It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous, and is probably used as marketing tool nowadays by some schools abroad. I have graduated from one of the top physics/maths high schools in Russia, and yes we had great math education there, but that was an outlier. Outside a handful of schools the math education is pretty dismal.
And even in the good math schools there are different ways of teaching maths. I.e. there is a famous system of 'sheets' where the actual teaching of formal theory is very limited, while most of learning is done by solving problems (given to you on a sheet) and then presenting solutions to the teacher. But it wasn't used in our school for example.
What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classes, where you can go and learn how to solve olympiad-type math problems and become more interested in maths. That is definitely extremely useful to identify a few people who are talented in maths.
> What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classe
I've been studying in a "respected" Soviet / early post-Soviet school.
These classes were super elitist and had a huge disconnect in their level from what you were taught in regular classes.
I was a straight A student and was shut off very quickly. The problems were enormous in their difficulty and teachers had zero interest in helping or educating you.
Those classes were either for 0,1% genius olympiadniks to be later recruited for Soviet science or defense, or for 0,1% elite (Soviet nomenclature) kids whose parents could afford private education.
Along with other naive/poor kids I was quite quickly reminded that I'm not welcome in the circle.
Just a reminder that Soviet system had very entrenched elites and huge discrepancy in access to education, medicine and goods.
Yeah same. Our town had a "smart kids" school and a dozen of ordinary ones. I once won the town's informatics Olympiad in my age cohort, so to prepare for the regional stage they dispatched me over to that school's auspices for training. The teacher literally ignored my presence; so in the next competition I had to use both IBM PC and Pascal for the first time in my life. Scored something like 12th out of 40, but the teacher gloated on the way back.
I seriously think the "no child left behind" type education so derided here produces better general outcome. Holding up resources for a few select students is quite the opposite of meritocracy.
Eh, I've studied in a "respected" post-Soviet school as well and can't related to this at all. Teachers were awesome and passionate, had really thorough understanding of math (and physics, and chemistry), without any hint of elitism.
It's almost as if there are good and bad math teachers (in all countries).
In China we used to have those after-hour classes too. Nowadays they charge a lot of money and the material declines in quality as well. Back then they hired some professors from the top universities to do the teaching of after-hour classes and nowadays who knows those guys are...
>What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classes, where you can go and learn how to solve olympiad-type math problems and become more interested in maths
And for people outside of big cities there were schools-by-correspondence famously running by Moscow State University for math and MIPT for math/physics. The setup was you were mailed a small booklet every month. You had to study the material, solve problems and sent solutions back. The solutions were graded and sent back to you.
It was great on so many levels. First and the most important aspect it taught discipline and time management. The material was amazing when you were given gradual increase in complexity instead of sheer volume of simple problems or a few olympiad-level problems which can't be solved if you are not there yet.
I had that in Estonia as well, when I was in the gymnasium in 2002-03. I applied to the school for.. Exact sciences that was part of an university, for their informatics course. They sent me booklets with lessons and exercises and i sent my solutions, then received the next booklet with the results. I wasn't good at that, but it was interesting.
Somehow American Math doesn't have the same connotations. I am witnessing public schools take math out of the curriculum at elementary, middle and high schools. It is a wasted opportunity for young people to learn the beauty of math.
> I am witnessing public schools take math out of the curriculum at elementary, middle and high schools.
Is that for real? If true, this is ridiculous. Do American authorities want to introduce some kind of education for plebs?
How is such low standard for basic education is even acceptable in the modern world? It’s not only about “beauty of math” but at least basic math is required to help develop some specific cognitive and thinking skills. You can’t leave that part of children’s brain underdeveloped.
And cutting out math from schools you are deleting the future for a huge number of kids. No more future engineers and scientists and programmers etc.
Yes it's TRUE. In SF the schools district removed Algebra from the middle school curriculum. You should read The Dictators Handbook, it details why dismantling education piece by piece is a great way to stay in power. You'd expect it in a dictatorship but not in SF.
I would argue part of the problem with the American system is that trying to rush students through a rigid curriculum leaves the teachers no choice but to teach by rote memorization and cookie-cutter problems. Slowing down the curriculum is part (but not all) of the fix.
Still, whether or not this policy is good, it takes a lot of spin to turn "San Fransisco is starting algebra a year later" into "witnessing public schools take math out of the curriculum at elementary, middle and high schools", which is what you claimed.
You are both correct, but the comment you were replying to was definitely written in a way that feels misleading about "increased enrollment in higher level math classes in high school".
TL;DR from someone who read the full article: that change caused an increase in Precalculus enrollment and a decrease in AP Calculus enrollment.
Which I don't really feel good about. The quote closer to the end made me feel even worse:
>“For so long, people have held up this idea that AP Calculus is the gold standard (for college admission),” Lizzy Hull Barnes said, a district math supervisor
And those kids haven't entered college at the time of writing, and the article points out that they indeed don't know how this change will affect college admission prospects of those students. Time will tell, and hopefully my bad feeling about this change was misplaced. But given that this was written over 2 years ago (so most of those high school students have graduated by now), and we haven't had a follow-up "this change brought us some great benefits" article, I am afraid the results might have not shown any benefits of this approach.
That headline sounds a bit of an editorialized interpretation of the situation. The debate doesn't seem to be whether or not they prove their skills, it is a debate over who they prove them to, and when a change should be implemented.
Bizarre. Where I am math and English remain king and queen of getting-on-the-schedule. Being "tested subjects" from very early grades, is the main reason. They've all but eliminated recess in elementary, and have reduced hours for things like art & music, to make sure they have plenty of time for them, since school prestige and funding rely heavily on testing well just in those two subjects.
It's an open secret among educators that the brightest students learn to read at home. Early math is just practicing the same arithmetic over and over, because the logical skills for algebra just aren't present in a seven-year-old.
Art, music, and gym are actually really important in early childhood development, because they develop motor skills. Gym gives gross motor skills and major muscular development, and art and music give fine motor control. Penmanship is also important for developing fine motor control. For young children who can't yet engage in much logical reasoning, developing motor skills is appropriate and important. We tend to think in adult terms about what is the right thing for kids to learn, but small children are not adults and need to develop skills that adults take for granted.
Additionally, it's now understood that insufficient exposure to very bright light (say, sunlight) during key years is the main risk factor for nearsightedness. Cutting time outdoors during Winter, for lower-elementary kids (K-2), when school is monopolizing a good portion of daylight hours, is almost certain to increase rates of nearsightedness. Cutting recess in young grades hurts kids' eyes, permanently.
I disagree with algebra being too difficult for a 7 year old. You can learn geometric algebra at 7 with plastic blocks. It's a common way to teach math in Eastern Europe to young children afaik.
Excellent maths teachers can really bring a lot to the table with geometrical approach throughout the years.
Was occupational training ever the primary goal of public schooling -- even back in the days when most people went directly to the workforce afterwards?
You'll have to decide what the "primary" goal is, but there was certainly the sense in the past that a U.S. high school graduate would be suitable for most jobs, either blue collar (shop class used to be quite popular), white collar (academic classes, particularly English), or indeed housewife (home economy). No matter what, though, a mastery of the 3 Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) was considered essential to all of these (you have to know arithmetic to balance your checkbook, do taxes, measure for construction, etc.). High school wasn't necessarily a specialized occupational school, but there was an expectation you would be learning useful skills for your future.
That's what I'm getting at -- life skills are much more broad than occupational skills. Art, PE, health, sports, civics, etc. are taught in schools because they produce people with more well-rounded life skills, not because it produces better bankers or factory workers.
That's a shame. Recess and play offer some of the best learning experiences. Our schools are beginning to resemble prisons. Heads down, sit up straight, stare at computer all day.
Wait, why I have been hearing non-stop astro-turfing about "CRT in schools" in the last 6 months and I've never heard once about math being taken out? This sounds really serious, is there more I can read about Math being removed from public schools?
These are the same thing. The policy is to remove educational disparity.
Naturally force flows along the path of least resistance - rather than raising everyone up, which is hard, we are simply removing anything difficult from the curriculum, which is much easier (at the expense of actually educating anyone, a goal that nobody cares about much any more).
The easiest way to make equality is to multiply both sides by zero.
Many in teachers' unions don't want to be rated on how badly public schools are doing. It's not all the fault of teachers, granted, but incentives of the union here is not always aligned with the students. Many don't want to hear it, but it needs to be said as a factor.
There are a lot of these initiatives - like Russian math - popping up serving as test cases for how to teach subjects.
I think online programs are injecting some badly needed new energy.
>> It's a weird article. I think this idea of 'Russian math' is very nebulous
It felt a bit like a promotional piece. They really want to drill the phrase "Russian Math" into your head, presumably to promote the schools teaching it. That doesn't invalidate the notion that they teach math better than US public schools, I'm just offering a plausible explanation for the feel of the article.
Since we are piling anecdotes, I had an opposite experience -- I came to US after i had 9 grades of Soviet education in a middle-of-the-run school in a large city in southern Ukraine.
The mathematical and sciences background instilled in me in those 9 grades of Soviet school has allowed me to pretty much sail through High School(grades 10 through 12) and almost entire first year of college(as a CompSci Major at a University of California campus) without having to flex my math and science muscles.
What definitely exists in Russia (or at least some big cities) is a system of free after-school classes, where you can go and learn how to solve olympiad-type math problems and become more interested in maths. That is definitely extremely useful to identify a few people who are talented in maths.