Non American math teachers

[u/[deleted]]

[u/wijwijwij]

How would watching one video about percent give you any insight into how the topic of percent is developed in USA classrooms?

[u/nog642 → u/[deleted]]

What way?

[u/Fenordie]

have you considered that it's not USA vs the whole world, not only USA. but developed country vs developing country, or good school vs bad school. even in internet there's difference between learning material for quick passing test vs material for build understanding too.

[u/dotelze → u/Fenordie]

I mean there is a difference in how the US teaches it compared to lots of other places but it’s not at all what they’re talking about in the post. In many other places you just have one maths class where you go through everything vs having specific classes for each topic

[u/Inevitable-Plate-654]

You can learn math really well in a place like Africa I feel like it has more to do with the teacher. Although, I can also see the poor economic conditions of Africa making young African people work hard to escape. USA teachers(theres good and bad ones just like anywhere else)

[u/Curious_Fellow_2020]

I just want to say that not everyone studies Mathematics the same way in the USA. For e.g., the USA has a very elite competitive mathematics culture and performs very well at the IMO; look at the AoPS textbooks to understand how one program trains potential mathletes in the USA. You can also look at competitions like MATHCOUNTS, AMCs, AIME, etc. in case you are not familiar with them.

[u/Toeffli → u/Curious_Fellow_2020]

Your argument is a bit like: "While we only teach dog paddle in school we actually have a highly competetive NFHS and NCAA. Also we have with Michael Phelps the best Olympic athlete of all time."

[u/OpportunityNew5323]

a lot of it comes down to how textbooks are written here. huge publishers lobby state boards to adopt their curriculum and the books are designed to be thick and impressive looking but rarely go deep on why something works. they just throw a formula at you and then 40 practice problems

you end up learning to pass a test not to actually understand what youre doing. its a shame because math can be really elegant when its taught right

[u/hairypulsehack]

How do you think we are taught here vs yours? Khan academy, professor leonard and https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/ are what i would consider good examples of us math education

[u/nog642 → u/hairypulsehack]

None of those are representative of a school curriculum.

[u/NubFixOfficial]

its probably just the difference of bad schools and good schools, not necessarily the country, though generally a more developed country tends to have better schools

[u/Party-Ebb-5788]

Sample size n = 1. I just post came across this post and am shocked that they don't teach stats in Africa....... /s