Dad wants a practical major

rienrah
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 02:53:40 +0000

"Ability matters some, but effort is primary. Most parents in the US do not believe this. American’s are much more likely to tell their kids, especially girls, that they are “just not good at math,” when the student struggles. That is a big mistake.

Unfortunately, the parents were no good at math, and the Elementary school teacher was not good at it either, so when a girls struggles, they tell her she probably isn’t good at it either when they should be supporting her. The girl grows up to make the same mistake with her kids. Rinse and repeat."

Wow and wow. Up until this post I was arguing the opposite opinion in my head. But this is exactly what happened to my daughter in jr. high school. She was placed in honors math in 3-5th grade (with an extraordinarily talented teacher, who taught her to LOVE math). But her 6th and 7th grade teachers were uninspiring, and her 8th grade teacher was actually detrimental (if DD was having trouble with an algebra problem, he told her to “ask the boys for help, because boys are good at math”). She has hated math since 6th grade.

She powered through a pre-calc class in college (A+) because she thought she might need to take calculus for her major, but dropped math like a hot potato as soon as she found a way around it. She was molded to hate a subject that was initially a joy. My husband and I were powerless against this process because neither of us had a sound math foundation.