The article is literally just, "I didn't do well at maths in school so I hated it and this is ALL CHINA'S FAULT." And then the editor stuck up a BIG RED PICTURE of xi jinping with COMMUNISM. I love journalism
"I failed math in school and it made me feel bad.
Also, how dare you question my numbers of how many Uighurs have been imprisoned by China?!"
Uhhhh a lot of you seem to be missing the point, she's right that extending math is a terrible fucking idea but not because of anything to do with China.
Right now compulsory maths ends at 16 and that is precisely where it should stay. A-level maths and above is fucking ridiculously difficult and entirely unnecessary for the vast majority of people. Forcing it on people serves no purpose other than making people hate education and taking time away from subjects that they would actually enjoy and WANT to be learning. There isn't any fucking time for it either, it would come at the expense of other subjects, humanities most likely. Most people only take 2 or 3 A-levels as you have no time for anymore, that is how specialised they are.
Being against this tory policy is the left wing position here.
The article still sucks tho for bringing China for no other reason other than "hahaah souless Asians only care about math" .
Yes the article absolutely sucks but there's a bunch of comments here that suggest the takeaway people have is supporting the policy. The policy is junk, do not force 16-18 year olds to do A-level maths it will be hell that they get nothing out of and will remove between 50% and 33% of their time that could be doing something they'll actually retain. 99% of people do not need maths at this level.
I just had a peek at the listed topics of an A level math text book and none of the topics covered strike me as absurdly esoteric. Of course it depends on the level at which it's taught, but some of these topics I definitely covered in middle school in China and don't stick out to me as high school level.
I don't mean to shame anyone since a huge part of how difficult a subject is in how it's taught.
That being said, the proliferation of computing in recent decades has certainly made it more important for the average person to be more numerate than before, much like how he proliferation of printing made it more necessary for people to be literate than before.
I personally don't really truck with the whole "people won't use this" argument because it's also trotted out when arguing against arts education and that's why we have a huge percent of the population with zero media literacy who can only get the most literal meaning from media.
As someone who did A-Level Maths, and is a major fun love Maths guy, I don't think much any of it has relevance to most peoples' lives. Admittedly the 'proofs' more than anything might be a cool way to teach critical thinking.
The headers definitely undersell the difficulty of the content, they are not middle-school level. I was deemed the most mathematically exceptional in my classes, and Maths A-Level was hard. Anyone still struggling with Maths at GCSE stage will not get much further being forced to sit in A-Level classes..
I can totally get behind criticism that this Tory policy won't actually achieve the goal of teaching kids more advanced math. I can't get behind the idea that teaching kids more advanced math isn't a good goal.
Wait a sec. Hold up. This is what everybody is pissing and shidding and cumming over being too difficult? This was baby level math I learned when I was 14, way way back many decades ago. And a huge chunk of it is absolutely essential to understanding, uh... the world.
Then again, it's a Tory policy. By definition it's dogshit. It's probably going to teach kids how to calculate the value of a human life based on their
skin coloureconomic value.I did the course. I find it very unlikely you were doing Mathematical proofs, solving and integrating recursive functions, imaginary numbers and multidimensional number planes, formulating general solutions to sequences and series, playing with arctan etc, at 14. the contents page are just very broad areas, and not an insight into the difficulty of the actual content. You do cover all of these topics to 'some' level in earlier, mandatory education.
Right? Christ.
People are reading the topics and not understanding there is an enormous difference in complexity of the basics of these topics and the ADVANCED level of these topics. A2 maths is absolutely advanced. All of these broad categories are also covered in GCSE to a very basic level, the difference is the complexity.
yeah I look it up, I did most of them and more in less than 2 years (that is in Canada). You can question on the utility of the subject but you can't really say it's hard lmao.
But then again, I aced multiplication table in my country of origin before elementary school
All of the topics are also covered in GCSE before 16, the difference is not the topics but the level of complexity in the topics.
A-level maths is fucking ridiculously difficult
It's basic Analysis and is not that hard, especially compared to other countries. But if British kids are finding it impossible then something is wrong with the way GCSE mathematics is being taught.
Mathematics qualifications in most of the UK are considered a higher level of difficulty than most other countries. It honestly isn't basic stuff. Can't deny there are probably problems with the way maths is being taught earlier on though.
Had I any way I knew how to, I would. Someone else here compares the UK curriculum to their Chinese learning, and it sounds like the topics-to-age are about on par up to Middle school at least.
It's not basic at all nor is it necessary for the vast majority of people. Nobody needs A2 Integration or A2 Mechanics. You're defending a dogshit policy that is aimed at creating the kind of stem-brain bullshit america has.
Trig, stats, differentials, quadratics etc etc are all covered before the age of 16 in GCSE maths people don't need to go more advanced unless it's required for what they're specialising towards.
I didn't argue that it was necessary, but it is pretty basic. Sorry. Also, 'differentials' is a stretch. They teach students to interpret the gradient of a straight-line graph as a rate of change. It's the most cursory possible glance at calculus.
Yes you're right, it's basic at that level. But there is no need for most people to be doing advanced content like solving and integrating recursive functions, imaginary numbers and multidimensional number planes, playing with arctan etc all of which is in the A-level. Let those that want to do this content do it, and those that do not take another path. People will not properly learn what they do not want to be doing at this difficulty level and it is a considerable waste of time and resources.
The article is a brilliant example of someone accidentally reaching the right conclusion for the dumbest of reasons.
I suspect she has other reasons but because it's the Telegraph her starting point is "How can we convince the rightwing dickbags that read the torygraph that this is bad without saying the stuff the commies are saying?" leading to a "commies bad" article.
Agreed. I did hear someone argue it might be worthwhile to offer further 'arithmetic' classes for people who are struggling though, that might be worthwhile.
Still, I feel like if you haven't learned basic addition and multiplication by age 16, the issue might be with the way we teach, not how long we do it for.
You have to get a C in maths for most uni courses still, right? That seems to imply at least a masic level of artithmetic, statistics, algebra etc.
Depends on the university, but almost all of 'em will only care about your A-Level grades, so if you didn't take Maths, you can fairly easily be mathematically illiterate and get a degree.
A good chunk here will make you take a bridging course where they try to stuff 2 years of education into a week.
Those are available, they're even compulsory everywhere that I know of if your GCSE is below a certain level.
I'd say in most western countries students don't have enough math, Basic calculus up to simple Differential Equations, Algebra up to Quadratics, and the basic Statistical tests should be a minimum. I regret not being taught some of this math before university. And not knowing some math prevented me from obtaining deeper knowledge in much of the arts and humanities (I'd probably be much better at drawing if there'd been more formal Geometry, for instance.)
I know people taught in Soviet countries with far better math education, one who I went to school with. He learned calculus at age 11, in a post soviet school. He was smart but not super smart.
I honestly remember spending three years at school doing the same basic trig problems over again each year and I really think we could accelerate teaching in early secondary.
Now the way tories are doing this is heroically dumb and will alienate any teen that isn't a budding stemlord. But the idea that "most" students won't use math is really "most students aren't properly taught to use math, even when it would be really relevant to the problem they have"
I’d say in most western countries students don’t have enough math, Basic calculus up to simple Differential Equations, Algebra up to Quadratics, and the basic Statistical tests should be a minimum.
Those are all done at GCSE before the age of 16 here. Nobody needs to suffer through how hard A2 Integration or A2 Mechanics is.
Basic calculus up to simple Differential Equations, Algebra up to Quadratics, and the basic Statistical tests should be a minimum.
Agreed on algebra (lots of practical uses) and statistics (used extremely often now, and often to mislead). But calc? I know a nuclear engineer who had trouble helping her kid with basic calc because she hadn't used it since college.
Totally agreed that the way we teach has a big impact on how difficult it is to learn, but that's an independent issue.
For calc it's not so much so that they can solve it on paper but that they recognise "this is gonna need a differential equation" and can then decide on plugging it into a computer or finding a nerd.
But have you considered it streamlines engineering tracks which is more important for modernization
For the record I could see making it mandatory to take but not to pass. Those who pass can get engineering incollege. Policy would be good for showing kids they have what it takes to do engineering degrees and the party gets metrics to fiddle with
I'm going to be real with you, some things are more important than the desires of any one child. You need to insure that there are enough engineers for each generation, of which China needs more of every day, to manage technological modernization. This policy is clearly in existence to play catch up and measure ways to increase that engineering population.
Calculus isn't even hard if you're taught it young enough and with goodcare. Plenty of studies are out there saying that teaching algebra for so long is actually a detriment to math knowledge
I mean, surely there are a lot of jobs that are societally important on that level, particularly if we're talking about in a country like the UK which doesn't have the same needs of modernization.
Can't exactly squeeze in courses to prepare for each of them into one mandatory universal period of education.
That's because they have a teacher shortage. People seem to think that China has overcome it's colonial past but it isn't uncommon for rural areas to only have one teacher, if they're lucky, for each village
China has been unable, generally, to make universal policies due to a lack of an evenly distributed educated workforce but they are making strides
no an A level is a major time commitment basically it just doesn't make sense within the UKs educational structure to mandate a subject past 16. At that point you're enough of an adult that you can decide for yourself whether or not to take math
A level maths is the most popular A level in the UK plenty of people take it and mandating the rest do too would only be detrimental to the quality of learning any of them get
this is true but I thought we were discussing mandatory maths A levels in the UK
Oh no thatd be useless because you dont have a party directing engineers to important tasks. I know a guy who was wasting his talents in AI making summarized documents for lawyers so they can more accurately read their draconian laws. A sensible country would not automate that, theyd get rid of the draconian and obtuse laws and put the engineer on something more useful
I thought we were talking about China focusing on engineering. :thonk-cri:
yeah it's super depressing knowing about STEM in the west because you can see how things could be improved for people but no one will pay for the kind of large project that could actually help people
I feel like more and more people in STEM are coming to realize that this is fucked and their jobs are absurd and they could be using their talents for a million better things. But I also notice that people in my profession that think like that are not white guys.
Maybe the white guys simply go crazy and become tech bros rather than deal with those ideas
Idk, to me, it seems like a lot of the white guys in tech are in some sort of strange cult. I got that vibe before transitioning. Now I'm an 'out' group so they act very differently around me at work. Its a similar vibe to a bunch of old dudes who were high school best buddies going to a strip club without their wives knowing
Fuck modernisation lmao. It's just a code word for taking away jobs and pushing people into gig work.
No? You responded to my comment which is about the UK? We may be crossing our wires here.
also it will make it so much harder to teach A level maths if they have to be managing the kids who don't want to be there
I've got seven kids and no money, why can't I have no kids and seven money?
Zoe Strimpel
War hawk calling for WW3
[on "the point of waging"] Peace is earned through strength. ... We have to achieve it by threatening—credibly—to pummel into oblivion anyone who gets in the way.
Peace is when you "pummel into oblivion" anyone in your path who does not comply. That's what peace, guys.
https://www.thefp.com/p/america-is-afraid-of-war-putin-knows
And she's a transphobic terf who thinks the problem with feminism today is that "it can't even define what a woman is"
She thinks that trans people are all "posh bastards". Yeah, take that. All you trans people, you are actually the powerful ones oppressing us poor honest cis folk, you posh bastards and your "focus on identity" and your tomboy erasure.
https://www.thefp.com/p/how-feminism-got-hijacked
This woman is a fucking fascist. What a reactionary. A wannabe Katie Hopkins.
Peace is when you “pummel into oblivion” anyone in your path who does not comply. That’s what peace, guys.
something something romans something something desert something something peace
Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.
I'm guessing the editor walked her back from her original headline: "The Inscrutable Oriental and their Arithmetic"
Education is inherently communist, and therefor needs to be condemned :funny-clown-hammer:
If China taught proper math, they would find out that Communism= 100 Gobillion deaths.
Fucking dumbass journalist lmao. Count to 100 off the top of your head i dare you. Try to picture an apple in your mind.
Try to picture an apple in your mind.
Hey don't bully people with aphantasia, they can't help it
This lady's stupidity is willful
Sorry I’m too busy rotating shapes in my mind. I bet you the average Chinese communist can’t do that.
I feel humiliated and discouraged that I wrote a less than perfect title. This is China's fault.
I can't imagine why a country whose entire economy is centered on the financial industry would need math. It just turns the kids away from Jesus.
to be fair most people in the UK are not involved in the financial industry. It's all done in one city and the rest of the country is mostly an industrial economy.
Freedom means the freedom to not have a sufficiently productive STEM career in a capitalistic system and to experience precarious living conditions, poverty, and possible homelessness because the wrong free choice was made. :capitalist-laugh:
Obviously the british hates math cuz they dont want to calculate the total numbers of lives that has been taken by the british empire.
I don't wanna do my math homework mom thats red fash authoritarianmism
