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0 pointsjrs9912y ago0 comments

at every school in the world, there are kids that need help with math. Even at MIT there will be some kids that have been memorizing formulas... that's simply because that's how they've been taught for their entire life. Then they hit a wall and they're really in trouble.

Thrun can't teach kids that have, for a decade, been learning how to memorize crap. How many math teachers in high school and middle school can prove the pythagorean theorem? That should be the survey that we worry about.

Thrun should be making courses for fifth graders also if he wants to teach 20 year olds intro to stat.

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2 comments · 1 top-level

g9yuayon12y ago· 1 in thread

Then the education system has a serious problem. Kids respond to incentives. Memorizing formulas would work only if students can get by homework and exams with rote memorization. We probably should learn from Russia/India/Korea/China, where it's almost impossible for students to pass STEM exams with mere memorization. Not that their exams are hard. It's just that their educators take effort to make sure the problems in their exams encourage intuitive understanding, original thinking, and creative problem solving. Ironically, US universities do exactly that in their classrooms. I wonder why high schools can't just do the same.

CGudapati12y ago

Umm.. India? I am from India and rote memorization of math formulas is very evident. I can not speak for other countries but you can pass all the exams till high school using rote using rote memorization and get 100 % too. Only exams like JEE and to an extent AIEEE actually test your ability to apply concepts and that's why they have the smallest selectivity ratio.

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