Reply to Should I send my kids to mathnasium?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The US turns out a good number of Engineers, Doctors, Architects, hell all sorts of people in jobs requiring advanced math. I would guess the vast majority of those focus did not attend centers like Mathnasium or do Beast Academy.

Families should do what they feel is best for their kids but this notion that math in the US is awful is silly. No, we don’t use a system of education similar to the ones found through out Asia. Heck, the IB program is meant to be similar to the European system. And yet lots of kids take advanced math in high school and go into math related fields. Most are not drilling on math outside of school.

OP: Your kid is not behind. He is where he should be. Ask him if he wants to spend 2-5 hours a week outside of school doing math at a math center. If he says yes, have at it. I would be shocked if he said yes. Otherwise, he is where he should be and the “advanced” kids are where they are because they are studying math as an extra curricular to get ahead.

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These engineers, doctors and architects are not who they are thanks to US. They are who they are thanks to who they are, if you know what I mean, and not because of anything the US does. The US is not capable of offering good basic education to all. Keep bragging about the top performers who we all know would be fine even when they never set foot to a school.
In fact, the school probably does get in the way of their education.
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I grew up in an Irish Catholic community. I know a good number of Doctors and Engineers who attended the same school I did. I promise you they did not go to math programs after school. I attended Graduate school and earned a PhD with a math based programs. Three quarters of my classmates where non-Asian and did just fine solving and developing Game Theoretic Models.

No offense, but there are plenty of US born kids attending Engineering and Medical schools who were not taking Algebra at a tutoring center in fifth or sixth grade.

Anecdotally, one of my co-workers is Korean and her kids did go to math programs and Korean school and TJ. None of them are using that STEM in their jobs. My co-worker flat out said the kids didn’t want to go to TJ but they provided incentives so the kids did. All that money, time and effort and her kids are not using those skills.

I asked my co-worker why the emphasized math they way they did and she said that is what everyone in her neighborhood did so that is what she did. She wanted the best for her kids. Her kids had great success in a competitive environment but it wasn’t because they were interested.

I fully get that there are kids who love math and learning, my DH and son are both in that category.  We play math games, have robotics stuff at the house, and do summer workbooks. I have asked my son if he wants to  take additional math classes and he thought I was crazy. He likes playing at the park, playing sports, building with his blocks/marble runs/legos and other things. He will be just fine. 
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