It seems we have entered the Find Out phase of FAFO; which FA began with a lack of preparation in US educators in the 1960's for "New Math" which focused on conceptual understanding and abstractions, such as set theory and differential number bases. This lack of preparation, especially among primary educators (who had not themselves encountered mathematical theory in their own education) led to a regression; "Back to Basics" in the mid 1970's. Those missteps; both in educator preparedness, and in systemic regression to a rote memorization approach were substantially aggravated by reduced standards testing in the 1980's to hide the resulting weaknesses resulting from this regression.
First hand experience as a student through these epochs from the late 70's through the 80's and 90's in US academia led to thinking I was 'not good at mathematics.'
For me the 'breaking point' of this pattern was the discovery that even with an undergraduate STEM degree from a PAC10 university, including 'advanced' math courses available therein, I was not sufficiently mathematically educated to qualify for enrollment in a post-graduate physics program at a leading scientific institute or to participate in advanced mathematics discourse at an international mathematics symposium.
During COVID lock-down I attempted graduate level bio-molecular studies from several tier-one US and UK online university programs and ran into proctored coursework where the educators opined that "some problems are simply intractable due to scope or complexity" and I was unwilling or unable to accept that there was no approach to solutions for these systems.
The ensuing self-directed relearning from international curricula and classical resources has remedied my misconception of inability; extended my approaches to include concepts such as p-adic bases and complex topological approaches. and shows that current cohorts of US students will need to become self empowered to learn conceptual math beyond what their educators believe achievable.
Those who do not grok math will always be in the position of being taken advantage of by those who do.
It seems we have entered the Find Out phase of FAFO; which FA began with a lack of preparation in US educators in the 1960's for "New Math" which focused on conceptual understanding and abstractions, such as set theory and differential number bases. This lack of preparation, especially among primary educators (who had not themselves encountered mathematical theory in their own education) led to a regression; "Back to Basics" in the mid 1970's. Those missteps; both in educator preparedness, and in systemic regression to a rote memorization approach were substantially aggravated by reduced standards testing in the 1980's to hide the resulting weaknesses resulting from this regression.
First hand experience as a student through these epochs from the late 70's through the 80's and 90's in US academia led to thinking I was 'not good at mathematics.' For me the 'breaking point' of this pattern was the discovery that even with an undergraduate STEM degree from a PAC10 university, including 'advanced' math courses available therein, I was not sufficiently mathematically educated to qualify for enrollment in a post-graduate physics program at a leading scientific institute or to participate in advanced mathematics discourse at an international mathematics symposium.
During COVID lock-down I attempted graduate level bio-molecular studies from several tier-one US and UK online university programs and ran into proctored coursework where the educators opined that "some problems are simply intractable due to scope or complexity" and I was unwilling or unable to accept that there was no approach to solutions for these systems.
The ensuing self-directed relearning from international curricula and classical resources has remedied my misconception of inability; extended my approaches to include concepts such as p-adic bases and complex topological approaches. and shows that current cohorts of US students will need to become self empowered to learn conceptual math beyond what their educators believe achievable.
Those who do not grok math will always be in the position of being taken advantage of by those who do.
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