Why Do Americans Stink At Math

[Morris816]

Thread title is the article title... and the answer appears to be, "We've always done it this way before."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

To cure our innumeracy, we will have to accept that the traditional approach we take to teaching math — the one that can be mind-numbing, but also comfortingly familiar — does not work. We will have to come to see math not as a list of rules to be memorized but as a way of looking at the world that really makes sense.

...

Most policies aimed at improving teaching conceive of the job not as a craft that needs to be taught but as a natural-born talent that teachers either decide to muster or don't possess. Instead of acknowledging that changes like the new math are something teachers must learn over time, we mandate them as "standards" that teachers are expected to simply "adopt." We shouldn't be surprised, then, that their students don't improve.

Read the whole thing. It's a long read but it's eye-opening.

 

[Vombatus]

There's only one number you need to know: 6.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Americans stink at everything.

America is the worst.

Except at football. We are the best at football.

 

[Riptide]

We're not so good at punctuation, either?

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

Or soccer.

 

[MisterCreosote]

 

[micropolitan guy]

Apparently we're very good at white Xs inside black boxes.

 

[Vombatus]

Apparently we're very good at white Xs inside black boxes.

Once you go box black, you never go back.

 

[Football_Bat]

Jesus told George Washington there would be no math.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Apparently we're very good at white Xs inside black boxes.

Let's try it again:

http://www.pointsincase.com/files/u3/math-dont-give-shirt.jpg

 

[YankeeFan]

A lot of Americans hate math.

And, very few love math like they do in other cultures:

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/28/295789948/the-real-problem

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Americans as a rule aren't real big fans of anything that's hard.