Maths is not taught properly in school AT ALL, amirite?

Honest question. If you teach it how you want, and the kids learn it, why can't they pass the test? Why do you have to teach to the test?

by maurine55 1 week ago

Algebra is algebra. If it's taught properly, a student should be able to pass an algebra test, regardless of how the test is written. Sounds like what you're really saying is that you would rather teach them to beat the test than to actually understand the material.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Quite the contrary. Schools teach for the test, OP wants to teach for the material.

by PracticalField2673 1 week ago

You read into that too much. What I meant is a driver license test isn't really a test that showcases how skilled of a driver you actually are. All it shows is you can follow a checklist.

by lexus69 1 week ago

Welcome to our entire school system which was essentially made to make sure it churns out good lil factory workers.

by Slight-Help 1 week ago

Yes "teach to the test" if only government education reforms ever seemed to actually help anyone.

by gcrona 1 week ago

Could you at least teach it passionately and appear like you want to be there? Thank you for your service!

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It's hard when we spend most of our time managing behaviors without a carrot or a stick

by lexus69 1 week ago

I wish everyday I could repeat my 22 years of life

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

The stick needs to be back.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Trust me, we try. Many of our students are apathetic towards any sort of studies. I teach third grade and although all of my lessons have minimal lecture time (less than 5 minutes at a time) and are interactive with lots of opportunity for discussion and teamwork, a lot of our students check out as soon as they walk in the room.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I've seen it maybe once.

by chanel66 1 week ago

I don't think it's that popular. I've met a lot of very snobby people here just because they're good with numbers

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Elaborate on talking points sorry

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I think math and formal logic should be taught in parallel with computer science. Diving math problems, analyzing an argument and structuring a database query all feel like they use the same parts of my brain.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Actually in my opinion that's the problem: people who have mathematical aptitude have written common core. I completely understand what they're trying to teach kids, the sort of number sense that some people have. The problem is that arises from people taking the rote memorization and seeing beyond it, not by teaching kids these mental gymnastics. So now you have math teachers who don't understand number sense teaching that as rote, and people without innate math abilities are screwed.

by raeganherzog 1 week ago

I had the exact same realization when I finally saw what it was.

by wildermankamryn 1 week ago

I always had a knack for math but common core just makes it super unnecessary imo.

by Qsmith 1 week ago

I hate the common core crqp my kids bring home. I respect what they're trying to do, but unfortunately it just leads my kids to be confused and never feel comfortable with the numbers. My 4th grader broke down into tears one night trying to do factors and exponents. They taught her to do the weird M and F thing and this whole song and dance to go with it, but she didnt understand (and of course there were no directions or notes of any kind for me to help.) I tried showing her how I do it, hoping it would be easier, and she insistednshe couldnt learn that way because "thats not how my teacher taught me."

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Other things are more important....

by Anonymous 1 week ago

required to memorize every nuance of writing sheet music before they're allowed to so much as touch an instrument or listen to a song. Thats interesting, because my understanding of, and experience with, math education is the exact opposite. It is like a music student being forced to play, and only play, while never being taught anything about music theory that would make what hes playing make sense to him. never supposed to be about memorizing weird arcane rules for manipulating symbols We agree here. I think your initial analogy is backwards - students are taught to play by rote, instead of learning the theory.

by wilbert68 1 week ago

Learning to play an instrument is exactly like learning math. Lots of practice of the basics is necessary. LOTS of practice, of very boring things like scales, fingering, sightreading practice, playing the same songs or parts of songs literally hundreds of times. Repeition to automatize the skills so that you dont need to think about them when you move up to the next level. Most people who take music lessons never put in anywhere near the work required to get good. The same is true for math. I don't think whoever wrote that essay plays an instrument.

by Yhoppe 1 week ago

The education system in many places in general needs reform, but agreed.

by Relative-Teacher4422 1 week ago

I don't understand why they changed teaching basic math. I look at 4th grade math now and feel absolutely dumb or dumbfounded and I've always been proficient at the basics.

by bernierbridgett 1 week ago

they didn't make it better, they don't even teach times tables anymore

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Whats even worse, for me at least, was the lack of context in terms of how math is used by professionals. They taught us how to do it but never provided any real world examples of career paths that heavily rely on math. "Trust us you'll need it later" No, provide context and give us real world examples of these formulas being used in higher paying jobs.

by uniquemedhurst 1 week ago

The number of kids who think theyll never need math when math is important for everything they do is wild. Once my kids started saying it to me, I started pointing out every time we used math in the house (we lasted about 20 minutes before she got frustrated.)

by Anonymous 1 week ago

There's a difference in the math we use daily and logarithms. You're being incredibly disingenuous by just using the term "math" and not breaking it up into the stuff that is useful and the stuff that isn't.

by Infinite-Club-5899 1 week ago

You mean algorithms right?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

No, I don't. Logarithms were the first thing that came to mind when thinking of math I learned in high school that has no practical function for the average person.

by Infinite-Club-5899 1 week ago

Logarithm is just a function, you can say the same about cos sin and sqrt. I think i can give you a simple case where logarithms can be useful You know when talking about earthquakes we measure their intensity using the Richter scale. It's a logarithmic scale, meaning that the difference between let's say 5 and 7 is not 2 times the difference between 5 and 6. Instead a 7 degrees earthquake is 10 times stronger than a 6 and 100 times stronger than 5. I've heard lots of people miss judge a 6 degree earthquake saying that a 4 or 5 one just elsewhere and didn't feel like much but in reality it was so much stronger. That's why even moving to a 8 one is so much destructive as it's 1000 times stronger than 5

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Ok, now go find me how many people have a useful application for determining the destructive force of an earthquake. You literally just proved my point. You guys keep inventing impractical situations in which math is useful as a reason that math is useful. If you aren't in a math intensive field like engineering, the types of stuff you're describing simply don't really come up in everyday life and it's why we get so annoyed when y'all bring up ridiculous situations like this.

by Infinite-Club-5899 1 week ago

I asked for it specifically. My teacher just laughed. Dude was a trained electrical engineer. Was it really that hard for him to tell me what I could do with my math? Funny enough, I had a much easier time doing the same math in physics class. It was still hard, but it didn't feel as bad.

by Trick_Bridge_9391 1 week ago

Maybe they need to teach (or demonstrate) more physics in 7-8th grade science. Then you'd see that math is critical to doing it.

by maurine55 1 week ago

I believe if taught right, many kids can learn everything about high school math by 12 yo.

by Middle-Director 1 week ago

really ? 12 yo doing integrals ?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

My math teacher did it with us in 8th grade, when we were just 12-13. We were doing gr. 12 math easily by the end of the grade. Everyone who graduated her class had above 80% in gr. 9 math. By gr. 11, things evened out and most of us lost our "amazing math skills" by then. It was genuinely down to how she taught us.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

The teacher taught what she felt like teaching ? Isn]t there a program they have to follow ?

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Bro is capping hard lmaoo

by pricegulgowski 1 week ago

If you can do Integrals, you can do 8th grade maths.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

She was my homeroom math teacher, back in 2003 in Ontario. You don't have to believe me, but she's a big reason that any of us did well in math at all. I remember I came home early in the semester, crying because I didn't think I could do it. By the end of the year, I was confident doing grade 11 and 12 worksheets. Thank you, Ms. Asick.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You don't have to take calculus to graduate high school in the US

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah

by Anonymous 1 week ago

You could the hardest part of calculus isn't even the calculus itself but the algebra. If you're bad at calculus chances are it's because your algebra base isn't strong

by One_Pear_793 1 week ago

Hardest part of calc for me was all the trig you had to memorize.

by rachael95 1 week ago

For me the hardest part of calculus was having a teacher whose parents were from India and he was raised in Jamaica. I couldn't understand a single lesson.

by gcrona 1 week ago

My college calculus was the same. Professor had such a thick accent I couldn't understand anything.

by Confident_Street_358 1 week ago

Kids learn things surprisingly fast IF they like it, and I mean genuinely like it as if they're playing games. Let's be real here education could've been so much fun. Kids want fun, not dry boring stuffs on papers.

by blockaniyah 1 week ago

So true. One of my teachers just sat behind his desk and said,"let me know if you have any questions." Then people would line up to ask for help with the problems. Luckily, my dad was really good with math but also a good teacher so he helped me pass the class.

by Mcglynnrylee 1 week ago

There's absolutely nothing useful in daily life for things like advanced algebra and calculus. I'm 33 and a chemical plant operator and the only math I've ever encountered is the basics. Even a big DIYer is mostly just gonna use some geometry. I keep seeing this argument about how math is so integral to daily life, and that's true for the basic stuff, but it absolutely isn't once you really start getting into algebra and beyond.

by Infinite-Club-5899 1 week ago

That was my point. I was just saying that developing higher logic isn't going to hurt.

by ymarks 1 week ago

Do you have any interest in studying it on your own

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I have tried but it's so difficult to self teach. I'm also out of school so dunno how it would get me a joh anymore.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I'm in the process of learning it all again, I've found a book called ‘a mind for numbers' by Barb Oakley which really reduced my anxiety as well as little videos from khan academy and stuff from YouTube, it's hard to learn with time pressure, I just study it on my own now

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I use Khan Academy

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

It's now called common core math.

by Ike77 1 week ago

I agree but it's partly the teacher as well. Some teachers are horrible at explaining things and others make it easy, engaging and sometimes even fun. Plus the education system is one size fits all. If you don't learn exactly how they reach they don't want to adapt to help you.

by Downtown_Ad 1 week ago

I think certain people excel at math because their brains possess higher processing speeds. My nephew was doing algebra in his head when he was 8.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

This is true but even having a strong foundation can help make it easier even for those with different skills or disabilities. I've seen some of the ways that it's taught looking at my younger relatives stuff and some of it is just stupid. The techniques they teach for multiplication or division, simple things and the way they teach it makes it extremely confusing.

by Marjorieherman 1 week ago

It starts to become much less about processing speeds as you progress. I am a proficient math major and am definitely in the lower quintile processing speed wise (and have the testing to back it up). I was in remedial math until algebra was introduced since I just couldn't do arithmetic fast, but am very good at abstraction.

by Heavy-Persimmon-927 1 week ago

He was taught properly, I'm jealous

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

It's even worse in the US; we only get one math. Y'all are out here being taught multiple maths!

by Madge70 1 week ago

The issue isn't that math is being taught improperly, it's that some people have different learning methods and some people have different aptitudes. The current method is to end up with more people clustered in the middle and less people at the extremes. What I've seen of the US common core approach is really straight-forward and in my personal opinion is overly handholding. The context really for algebra (as an example) is "sometimes you don't have all the information and here are methods to try and find that missing information". That information is then applied in geometry, finance, physics, chemistry, geography, history, woodworking, sport, shopping, etc.

by Apart-Strawberry-545 1 week ago

Copycat

by Fyost 1 week ago

Schools not taught properly at school.

by chyna81 1 week ago

How many maths are there

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Listen. I'll except math being referred to as math's, but only if you degenerates refer to in the plural, maths are, not maths is

by EmotionalIdeal44 1 week ago

I prefer learning mathematics from books than a teacher in person.

by onolan 1 week ago

But like what exactly is common core even? They never once teach you what that is and why you're learning it.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I have googled it before but I never understand what it was trying to say. As I say, school sucks cause they don't teach you context at all. I'm convinced it's a simulation because no one should just know what they have to do and know what to do in life based on how we're taught.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Common core is literally just a set of standards that we wanted the nation as a whole to adopt so that kids are getting similar education no matter where they are in the country.

by OneHelicopter8510 1 week ago

Did you not read it at all? I just read the wiki article linked and it made sense to me. Seems like a lot of the issues of the old way(I was taught pre common core as well) were solved with common core. Makes me want to look more into it. Tbh it seems like you're just really slow. It wasn't that complicated of an article to grasp

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I'm sorry that's just a bit mean mate. I just had a little trouble understanding what the page meant. Idk I'm good at trivia so I wouldn't say I'm slow, I can get answers right on quizzes etc. It's just some articles I don't really understand.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Oh so you're like a conspiracy theorist. I think you've got bigger issues than math education

by Damianaufderhar 1 week ago

Yeah, it's so bad in your country that you can't even spell it right.

by Individual-Guess 1 week ago

I think a lot of people see math as a tool and not as practice. Like yeah some jobs do use math as a tool, and some use it as a language to explain what is happening, but everyone learns math because it stimulates your logical problem solving skills. Like, algebra problems like factoring trinomials and complex equations simply boil down to breaking apart the expression into simpler pieces to figure out what the unknown is, kind of like dismantling a device to figure out what is wrong with it. Unfortunately not many people are able to see math that way, and never do, because there is a huge focus on "how will x+2=5 help me pay my bills."

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yeah which is the problem, why haven't the schools yet realised they don't teach it properly. Makes me wanna kill myself honestly.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I rarely have to use math, and when i do i just use a calculator or google.

by Professional-Farm881 1 week ago

Not exactly an unpopular opinion chief

by TechnicalChemist 1 week ago

I see a lot of snobby guys chatting about how I'm low value cause I can't do maths so it's not exactly tbh

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

"Math(s) is not taught properly in school AT ALL" is not AT ALL an unpopular opinion.

by TechnicalChemist 1 week ago

I'm sorry, but as I said prior

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Ah, welcome to my life! Everyone around me could manage rote memorization. I always had to know the concept of why things work as they do. So... you're kinda screwed until college.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

What even is rote memorisation. They never once taught me what that was in school.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I know how to math's.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I had to relearn all of my math in college. I wish I could have learned it that way the first time.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

In what way don't they teach it properly. I'm confused by what you even mean here

by Anonymous 1 week ago

They never taught how to solve properly and they never taught context. 50 times on homework is absurd as a child and I was never taught the importance of exams when I was younger. My parents never pushed me at anything

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I hate when people don't realise other countries exist

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

How good your math teachers have been determines if you like math or not. What a shame

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It's not taught. It's learned.

by Aditya51 1 week ago

Yes and why do we go to school? So we are taught things

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

What it means "to be taught" is simply "to help you teach yourself" really. Sure, some teachers are more effective than others... At motivating students to learn. The point is that students need to take more responsibility for their own learning. Without that, no teacher can help.

by Aditya51 1 week ago

That's something I noticed growing up tbh. They should teach self responsibility more at school. If in general even.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

...why can't they just explain that, your counting the X's

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Well I'm in my early 20s. I wish I was taught this stuff in school

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Yeah, you were in the "rote memorization" era. Depending on where in your 20s and where you live, you may have been one of the last graduating classes to learn that way. Now math is explained to the kids. Though the parents still take issue with it and say "why can't they just memorize it?!"

by OneHelicopter8510 1 week ago

I would always ask questions like "why is zero important in this equation, but not in this one?" or something to that effect. I never got a good answer for my questions and that made me give up.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

One lesson I tried to teach my kids was that regardless of motivation you should always do your best. Bosses don't have to tell you why. Professors in college don't have to tell you why. The why is because you are expected to learn it. One aspect of maturity is accepting you won't always have a why that satisfies you but you have to do things anyway and do your best.

by maurine55 1 week ago

I have no idea how math Is taught now,. I graduated a long time ago. When I was a kid they taught applications of math just fine but there was no teaching of how to do proofs until my junior year of high school. I only got that because I was in an advanced track.

by Flimsy-Relation7733 1 week ago

It's the main reason, even 99/100 the reason why people don't like it. 99/100ths of the reason? Oh you mean 0.99 reasons? So people have just less than 1 reason for not liking maths? I'm confused... Need to check the maths on this one...

by aryanna57 1 week ago

99 out of 100 people so one dude

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Username checks out

by aryanna57 1 week ago

Cause it has 1

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Two plus two equals four, minus one that's three quick maths.

by boyd56 1 week ago

Very true.

by Practical-Cake 1 week ago

People don't teach math in an applicable way. Math is made to solve problems. However mathematicians teach in a way that they think is interesting, which is elegance in solution, describing patterns with equations. To most people that is asinine.

by General-Type 1 week ago

I beg to differ

by cspencer 1 week ago

Kids should know algebra (or atleast be being taught it) by 13, its BS the schooling system worldwise is ass asf

by Anonymous 1 week ago

It all depends on how good the teacher is and what the school allows them to do My school luckily always gets AMAZING math teachers and allows them to do their job

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I didn't start to find math easier until I started learning it more indirectly via other arts/sciences. I still have dyscalculia but things a lot better when I actually apply them.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I need more examples about what's wrong. In the simplest terms it comes down to the teacher. I had a teacher who described the different ways of introducing trigonometry. Some start with the triangle relations (I like and makes the algebra easier to understand) and others do the waves or algebra first. Something like that anyways. Got me thinking. Either way I still liked math so maybe I wasn't as attuned to the teaching methods.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I had so many different math teachers tho, I guess it's the teaching style where I'm from is so confusing

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

My unpopular opinion: the vast majority of middle and high schoolers who struggle in math are slackers who didn't pay attention or do their assigned math work in elementary school. Math knowledge builds on previous knowledge. Math knowledge takes effort to acquire - effort in the form of lots of repetitive practice. Most people who are bad at math are just lazy, and the years of laziness catches up with them when they hit algebra.

by Yhoppe 1 week ago

I understood most math (aside from fractions) 30 yrs ago and loved geometry. I cannot for the life of me understand my 5th graders math homework. Its written in a foreign language, its focused on explaining strstegies instead of getting to the solution in the most efficient way (indeed often seems to require unnecessary work) and without seeing a textbook (which they won't let him take home), I can't begin to help him.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

personally, i know a lot of people who can't multiply as fast as i can. i had math tutor since i was in the 4th grade and i accidentally memorized my times table to 12 in the 2nd grade which was on a dinner table matt. that really helped me a lot and allowed to better multiply in my head or on paper without too many calculations. once you're really good at multiplying, you get really good at multiplying numbers with more digits, graph transformations, exponents, derivatives, and integrals.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Lots of high school math teachers don't really like or understand math. They know the textbook plus a little bit maybe, but lack the deep knowledge that would allow them to put it in context.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Yes. Math is often taught like reading music without ever playing the music.

by bernadinejerde 1 week ago

Do you mean 0.99?

by Cmante 1 week ago

I failed algebra in high school. I now write complex algorithms as part of my job.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

I agree that math education sucks but I suspect that I think it sucks for completely different reasons than you do.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Elaborate

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I agree! I love math but that's because my grandpa was a hs math teacher and taught me the why. One of the first algebra problems he gave me was when I was about 7. We were in the mountains and he asked me, "how tall is that tree?" I told him, "I don't know." And he showed me how to measure myself, my shadow and the trees shadow to approximate how tall the tree is. I have been in awe of math ever since. I have used that to start a study club with my kid and her close friends. These fourth graders now know how to use the Pythagorean theorem. It makes them feel proud and smart to know how to use something most adults don't know. Love for math has to be taught not demanded. And without the love for it or at very least, intrigue, there is little drive to learn it or the whys for it.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

Don't look now, but you just used a ratio, OP (99/100).

by Anonymous 1 week ago

in the west we're often taught to be scared of maths

by Anonymous 1 week ago

What you mean cut and dry? You must have had good teachers or been forced by parents

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Math is 100% based on rules. If you learn the rules (which for any class was extremely limited in number that you needed to know) you could solve any problem.

by Wild-Imagination-913 1 week ago

There always seemed like a million different rules

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

Cut and dry, plain and simple, black and white. Using basic logic was all I needed. Problem solving skills probably give you an advantage.

by Anonymous 1 week ago

But like you did not elaborate at all. How exactly is maths cut and dry, plain and simple? Its just empty words. A bit like the maths teachers.

by Striking-Ad-446 1 week ago

I'm case you are the sole survivor of the earth and the internet is long gone you'll have all those math calculations memorized so you can start rebuilding society

by jhane 1 week ago

But if he's the sole survivor how does he reproduce? It would end with him regardless of how much math he knows

by Anonymous 1 week ago

They'd figure it out

by jhane 1 week ago