Why Do Your Parents Care About Math Education?

by rrusczyk, Jun 27, 2008, 11:51 PM

This study is pretty unsurprising. Parents want more math taught in schools. Duh. The howler paragraph I saw was:

Quote:

Parents may want more math in school because they feel unprepared to help at home, said Janine Remillard, who teaches math-related courses at the University of Pennsylvania's education school.

In my experience, it's the parents who know a lot of math who are most adamant about having more math education -- they're the ones who know how important it is. (I think this is part of the reason recent immigrants are so overrepresented at the top in math/science contests -- mom and dad only got to the USA because of their math skills, so they place a very high value on it.)

Basically, parents wanting more math for their kids is a pretty strong indicator that societally, we know math is important. Too bad it has penetrated more deeply than a simple little poll... Who to blame? I don't know, but the ed schools are certainly in the top ten of my list. Maybe top 5.

education

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My parents would be just fine if I suddenly decided to quit studying math... I have to get motivation from elsewhere.

by leoxnlin, Jun 28, 2008, 3:31 AM

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But they know math, right? They aren't ignorant idiots, I assume.

Haha overpresentation is a bit of an understatement. HMMT is honestly 75% asian, 20% indian.

by Aneo., Jun 28, 2008, 3:59 AM

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uh oh, haha here we go again - Indians are not asians

Hmm when I was young, I think my mom tried to make me excel in a well-rounded kind of way by getting my tutors for all sorts of subjects including reading (Korean), English, math, science, as well as Chinese. I guess I strayed off to math somewhere along the way and found it enjoyable. Still dunno if being logical (opposed to emotional) is a consequence of or a cause of being math-oriented.. my dad's an engineer, though.

by undefined117, Jun 28, 2008, 11:57 AM

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My parents have always supported my interest in math... They used to teach me a lot of stuff when the school was way too slow.

by tjhance, Jun 28, 2008, 12:13 PM

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My parents never taught me Hindi, though I have converstational abilities. My parents, however, did try to teach my math at an early age. They showed me multiplication and stuff when I was like 3. I went up till calculus with my grandpa in 6th grade. Unfortunately, I never heard about problem solving until the end of seventh grade

so I hadn't really done much. At least this year in eigth grade I was able to take the USAMO, though I failed it...

by Aneo., Jun 28, 2008, 5:42 PM

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I never actually fully like math until like mid 4th grade. All my life i kept switching subject for a month or 2 i would concentrate on say math then maybe english then maybe biology. but when we moved to the US and i did long division problems as bonus work at school my teacher recommended me to take mathcounts unofficially my dad taught be reallly basic algebra because he is a doctor and really hates math

and i started doing stuff on my own then i ordered intro to algebra and so on..... right now i going to 6th grade and i am doing precalc at a univ.

by Poincare, Jun 28, 2008, 10:39 PM

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Hmm right now my parents can't even help me with AoPS work. However, my dad's a wiz at calculus and he can happily help me with that, but with anything else it's a no.

If the parents are depending on school systems to adequetly teach their kids math, then they are gravely mistaken.

by n0vad3m0n, Jun 28, 2008, 11:37 PM

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My parents came from China where the math ed is really strict... my mom was #1 in math a lot there, but she's too busy to teach me a lot. So sometimes I'm a little under what I should be. I have to say, my teachers are (were) doing the worst job with math as ever. My 2nd grade teacher was okay and she was teaching us pre-algebra then, and now I just graduated from 5th grade and I haven't "learned" ANYTHING close to that. Stupid math curriculums.

by splatyango, Jun 29, 2008, 10:44 PM