I teach at a very academically rigorous school. But, there are a few things this school does that might surprise people:
1. Many teachers teach a wide range of grade levels. So you could have a teacher who *could* teach Linear Algebra teaching you in 4th grade math.
2. The school makes time for creative math and CS in addition to the regular class. So I get to work with students without pressure to get them past any particular test or goal posts.
@futurebird Yabbut do you teach physics with calculus or without?
They know a little calc before they get into physics. And they often tell me about how they used it in my calc class.
But, what I wish we could do is stop treating Statistics like it's... the math class for "weak" students who couldn't do calculus.
Part of the problem is there is still a tendency to classify kids as "math people" and "not math people" although I'm breaking my peers of this notion every chance I get. Part of it is this snobbishness pure math people have about stats.
@futurebird @whknott As a "not math person" who teaches stats to people who Do Not Want To Learn Stats, full agreement.
Perhaps it's the cognitive dissonance effects, but I have formed an opinion that "math people" looking down on stats are reacting to their difficulty with/distaste for having to interface with the "real world."
Some approaches to stats are purely theoretical, but it is a field inherently pointed toward application. The history of academia is partly the history of "pure" academics denigrating any application of their pure knowledge. I think that's partly because interfacing theory with reality is messy and difficult in ways some of the pure-math people find especially challenging.
@guyjantic Reminds me of when I met my quantitative analysis prof. He asked how I was feeling and I said I was terrified cause I’m not a math person. He laughed and replied “not to worry. Stats isn’t math.” @futurebird @whknott
@AlliFlowers @guyjantic @futurebird @whknott My daughter took AP Stats last year--it seemed like it was two classes: a relatively abstract and math-y course in probability theory, and a course in scientific method and experimental design with a lot of examples from the social sciences. Which half of the class you found easy and which you found difficult depended on whether you were inclined to enjoy mathematics or not.
She doesn't see herself as a "math person" and she immediately took to the bits that the "math people" (including the teacher, by his own admission) found it hard to wrap their heads around, but just hated and resisted the probability-theory stuff. But I think she'd have a mind for sociology, psychology or political science if she wanted to go into it, which she very much doesn't.
@mattmcirvin Bless her! If I’d had to have taken stats in high school I would have dropped out. @guyjantic @futurebird @whknott
