A question for educators (or resident Paddock geniuses)
- Thread starter elwood_blue
- Start date
Currently an educator? No. Grew up in a family of teachers, of course that doesn't make me one.
But I have taught, teaching undergraduate level Statistics courses for 2 years while in grad-school at UK.
BS in Math, MS in Statistics, and "paddock mathematical genius".
I assure you, I am more than adequately qualified to participate in this discussion!
yes that maybe true for extremes. it's disingenuous to claim that most of mathematics, even what your probably know at your level, let alone high school mathematics are not master-able with hard work. it may require more effort for some than others (e.g. math may have been tough for me but easy for you), but the op's son can certainly achieve a's with effort.
As someone from the English side of things, I also believe that math and science are two areas that almost any kid should be able to master at a high school level with hard work and even mediocre teaching. No kid should hit a "math wall" in high school. It just isn't that difficult and can all be learned in a relatively short time. English is unfortunately different, in that it requires years and years of pretty constant practice (reading challenging texts, mostly) to make someone a great writer, even by high school standards. Once we get to college, math and science require a much more clever student.
Hey we might not all be able to get a Masters or PhD in math, I'm not even sure I could, but I think 50%-60% of us could figure calculus out pretty well, and once that was down, they could all figure out probability. If half our country knew probability we wouldn't be so dang easy to lead around by the ear by all the stupidity that is out there. There are certainly people that seem to have an easy time with math, but I have never walked in any of their shoes, what I can tell you is that everyone that I know looks at me as one of those people, but I have worked my ass off to get where I am today. The only thing I was born with is a very curious mind and a desire to master new things. Math is just where I have chosen to express my personality right now. The problem with most people is that teenagers choose the path of least resistance given an obstacle. That path is right into music, psychology, sociology, XXXXXX history, or no school whatsoever. That's fine, but look at the best jobs in America with 100k earning potential and they are all engineering, computer science, or financial related. All require mathematical expertise of some shape form or fashion.
On a side note, one of my favorite things about math is that there is only truth. No ideology, no opinion, no politics, it either is or it isn't true and you can prove it or not. Not one time in any math class did my professor teach me a concept and have to explain how it relates to the current political climate.
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