/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9698975
>It's something that should be taught in first grade but it's not for some reason

We tried, look up new math.

>>8890123
They were, the brainlets revolted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

>>7697711
>That same year, the American Mathematical Society set up the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG) to develop a new curriculum for high schools. Among the many curriculum groups of the New Math period, SMSG was the most influential. It created junior and senior high school math programs and eventually elementary school curricula as well. SMSG subsequently appointed a 26 member advisory committee and a 45 member writing group which included 21 college and university mathematicians as well as 21 high school math teachers and supervisors.
>The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics set up its own curriculum committee, the Secondary School Curriculum Committee, which came out with its recommendations in 1959. Many other groups emerged during this period including, the Ball State Project, the University of Maryland Mathematics Project, the Minnesota School Science and Mathematics Center, and the Greater Cleveland Mathematics Program. In the late 1950s, individual high school and college teachers started to write their own texts along the lines suggested by the major curriculum groups

>One of the contributions of the New Math movement was the introduction of calculus courses at the high school level. Although, there were important successes in the New Math period, some of the New Math curricula were excessively formal, with little attention to basic skills or to applications of mathematics. Programs that included treatments of number bases other than base ten, as well as relatively heavy emphases on set theory, or more exotic topics, tended to confuse and alienate even the most sympathetic parents of school children. There were instances in which abstractness for its own sake was overemphasized to the point of absurdity. Many teachers were not well equipped to deal with the demanding content of the New Math curricula. As a result public criticisms increased.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

"New math"- Good idea, catastrophically implemented

>>7653405
>You need abstract algebra to understand them well, but do you really believe you can teach children abstract algebra?

We did in the 1950s and created the best generation of math students the world has ever seen in the 60s. It's why all the freshman math textbook in that era are nearly graduate level by today's standards.

>>7065467

>>7052981
>teaching sets first

We've already tried that and it ended terribly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math

>>6994178
>First, I think arithmetical exercises are the enemy of maths. First grade should include logic and sets, especially since they are very simple and very easy for children to understand

No, bad idea. We tried that before in the 1960s and it failed hard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math

Teach them the 4 basics operations and simple algebra first, then parents won't care about what additional logic stuff you do since they have the basics down tight. At best you can do some foreshadowing with a few simple actual proofs like Euclid's Theorem, Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, irrationality of √p, and basic group/field theory arguments to justify algebraic manipulations beforehand but you can't just skip to logic as parents value arithmetic skills far higher than real math.

>we will have the human-level-intelligence computers, and won't need them anyhow.

Smoke less crack.

>>6923376
>but the high school math requirement should be more along the lines of calculating compound interest

You do that in the 4th grade, why delay it to high school?

>>6923385

This. Schools should stop rewarding failure.

>>6923608

They've tried to teach set theory in elementary school and there was a massive backlash when parents couldn't help their kids with it...

>>6866297
Counterculture to mandatory education trying to remove all educational requirements from primary/secondary schools. (they've been winning since the 60s)

>>6828274
Because if you try to make education like this, people scream bloody murder

>1st Grade
Basic addition/subtraction
>2nd Grade
Basic times tables/fractions
>3rd Grade
Division, Powers, Roots, Primes
>4th grade
Algebra
>5th Grade
Geometry, Logic, Sets, Combinatorics, Proofs
>6th Grade
Higher order Algebra. Trig, Exponential, Logs, Series, Sums, Limits
>7th Grade
Calculus, Matrix Algebra
Chemistry
>8th Grade
Vector Calculus, ODEs
Mechanics, Thermodynamics
C++ Programming
>9th Grade
Linear Algebra, Probability, Statistics
Electromagnetism, Circuits
Digital Logic, Comp Arch
>10th Grade
Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra
Stat Mechanic, Optics, Advance Mechanics and Special Relativity
Data Structures and Algorithms
American Government and Political Science
>11th Grade
PDEs, Complex Analysis, Fourier Analysis
Quantum Mechanics
Numerical Analysis, OS, Parallel Programing
Macro & Micro Economics
>12th Grade
Money and Banking, Finance
Electives (Organic Chem, Biology, GR, Astrophysics, Robotics, Comp Vision, etc...)

>>6820602
>The textbooks used in American schools are only teaching HOW to answer a specific set of problem, rather than explaining WHY the answer is correct.

We've tried starting with abstract algebra in the 60s. People didn't like it...

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math

>>6820663
>Calculus is a branch of algebra

No, it is not. Calculus is a branch of analysis

>>6735507
>People these days are so dumb
>these days

It's the same "New Math" backlash from the 70s (but even stupider now without octal)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math
>New Mathematics or New Math was a brief, dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools, and to a lesser extent in European countries, during the 1960s. The name is commonly given to a set of teaching practices introduced in the U.S. shortly after the Sputnik crisis in order to boost science education and mathematical skill in the population so that the perceived intellectual threat of Soviet engineers, reputedly highly skilled mathematicians, could be met.
>Topics introduced in the New Math include modular arithmetic, algebraic inequalities, matrices, symbolic logic, Boolean algebra, and abstract algebra. These topics have been greatly de-emphasized or eliminated in US elementary school and high school curricula since the 1960s.

Why did it fail /sci/?

>>6663468