San Francisco's decision to delay Algebra for all students until the 9th grade in the name of "equity," is a really bad one. Black parents didn't ask for this, and this strategy won't achieve the equity that they're looking for.
Hard to accept: A lot of "anti-woke" people believe that being woke is all just a lot of bad decisions like this. This belief is due to framing by the far-right: any bad policy is "woke." I help them understand that Black families don't want this and didn't ask for it.
@mekkaokereke I don't understand what part of "lets get rid of advanced programs because not all students are advanced and there is inequity in that advancement.
If they had special school, maybe after school or in the summer specifically for students in key areas to GET advanced they might just have a little better luck. Algebra is a good start. They might even throw some study skills in there since it is shown that those skills are the biggest problem for kids from disadvantaged homes.
The "there's inequity in *advanced* classes" argument does have merit.
Black kids are often misidentified as "not gifted" and white kids are often misidentified as "gifted." And then gifted kids get better resources, more attention, better classes, smaller class sizes, that makes the gifted label a self fulfilling prophecy.
The solve for that may not be "No gifted programs for anyone!" It may again be "Reduce the racism."
Similar arguments are for sexism / non neurotypicals.
On gender and tracking:
A not-rich little white 1st grade girl that has undiagnosed bad eyesight, is more likely than a rich white boy, to be mislabelled as "not good at math" and put on the slower education track.
She finally gets her diagnosis and her glasses in the 5th grade, but by then it's too late. She fights to make up ground to get into her dream college, then says things like, "I majored in Chemistry at Cornell, which was hard because I have never been good at math!" 😢
@mekkaokereke In undergrad I tutored math and was wildly popular among women. I learned to ask in the 1st or 2nd session "OK, who was it who made you believe you were bad at math?"
Every. Single. Student could, and did name names.
Same, except I tutored football players. They would need help with Calculus or Linear Algebra, but I would start them literally at arithmetic. Not kidding. Then I would test their knowledge and walk up until I found the exact place that their understanding went from "complete mastery" to "some gaps." This was often around algebra, pre-calc, or geometry. Then I would fill in that pothole, and everything else would snap into place!
It felt like this:
https://youtu.be/jChiI15Iwa4
The fall off from "complete knowledge" to "some gaps" usually coincided with a significant life event that was not directly related to academics. Eg, loss of a parent, divorce, a teacher who really didn't like them, etc.
@mekkaokereke @longobord This. When I was in high school I became very ill (life threatening style) and I was too busy fighting for my life to really, really engage with my Geometry class. Everyone in my family (outside my parents who knew what was up) simply thought I was bad at geometry.
But!
There are also a lot of teachers who absolutely suck at the most basic instructions of math/science and then won't take any questions at this time.🤔
@mekkaokereke @longobord
When my brother was a math PhD student, he tutored undergrads, and his stories sound a lot like yours.
In one tutoring session, there was increasing mutual confusion until he finally wrote out:
x + y = y + x
…and the student said, “Why did nobody tell me this?!?”
Years of mechanical computation — learn process, repeat 50x — had left this student without the most basic mathematical intuitions. (Probably compounded by abusive teaching.) Of course they were lost.
@inthehands @mekkaokereke @longobord
Yeah. Black High school student "My math teacher said I'm more of a 'words' person."
A couple weeks later, after my music class pretty explicitly became a math class "I think I'm starting to get this math stuff"
Yeah. You just needed a teacher who wasn't giving up on you preemptively.
@inthehands @mekkaokereke @longobord
Thinking about it more, I think that what sticks with me most about this anecdote is that–when a student experiences difficulty–teachers are more quick to assume that that struggle is intrinsic when they are black or female. That teacher went directly to "There is something about you that is just fundamentally bad at math." and no one called them on it.
@griotspeak Music is math in a different form. You can’t perform most music until you learn how to count. So is walking, talking, and most physical activity. Writing prose or poetry involves math.
Don’t let people tell you you can’t do math. You do math every day without even thinking about it. The problem is in how we TEACH math.
@inthehands @mekkaokereke @longobord I’ve been pretty impressed with the Common Core curriculum used by several states at the elementary school level
Less focus on rote tasks, heavy focus on number theory. My (Berkeley) 8th graders has been doing algebra this year (mostly in the form of functions), but I don’t think they call it “algebra"
Biases:
1. I skipped 8th grade math to do Algebra in 8th grade
2. My son skipped 7th grade math to do Algebra in 7th grade
3. I have a BS in Math
My recommendation would have bored the hell out of me given the quality of schools I came from and my parents' lack of ability to get me outside tutoring, but it also probably would have benefitted many classmates I know that got As in Algebra bc they only memorized procedures
@longobord @mekkaokereke When I decided to be good at math in middle school, I asked to be placed in a faster paced class. The head math teacher said I could if I got a high math score on the upcoming state math & English assessment.
I got the high math score, so she told me my English score was too low for accelerated math.
@tacertain @mekkaokereke @longobord My freshman year of university, I took a test that let me skip algebra. I was put in a calculus class taught by a graduate student from Eastern Europe who spoke little English. He would solve problems on the board, turn around and ask, “You get it?”
We’d yell, “NOOOOOO!” and he’d say, “Very good!” and then turn around and solve another problem.
If it hadn’t been for the Math Help Center, I would’ve failed!
@tacertain @longobord @mekkaokereke nearly identical experience I had at Rice. Nearly quit all science and math after failing honors calc but ended up taking enough math for a minor at UNC. Enjoyed most of it too.
Profs make all the difference.
@longobord @mekkaokereke I was good at math, but everyone told me I was bad at it.
I could understand math, but only if it was properly taught to me. I can’t just “get” math by watching someone solve a problem. My father was a brilliant engineer who often shook his head at my math textbooks, saying, “They leave out so many steps! No wonder you are confused.”
My 2nd grade teacher said I wasn’t good at math.
My first linear algebra professor said “well, math isn’t for everyone. “
One of the best teachers I’ve ever had taught my discrete math class (A). I then took his elective seminar on infinite and incomplete math (A) and he suggested I do a directed studies class with him and consider switching to a math major. (I didn’t, though I often wish I had.)
Astonishing the difference the right teachers can make.
@bflipp @maco @longobord If you don't mind me asking:
1) What was going on in your personal life in 7th grade?
2) What was your 7th grade math teacher like?
This are very nosey, personal and inappropriate questions, so please feel free not to answer!
@mekkaokereke @maco @longobord I usually missed upwards of 30 days of school a year due to illness from severe allergies
My math teacher was more concerned with being the cool teacher and was not interested in helping me catch up after I was out for two weeks with pneumonia. He would spend his mornings before school trading baseball cards with students instead of helping.
I just never caught up after that and developed an inability to learn it until I was grown and in college.
I'm not surprised. In my case: Terrence Blankenship.
As an adult, I was diagnosed with dyscalculia. I now understand why I struggled. Bless my tutor from the high school math club, who explained things differently than my algebra instructor and helped me a great deal.
Even then, just a couple of years ago I suddenly had an "a-ha" moment that would have helped me back then ... and trust me that I'm way beyond high school age.
@mekkaokereke @longobord ooh, as a girl with an engineering degree the "not good at math" thing annoys me. Not that it was ever said to me, but that it was way more of an acceptable thing to say than "I'm not good at English" irrespective of gender.
It's as if not being good at something is a pass for not trying to figure out how to make it work for you.
As someone who focused on how to make math work for me (not how math worked) it seems like a lot of people missed out on that lesson.
@secularshepherdess @mekkaokereke @longobord Here (Germany) many teachers still tell pupils off if they use alternative (fast, reliable) methods or study ahead (whether because they're bored or to compensate in case they need more time later). So even if a student figures that out on their own, they're likely to be discouraged from it in school.
Our education system is generally less flexible than the US's though, I believe, with choosing courses coming up only in grade 11 for us I think? It seems to have changed a bunch since I was in it, though.
@secularshepherdess @mekkaokereke @longobord
a thing that's long bothered me about that: there isn't just one kind of math. like, I'm pretty meh at arithmetic: I learned to do vector calculus in college, but to this day if you ask me what's six times nine I have to think about it for a bit.
but arithmetic is what they're teaching when kids get the idea that they're "bad at math", and if I hadn't lucked out and gotten a really good teacher in 10th grade, I might still believe that I was.
@nuthaven @secularshepherdess @mekkaokereke @longobord
Haha relatable! I got a maths degree without ever being all that fast at arithmetic. 7x8=56 is the one I always had to stop and think for.
@nuthaven @secularshepherdess @mekkaokereke @longobord
A few years ago I worked out a mnemonic that finally got it to stick in my head: 56=7x8 is like 5, 6, 7, 8 in order :-)
@unchartedworlds @secularshepherdess @mekkaokereke @longobord
omg this is life-changing!
@obviousdwest @unchartedworlds @mekkaokereke @longobord @nuthaven I do 8x8 -8. We all get there a different way depending on where we see the path.
This is the part that makes group based instruction hard.
@MHowell @mekkaokereke @longobord that’s true. The reason I did the work for math is that there was an objective ‘right’ answer to math problems at a time in my life when I need something to feel stable. It wasn’t until calculus that I realized I understood the what before the why.
I also failed my first semester of college calculus cause I slept through class and didn’t understand what the “black box” was for like 10 years.
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