Reply to Math competitions for Mathematically Gifted kid (7 year old)

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "Math competitions for Mathematically Gifted kid (7 year old)"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I agree there is natural talent when it comes to the top performers. But it’s like 90% practice and persistence and preparation (AKA tiger mom element) and then among those kids who do this best the amount of natural talent will then separate the 1st place national winner from the 2nd place etc. These kids (like top basketball players) are practicing the most. Hours and hours a day. That’s at least 90% of the equation.

But. Big but. This is concerning contest math. Which is different than actual math. [/quote]

I kind of agree.  For mathcounts nationals, there's maybe a pool of 2000 kids who have the math aptitude to end up in the top 50.  Kids below that aren't going to be able to practice or tiger mom their way into that elite group.  But among those 2000 kids, the difference maker between making the top 50 and not doing so will be who is practicing the most.  I would guess that there are many non-Asian kids among that 2000 who don't think practicing hours per day for mathcounts is a valuable use of their time.

Contest math is different than actual math to some degree.  I have yet to encounter a kid who excelled at contest math who wasn't also excelling at actual math.  I have encountered many kids who excel at actual math but perform poorly at contests.  Those top 50 kids in Mathcounts are almost certainly taking calculus or beyond as 8th graders and have breezed through regular school math.  [/quote]

There are over 3 million 8th graders in the United States. You really think only 2000 kids have the math ability to compete at national level in math? I would say more like 20,000 8th graders have the math ability if not more. I mean surely the top .001 percentile math kids could compete if they put in the hours of practice.  But a very small percentage of those that can actually put in the hours and hours and hours a day to be competitive. I also think the nature of math counts, for example, makes speed a real factor which isn’t favoring the deep thinking kids.

Back to the argument at hand. I think when you see Asians dominate a contest it’s because of tiger parenting. Its not meant to offend. It’s just become the shorthand for parents pushing their kids to excel academically by lots and lots of practice. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it! I don’t recall anyone on this thread bashing it. The argument made was that some kids just love math. But only some parents think that a love of math means you have to sign up for math class and study for math contests. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics