Change the way math is taught.
Don’t teach math, teach engineering.
99% of math teachers have no idea of the applications of what they are teaching. Solve for X is not the way to apply math.
As an engineer I greatly disagree. Sure in your engineering classes you get a much more “real” understanding what the math operations do, however without the foundational math skills you can’t do the engineering derivations. Kinda of a chicken and egg situation.
I think you’re misunderstanding what this person meant.
They’re not talking about teaching high level engineering.
They’re talking about teaching math in a way that isn’t abstract.
Introducing mathematical concepts that can be used to solve specific challenges.
Anchor it in something that makes sense.
Find the slope of this line for no reason at all because I’m the teacher and fuck you, versus build something out of popsicle sticks that will make this ball roll into the hole. The slope is too steep the ball goes too fast and misses the hole. It’s not steep enough and the ball stops.
Or whatever. It doesn’t need be university level engineering to be engineering.
I hated math as a child. I tried to upgrade my high school math as an adult and I could finally articulate why I couldn’t do math. The teacher isn’t there to answer questions. They’re not there to engage with the subject matter. Math teachers do not teach math.
They read some shit out of a book and you teach yourself math. This is fine if you’re innately interested in the subject matter and fine with how impractical and abstract math is, but for the vast majority of people they lack the interest in the subject matter that would drive someone to do well in it, the ability to intuitively grasp the concepts let alone apply them, and they clock very quickly how fucking pointless the entire exercise is.
Uhg, seriously. I hated math in school. The pointless repetition. I loved those word problems though, 2 trains traveling at this speed etc.
Many schools have changed it. You know how I know? Because other parents won’t shut the fuck up about how math classes are wrong nowadays.
Changed it how?
Look up common core
Interesting. This would have been better for me. Parents can suck a dick.
I love the repitition (the mother of learning) and hate word problems
I wish they taught math in a more proof oriented way. The most fun I had in a math class was geometric proofs like “show these 2 angles are equivalent without measuring”. To me real math is about making the algorithms and not just memorizing how to compute them.
Well you certainly don’t change the way that you teach math. No, that would be insane.
Send them back to highschool on the highschool’s dime. Stop letting them pass students who aren’t qualified just to make the parents happy.
California literally banned algebra from being taught in college. It’s not offered anywhere it the state. College math professors all know it’s a losing policy. Older students are totally screwed if they want to go into stem.
