The education system is falling behind the students
bitoftech.mkronline.com
bitoftech.mkronline.com
The problem with math, at least in the US, is it tends to be taught by people who really don't understand it themselves, so it becomes an ugly, mechanized process. I remember asking one of my early hs math teachers if it was possible for something infinite to be larger than something else infinite. She just sort of smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Almost a decade later I learned about the cardinality of infinite sets and was finally able to answer my question. The sad thing is that if my hs math teach has said 'well let me show you something...' it would have taken me far less than a decade to not only get my answer but also become fascinated with mathematics.
Finally, the more I've learned and studied the more I've come to see that just about anything interesting you want to do is almost always improved by a solid mathematical understanding of the world. And not just a superficial understanding, but a deep meaningful sense of the mathematical principles that can describe the world around us.
I was introduced to this my Freshman year in college. I remember thinking "this is absolutely amazing - why didn't anybody tell me about this before?" That sense was shared by every one my classmates, who - universally - felt robbed by their 9-12 education.
To this day I remain angry about the utter mediocrity of math education that strips the work of any sense of historical context, the sequence by which one branch emerged from another, the causes of these developments, and the sense of aesthetic delight that comes from discovering what amounts to new and increasingly powerful uses of human reasoning.
At the same time, I felt deeply fortunate that I got the education I did, realizing how far from the norm it is. I also realize that if you DO have to explain why something is important, it's probably because your audience has lost the story's thread. They've stopped seeing the subject from the inside out, and are just going through the motions to pass the test, get the grade, and move on a.s.a.p. The highly fragmented nature of contemporary curriculum design not only increases the chances of this happening, it virtually guarantees disengagement.
The OP is right to observe that people who truly learn do so in spite of the system, not because of it.
a) Math books offered in Borders/Barnes and Nobles invariably have titles like 'Math for dummies', 'Math made easy', "even you can do math' etc. The content seems excessively shallow and diluted by huge amounts of infographics. b) I believe the key to writing a good math textbooks is having a good feel for 'pregnant pauses'. Good textbooks have problems and prose that deliberately make the user confront their doubts and then shove them into the pregnant pause, out of which the reader emerges joyful at seeing the entire picture. I believe that writing with such mastery requires experience and skill that is not common. c) I believe that in specialised subjects you are better off writing for the benefit of the motivated reader because everyone else will rarely be applying the contents of the textbook in real life. d) By overly simplifying things you rob readers of one of the true joys of mathematics - figuring out a problem that they consider difficult. Unless the reader is addicted to this joy they will find most meaningful real world problems too perplexing to solve.
In short I wish we had more concise and thought provoking textbooks.
Here is what Feynman had to say about textbooks: http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
I think school education keep us away from the real, real enjoyment of beauty, real work that creates real value for the people we love.
Something like Khan Academy with more contributors and formats.
And the fact that you stop there is why the education system still sucks.
So by emphasizing the english portion of education over more sciences we'd only get more of the same crap at the expense of students who DO want to gain formal education in the sciences. Kids don't see the connection between the education and the practical nature of the knowledge they're fed. Stupid is as stupid does.
I was a gung-ho math/science kid. I pulled 95% in my classes of choice and low 60's in the english classes because I refused to participate in the circle-jerk discussion that was english 30. "Now class can you tell me where the foreshadowing is?", "what was the meaning of this poem?". I'm certain I could have pulled out better marks with the effort but I decided my time in classes was better spent doodling. Having more of my time pushed towards english courses and away from the sciences I'd be hard pressed to say that I'd be half the engineer I am today without it. Hell, too much of that 65% crap and I probably wouldn't have gotten the post-secondary education at all.
Provide the tools children need to make formal decisions about their future and provide the fundamentals they need to get there. You can tell which kids are going to be working with their hands or with their heads pretty early so help them get where they want. Everyone needs a fundamental level of communication but over-emphasising it instead of something more practical to the child will only put us full circle to where we are now but with "sciences" and "english" reversed in the discussion.
As an example, he talked about how he would deduct points from his students if they misspelled a science term or forgot a period. Over time, this reinforced the idea that they need to be concerned with spelling and grammar not just in their English class, but all the time.
Disclaimer: He teaches in a district with a high population of ESL students, so communication is a constant topic for them.
Making sure all mathematicians and physicists are able to respond to someone outside their field when challenged will help fix that.
Yeah, guys like Bill did amazing things compared to those bozos that just took their highschool's computer programming course in the 1970s.
I dunno. I'm a physicist, and a lot of people tell me "I hate physics" when I tell them what I do. I think K-12 is doing more harm than good.
When I tell most people that I'm a computer programmer, I get blank stares because they just don't have any concept of what it entails. It's completely magic to them and I usually end up describing it as analyzing business problems and translating those requirements into software, but they still don't have a clue as to the actual mechanics of programming since they've never been exposed to it in real life. That, or they ask me if I could take a look at their router and then I have to explain "that's not what I do".
It's probably a "grass is always greener" situation, but I'd often enjoy being able to relate my career to average people who share a minimal amount of common understanding, even if it's just to tell me they hate it. I don't expect education to make people like a subject.