouldn't know about, etc., all with subtle clues you "get" because you know about it already, literary references to other books they haven't had time in life to read yet, etc., you have to have lived longer than 13 years.

Books are given age ranges, not because they are 'difficult' or 'easy' to read, but because they are gauged to the life experience of the reader; some things being explained more or less explicitly as the the child grows into the topic. For every book there is a time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:US is behind many countries in K-12 math education. Learning Calculus BC in 11th grade is considered accelerated here in the US but is merely normal in many part of the world. In contrast, differences in other, non-math subjects aren't so noticeable between US and those countries.

Do all children in those parts of the world take calculus in 11th grade? Or have some kids already been weeded out of the academic life by age 15-18? Which country has every child in compulsory high school taking a BC level Calc at age 16-17?

When you really start to look into this, you learn that people who claim every kid in high school takes calculus in 11th grade are leaving out that only 30% of students get to go to high school at all. So, the apples to apples question is: do 30% of students at your kid's school take Calc BC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading and writing at a sophisticated level requires life experience that children haven't lived long enough to attain.

Wrong. Many children are exceptionally bright and sophisticated in their reading comprehension and are absolutely ready to engage with more sophisticated material. Some kids excel early in math... others excel early in language arts.

My kids are like this, precocious early readers with spongelike brains, and you are still wrong. To truly comprehend books that include topics like romantic relationships, parental angst, teenage hormones, rape, mental illness, war, jobs stress, or whose drama is based on societal unwritten rules a kid wouldn't know about, etc., all with subtle clues you "get" because you know about it already, literary references to other books they haven't had time in life to read yet, etc., you have to have lived longer than 13 years.

Books are given age ranges, not because they are 'difficult' or 'easy' to read, but because they are gauged to the life experience of the reader; some things being explained more or less explicitly as the the child grows into the topic. For every book there is a time.

Who said that acceleration in humanities means that the kids have to “truly comprehend”? I do think you are underselling the kids’ ability to engage with literature and history on a deep level - but more importantly, the humanities also involve learning SKILLS and accumulating knowledge. Spelling, grammar, research methods, writing style, historical facts - all content and skills that many kids could be much more accelerated in learning. Just because your 13 year old is not weeping over Shakespeare doesn’t mean they should not receive rigorous humanities instruction. Moreover how do you think kids are going to build a body of knowledge of literature if you limit them to dumbed down “age appropriate” books? At 14 - 16 I was reading TS Elliot, Robert Heinlein, Dostoyevsky, Willa Cather, some for school and some on my own. Teens are totally ready to handle serious themes and drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in AP Calc BC in 10th grade. If there was an accelerated pathway for writing, she'd take it. But she can't, because the electives aren't any better than AP Lang and AP Lit (taken respectively in 11th and 12th), so there's no point. The English curriculum in MCPS is really bad. Thank goodness she reads and writes for pleasure, at home. She's in all AP classes for other things like APUSH and AP Physics C. All of it is easy for her.

Math is the one discipline where logical and critical thinking skills are all you need. Maturity and social skills are not needed. If you think about it for half a second, you'll recognize that all other disciplines need some basic level of understanding of human relationships. Very young, immature people can do very well in math. It's truly for anyone with the patience to cogitate.

This is why math, above any other subject, has been prized by scholars over the centuries of human civilization.

This is a very weird take. Math has definitely not been prized over other disciplines. It is currently the only discipline kids are allowed to accelerate in public schools because we have dumbed down the rest of the subjects, but the dumber-downers are not actually smart enough to dumb down math. they try by blocking advanced course work but that is all they can do.

Unfortunately, they are.

For instance, some schools no longer offer a direct path to Calc BC, forcing students to take a (yearlong) Calc AB first instead. They've also watered down Precalculus (can you say "AP Precalculus" - a reduced curriculum, with 25% optional and thus not taught.) The teaching methods are short on practice, devoid of anything remotely challenging that requires students to think, and full of crap like "talk to your partner about this function." It doesn't help when talented students (who say take Precalc in 9th grade) are put in the same class with math delayers who take Precalc in 12th. Traditionally homework intensive courses like Algebra I/H and Geometry H are now such that students work on a much reduced workload and are allowed to finish their work in class. Calculators are encouraged as early as the 4th week of Algebra I. Participation in any kind of math contests (AMC8/10/12, MK, Mathcounts) is pretty much infinitesimal in terms of student population.

I've seen this all first hand, and it requires a constant fight with teachers and administration as well as substantial work at home (AoPS) to ensure that our child has a chance to get the education I did where I grew up.

Ugh sorry to hear that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading and writing at a sophisticated level requires life experience that children haven't lived long enough to attain.

Wrong. Many children are exceptionally bright and sophisticated in their reading comprehension and are absolutely ready to engage with more sophisticated material. Some kids excel early in math... others excel early in language arts.

My kids are like this, precocious early readers with spongelike brains, and you are still wrong. To truly comprehend books that include topics like romantic relationships, parental angst, teenage hormones, rape, mental illness, war, jobs stress, or whose drama is based on societal unwritten rules a kid wouldn't know about, etc., all with subtle clues you "get" because you know about it already, literary references to other books they haven't had time in life to read yet, etc., you have to have lived longer than 13 years.

Books are given age ranges, not because they are 'difficult' or 'easy' to read, but because they are gauged to the life experience of the reader; some things being explained more or less explicitly as the the child grows into the topic. For every book there is a time.

Who said that acceleration in humanities means that the kids have to “truly comprehend”? I do think you are underselling the kids’ ability to engage with literature and history on a deep level - but more importantly, the humanities also involve learning SKILLS and accumulating knowledge. Spelling, grammar, research methods, writing style, historical facts - all content and skills that many kids could be much more accelerated in learning. Just because your 13 year old is not weeping over Shakespeare doesn’t mean they should not receive rigorous humanities instruction. Moreover how do you think kids are going to build a body of knowledge of literature if you limit them to dumbed down “age appropriate” books? At 14 - 16 I was reading TS Elliot, Robert Heinlein, Dostoyevsky, Willa Cather, some for school and some on my own. Teens are totally ready to handle serious themes and drama.

So, older than 13, as I said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading and writing at a sophisticated level requires life experience that children haven't lived long enough to attain.

Wrong. Many children are exceptionally bright and sophisticated in their reading comprehension and are absolutely ready to engage with more sophisticated material. Some kids excel early in math... others excel early in language arts.

My kids are like this, precocious early readers with spongelike brains, and you are still wrong. To truly comprehend books that include topics like romantic relationships, parental angst, teenage hormones, rape, mental illness, war, jobs stress, or whose drama is based on societal unwritten rules a kid wouldn't know about, etc., all with subtle clues you "get" because you know about it already, literary references to other books they haven't had time in life to read yet, etc., you have to have lived longer than 13 years.

Books are given age ranges, not because they are 'difficult' or 'easy' to read, but because they are gauged to the life experience of the reader; some things being explained more or less explicitly as the the child grows into the topic. For every book there is a time.

Who said that acceleration in humanities means that the kids have to “truly comprehend”? I do think you are underselling the kids’ ability to engage with literature and history on a deep level - but more importantly, the humanities also involve learning SKILLS and accumulating knowledge. Spelling, grammar, research methods, writing style, historical facts - all content and skills that many kids could be much more accelerated in learning. Just because your 13 year old is not weeping over Shakespeare doesn’t mean they should not receive rigorous humanities instruction. Moreover how do you think kids are going to build a body of knowledge of literature if you limit them to dumbed down “age appropriate” books? At 14 - 16 I was reading TS Elliot, Robert Heinlein, Dostoyevsky, Willa Cather, some for school and some on my own. Teens are totally ready to handle serious themes and drama.

The authors you list are standard for many high schools. How is that accelerated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in AP Calc BC in 10th grade. If there was an accelerated pathway for writing, she'd take it. But she can't, because the electives aren't any better than AP Lang and AP Lit (taken respectively in 11th and 12th), so there's no point. The English curriculum in MCPS is really bad. Thank goodness she reads and writes for pleasure, at home. She's in all AP classes for other things like APUSH and AP Physics C. All of it is easy for her.

Math is the one discipline where logical and critical thinking skills are all you need. Maturity and social skills are not needed. If you think about it for half a second, you'll recognize that all other disciplines need some basic level of understanding of human relationships. Very young, immature people can do very well in math. It's truly for anyone with the patience to cogitate.

This is why math, above any other subject, has been prized by scholars over the centuries of human civilization.

This is a very weird take. Math has definitely not been prized over other disciplines. It is currently the only discipline kids are allowed to accelerate in public schools because we have dumbed down the rest of the subjects, but the dumber-downers are not actually smart enough to dumb down math. they try by blocking advanced course work but that is all they can do.

Unfortunately, they are.

For instance, some schools no longer offer a direct path to Calc BC, forcing students to take a (yearlong) Calc AB first instead. They've also watered down Precalculus (can you say "AP Precalculus" - a reduced curriculum, with 25% optional and thus not taught.) The teaching methods are short on practice, devoid of anything remotely challenging that requires students to think, and full of crap like "talk to your partner about this function." It doesn't help when talented students (who say take Precalc in 9th grade) are put in the same class with math delayers who take Precalc in 12th. Traditionally homework intensive courses like Algebra I/H and Geometry H are now such that students work on a much reduced workload and are allowed to finish their work in class. Calculators are encouraged as early as the 4th week of Algebra I. Participation in any kind of math contests (AMC8/10/12, MK, Mathcounts) is pretty much infinitesimal in terms of student population.

I've seen this all first hand, and it requires a constant fight with teachers and administration as well as substantial work at home (AoPS) to ensure that our child has a chance to get the education I did where I grew up.

I don’t really see the necessity of rushing students into Calc BC. DS’s school requires AB then BC, and the students come out very very strong in calculus and problem solving. If you’re going into physics or engineering, being able to take complex integrals quickly saves so much time on problem sets and makes it so when you have upper div courses you don’t have those “oh crap, what’s the integration by parts equation again?” moments.

Most stem students have no concept as to how important lessons in Taylor expansion, for example, are, so slowing it down actually is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math and Humanities are both accelerated now a days but the Humanities requires more to get meaningfully further ahead.

Math is linear, rules based and the concepts build upon one another to be easily explainable and understood. If I teach you 2+2, once you grasp the concept, understanding 3+3 is easy. Similarly, I can breakdown 2x2 back to its addition. This continues all through math. Meaning once you grasp the concept you can solve the problems teachers place in front of you. The challenge comes into applying the math in unsolved problems or using it in other fields to explain the info in a universal way(ie Science).

Humanities on the other hand(say English or History) requires a greater body of knowledge. It requires understanding of diverse languages, cultures, history, nuance. The mechanics of certain writing styles can be taught but the understanding comes from consuming more information including experiences in life. It’s the same reason you can read Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies in 8th grade but if you read it again or thought about it at 30 it takes on different meaning (or at least you understand it with greater depth).

Spoken like a true "I am not a math" person. Really, that is what you think of math?

Both math and humanities can be learned and practiced at a much deeper level.

Advanced practice of math at a deeper level is largely conducted outside of K-12 education. Community college classes don't really count.