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0 pointscarapace6y ago0 comments

You've got me. I wish I could delete the comment, or at least edit it.

It's a bit worse than just having no experience teaching algebra, I didn't have the same experience as most kids trying to learn it. I was kind of a freak. I was the weird quiet kid in the back of the class who always knew the answer to every question. (Other kids tended to not like that, but I'm also very disarming (in person) and so I did alright.) One year, I was misplaced into a basic geometry class, and the teacher very kindly let me pick out some calculus textbooks and sit in the back of the class teaching myself calculus. (Some bureaucratic reason for why I couldn't transfer, or the calc classes were full, or we didn't have any, or something, I forget.) Learning math for me feels like remembering things I always knew.

So, yeah, maybe I should keep my mouth shut when it comes to teaching normal people how to do math.

Or maybe we should try to figure out what my brain is doing and how to teach people to do that too?

Maybe I have a normal brain and I'm just using it differently than most people?

I like that idea better, because then, instead of a freak, I'm a front-runner. And, in addition, there's hope for a great improvement in didactic technique and humanity's general "numeracy" level, eh? If we could teach people to math like i do we could compress basic math education (up to calculus) into just a year or so.

"Something self-referential and hopefully unsnarky about how this is a thread on a how-to-math-better article." ~me, failing at rhetoric.

And for kicks, here's Iconic Math: http://iconicmath.com/ (No affiliation with me. I'm just trying to end on an upbeat, constructive note.)

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jacobolus6y ago

I think a big part is that many (most?) children find school – i.e. lectures, textbooks, homework exercises, exams – unmotivating/boring at best, and often extremely stressful/frightening, which means that they aren’t fully focused on it and can easily miss important details. Beyond that, schools often fail to provide meaningful feedback or support when people suffer serious misconceptions or are missing fundamental prerequisite knowledge/skills, which makes it easy for students to fall behind and have great difficulty recovering. Someone who spends the exact same amount of time on academic work but for whatever reason (external help outside school, internal motivation, some insightful introspection, ...) manages to pay closer attention, stay more relaxed, think about things ahead of where the class is expected to be, connect new learning to material learned before and build a better-connected mental map, etc. can end up pulling far ahead.

A whole lot of this has to do with level of preparation before ever arriving at school. Some kids read with their parents for hours every day from age 1–5+, learn to play a variety of strategic games (and games involving basic arithmetic practice), build structures or mechanisms or electronics, practice making art, work through books of logic puzzles, etc. Other kids are left alone and bored without learning materials at a reasonable level, plonked down in front of developmentally inappropriate or just badly produced TV, or handed over to unthoughtful video games.

Then consider how many kids and parents have serious problems at home, with confrontational or even abusive relationships. Pile on work stress, financial stress, poor diet or even hunger, poor sleep, environmental toxins, illness, etc.

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jacobolus6y ago

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