/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.9957039]

What's with poor performing math and science classes in American public schools?

[Anonymous No.9957049]

Poor intercity school districts with unmotivated students and overworked teachers dragging down the national averages

[Anonymous No.9957074]

>>9957049
Went to a fairly rural school and it's performance was worse than a poor intercity school I'd assume.

[Anonymous No.9957086]

>>9957039
Because the amount of people who actually give a fuck about science and math are so few and far between. It is absolutely retarded to teach it to the masses. People should develop into whatever interests them instead of being force fed information that has no practicality in normal everyday life.

[Anonymous No.9957127]

I blame it on math "teachers" 99% of math teachers are absolute shit.

[Anonymous No.9957250]

I seriously think that Americans comparatively extremely strict "anti-cheating" mindset in schools lowers our averages a lot. In a lot of Asian countries cheating is the norm.

[Anonymous No.9957265]

>>9957039
I think part of it is that growing up in America you get bombarded with the idea that to become successful and rich, you need to make it big into sports, music or business. And since we are heavy on the idea of the individual, we just like to believe we are the special snowflake that will make it. A good portion of the student population focuses on these pursuits rather than math or science or any field really. Again, I think this is just part of it in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.9957281]

>>9957086
The goal of primary schooling should be to create informed citizens of society, not tradespeople. The average citizen doesn't need to be well versed in quantum mechanics, but they should be familiar with most of the topics that come up in voting from time to time. Currently, climate change denialism and anti-vaccination movements are the manifestations of a failed science curriculum.

You can hone in depth on your specific interest in trade school or your college major, but primary schooling should provide breadth.

[Anonymous No.9957284]

>>9957039
It's a moot point because STEM is already oversaturated anyway.

[Anonymous No.9957287]

>>9957281
It's difficult to put politically controversial subjects into science public school

[Anonymous No.9957318]

>>9957281
It has to do with generally low intelligence and religious psychological abuse in upbringing, not science education. Smart people don't need an education to come to accurate or informed conclusions, mainly because they understand the difference between what they do know and what they don't know. They understand how and where to become informed if they aren't and how to spot the holes that pervade agenda-driven lies. This is why everyone on places like /pol/ is stupid. If someone goes there to learn or exchange ideas, that's necessarily what they are. Also everyone who likes politics and allows their perceptions to be altered by politics is trashy and stupid.

[Anonymous No.9957325]

>>9957250
>punishing brats for cheating is bad
>china = all of asia
here's your (You)

[Anonymous No.9957346]

>>9957287
Why are those subjects politically controversial in the first place? No matter how far you dig into the issue, poor science education is at its core.

>>9957318
Smart people can be, and often are, dead wrong. A proper education is necessary for one to capitalize on their talents and make informed decisions. I'm sure we've all met some religious fundamentalists, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO-ers, etc. who are "smart" but still hold unscientific and uninformed opinions.

[Anonymous No.9957806]

America's math & science scores are poor for the exact same reason pretty much any of the other statistics (crime, health, income inequality, and so on) that are worse than other developed countries: we have a lot of blacks & mexicans that can't into modern civilization. Unfortunately, no one has figured out a reliable way to change this; even radical measures like adoption by upper-middle class whites at a young age and being raised in predominantly white areas only produced modest improvements.

[Anonymous No.9957818]

>>9957806
And as a side note, Hispanic-Americans students do vastly outperform their Mexican (and most other Latin American) counterparts, and the African-American students do massively better than the Dominican Republic, the only majority black country on the chart, and beat out a few Euro countries, for that matter. So obviously the kind of system you have makes a huge difference for any group.

[Anonymous No.9957833]

>>9957806
Hmmm, "White Americans" and "Asia Americans" above countries wich lead almost any OECD ranking chart like Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands and UK - seems implausible to me.

[Anonymous No.9957932]

>>9957074

You would assume that, if you were a retard.

[Anonymous No.9957986]

>>9957833
That is what the scores are. Is it really so strange that white Americans score pretty much the same as Canadians? The only real difference between us is that the Canadians keep French people as pets.

Ask yourself, what would America's ranking on various HDI measures look like if it was just Asians & white people? From health to crime to education to economic factors there are usually large differences between the two sets of ethnic groups.

[Anonymous No.9958015]

>>9957986
I thought that US spends much less in education per pupil than it actually does. And therefor thought, that it is impossible to compete with the mentioned countries (no matter to which group one belongs to).
But that chart helped to change my view. Very strange, that there is a point where additional money does not improve education.

[Anonymous No.9958026]

>>9958015
>Very strange, that there is a point where additional money does not improve education.
Why? This is how it works with literally everything else, it would be very strange if you didn't have diminishing returns. Do you think learning mathematics in a classroom with a fancy electronic whiteboard and every pupil having a laptop is more efficient than in a classroom with an old chalkboard and pupils using pen and paper? I'd actually guess that it's less efficient.

[Anonymous No.9958036]

>>9958026
Yes agree with your example. But look at another one: I expect learning mathematics with 20 students per teacher far less efficient then for example with 5 s/t.

[Anonymous No.9958046]

>>9957806
Now imagine if Australia was separated into abbo and human categories. Human Australians are literally the highest scoring category. Natural selection cunt.

[Anonymous No.9958050]

>>9958036
pupils per teacher ratio is roughly the same in all developed countries afaik

[Anonymous No.9958054]

>>9958050
Yes exactly. This is the claim from >>9958036:
The nations above 50´000 are spending the money wrong. If they would decrease student per teacher ratio, then the correlation might continue.

[Anonymous No.9958055]

>>9957039
>>9957074
I went to a very rural school. Even amidst rural schools in our county, we were known as THE redneck school.

Nearly a quarter of all students at the school fail standardized mathematics tests.
Very early on (11-12 years old) students who do well have the option to take "advanced" classes, which eventually become pre-AP and AP classes.
The students who do well (maybe 20% of kids, about 40-50 of them in my school) do very well and compete with each other, and excel because of it.
The students who are left behind in the regular classes only get further and further behind. Idiots often act up in class and most students can't be fucked to have any passion for learning because they know they aren't part of the "elites".

Another HUGE thing is that standardized tests are used to decide who get more or less state funding, so teachers aren't encouraged to teach for the purpose of educating itself, but rather they are encouraged by bonuses to teach for a specific state test. Essentially all they want is to crack your head open, pour in a ton of disconnected shit, and have you regurgitate it onto a screen for two hours.

They don't care if you learn anything.
They don't care if you are prepared for college or the next class in the sequence.
Only if you get a passing grade on the state tests.

To put this into a personal anecdote. I thought I wasn't good at mathematics because I didn't test well in the sixth grade, so for the next seven years, I was put behind my peers into the regular math classes (I was in the advanced group for everything else), and for a long time I thought I just wasn't good at math, but when I got to college it turned out I had just gone to the worst school in my county, who was objectively bad at teaching math on a country wide level, and was actually okay at math. I'm majoring in it now.

Our schools suck fat Tyrone dick.

Speaking of Tyrone, most countries don't have 15% of its students dragging its scores down.

[Anonymous No.9959760]

>>9957039
The way people teach math in school is horrendous + the slashing of school budgets in certain districts.

[Anonymous No.9960114]

It's okay, the Asians/Indians and Jews excel at math and make up for the rest of the population.

[Anonymous No.9960117]

>>9957039
Hard sciences are not popular anywhere. Most people don't want to be researchers or engineers.

[Anonymous No.9960274]

We lack good role models and live in a society that idolizes brainlets celebraties and athletes instead of genius scientists or mathematicians.

Asia is wired completely different.
Look at South Korea where even their K-Pop stars write songs about doing good in school.

The US will be fine for as long as we can keep importing the smartest from other countries but if we ever lose our position as the most financially prosperous country we'll be going into a slow downward spiral into shit.

[Anonymous No.9960302]

Christian retards.

[Anonymous No.9960484]

>>9958055
lmao, just test out you stupid fuck. If they put you in the retard containment math class, just tell them that the class is too easy and they'll let you test into a higher class. You can learn the entire pre-algebra, algebra 1, and geometry topics in 2 weeks

[Anonymous No.9960524]

>>9958055
>I'm majoring in it now.
They were just trying to prevent you from making retarded decisions like that.

[Anonymous No.9960527]

>>9957074
>I’d assume
So you are just guessing with no evidence. Basically bias because those rednecks MUST be dumber than poor ole Jamal and Sanchez.

[Anonymous No.9960530]

Kids aren't stupid, they pick up a lot from their parents. They see that studiousness and technical skill are not rewarded in current society, and that slacking off and making friends is the way to succeed.

[Anonymous No.9960536]

>>9960114
Jews yes, asians can’t into anything but memorizing formulas. They suck at thinking outside the box. Indians and Chinese also are most well known cheaters in American universities.

[Anonymous No.9960543]

>>9960302
Majority of math and science has christians as the greatest contributors to it. A fucking priest is the guy who created the big bang theory and darwin was even going to become one himself.

[Anonymous No.9960581]

Our society dumbs down public education because muh feels.