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Maths the purity ! and how education just ruined it

I loved maths.. its funny that the statement i used was in past tense.. there was instances in my life when programming was introduced for me to solve maths problems.. i would write code to solve simple issues. now i am stuck being a CS student, I hate maths now..now that wen i need to learn i kept a research on how i became so distant from maths..

The main reason is that after a period of time maths stopped being creative. picture an art class (under grad) and the assignment is the following pic:


you dont get to draw the lines you dont get to choose the colors.. thats the creative aspect of maths.. or in this case art.. you get my point right? This is exactly how we teach maths.. instead of colors we will have 6-10 types or shaped cutters of types. they are the exact same type of problems.. their numbers change value change.. other than that nothing else.. its the  same color by number, a person gets tired by this over time or a period of time.

The problem is that.. in order to face the problems of standardized texting.. teachers had to resort to teach the template of the problem, template of the solution and its the students job to match these templates together.
"there  is just template,question, solution and there is no original thinking involved. its become a memorization game"

This is a problem as teachers cannot predict what kind of question the student will face during the rest of his career .. hence for the student knowing how to solve types problems that yo have not seen before is a valuable skill , thats also required outside the maths class room.
"we need to start thinking outside the box.. yet we are bound to thinking inside by a subject , Maths"

we should learn math by subdividing problems.. b teacher asking questions and teaching students.. by following the Socratic method of teaching. the thing about that method is its a really good way of explaining things to people.thats the best element thats missing.. explaining .im not talking teacher explaining im talking students explain to themselves.This is a really valuvable skill.In math we are not learning it at all. Explaining is an art. there is no one best way to explain something.But some ways are better than others. So finding which ways are better is pretty challenging.and it takes a lot of practice to do. We never give students practice students explaining because or usually it dont fit in a multiple choice exam. Being able to explain something in your own words indicate a higher level of understanding.blooms a taxonomy of knowledge indicating that being able to explain the answer rather than computing it. we only ask for the latter .

let we hav an argument
0.999 = 1
3 arguments
1.approximately equal to one
2.something less than 1
3.equel to one.

how can u prove its equel to one?
1/3=0.333..
3/3=1
1/3*3=0.999

student must have a logical reasoning to connect each step to another.each step is a well explained , why it has to follow. Thats one thing thats missing from math education. its logic.
In science, science is about reproducible experiments to find facts about the world, in science class you learn those experiments that verify those facts. Math is about finding logical arguments to find facts about the world. We learn the facts, We learn the facts all day long. we dont learn the logic why they must be true. If we ask  student or ask yourselves.. "why is the quadratic equation true?" we would get the answer "because my teacher told me so!" "Its written in my text book!" . 
 Thats not acceptable , because we need students to critically evaluate the answer. Its  a necessary skill.
We need students to ask "Teacher, I dont belive you , please tell me why is that true, how does it work?" 

let x=0
42*x=0 and 1*x=0
42*x=1*x
42*x/x=1*x/x
42=1

its proven.. there must be some mistake , but where? here the mistake is that by definition of decision division by 0 is not permitted.
almost the same type of thinking is required to find flaws of other type of real life issues.

Maths should be challenging teachers must provide tools to solve and give diverse challenging problems as the students use these tools put them together using their logical arguments, connect them with logic and find solution and explain the solution to the challenge problem as if the person explaining doesn't already know the solution. That allows pepl to be not bored. It will provide creativity into the class and finding that best explanation.. or if you cant find the best one.. try and find the one thats better than others.

When learning maths or teaching someone.. i urge you not just stop at explain 'what!' .. please do explain 'why'







Comments

  1. I get your point but mathematics ile ellathinteyum significance okke മനസിലാക്കി padikan nina vattayi povum bro

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thats why its hard to learn AI and other core cs subjects for us. I mean now its too late. It should hav started from kindergarten. The change is needed.

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