#Or statistics which is what I'm taking instead of calculus | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

error404vnotfound · 4 months

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omg V you are a math major??? that's so cool! it's going to sound like really needy on my end right now but I literally found people who study math so interesting because I have a love-hate relationship with math so on the one hand I'm like "damn i wish I had been better in math" and on the other I'm like "why would I do that to myself?"

anyway if you want to could you like explain to me more about your subjects and the major perhaps? like what do you study (I mean math duh but like)

also history of math sounds like something I would love ng

l@ink-fireplace-coffee

HI !!!!!!

don't worry at all about this really. also being bad at math in high school it totally understandable (it is rarely taught well because there's no fucking time to get into what makes math cool so you just get methods and formulas for the engineering girlies to be able to use when they go to college) (also it's never to late to learn more math !!!! and you can decide to learn the cooler math (or just become familiar with them) there's a bunch of YouTube channels that make math fun to learn about)

also the "why would i do this to myself" SO TRUE. we ask ourselves this question constantly (the answer most of the time is that we all liked multiple degrees in different fields and ended up choosing math because???? it's what sounded most exciting to us????) (more insane things to think and say i know)

i love talking about this cursed degree don't worry :]

(cut because it got very long)

so. math is a big ass field with many branches. you also got pure mathematics and applied mathematics, and we get to study it all (help us)

there's calculus, algebra, geometry and statistics and probability as the "main" branches. we also take some coding classes (in C. for some reason) (because of course we do) (it's like instead of using a calculator we are using an abacus)

first year is basically so we get a good base for everything we are gonna be doing later on (like most stem degrees, only they learn all the math they'll their first year while we are stuck not being able to do stuff we learnt in high school because it hasn't been proved to us yet) (we get introduced to probability, do calculus both differential and integral in one variable and learn linear algebra) (we also had one physics class for some reason)

we take a class on mathematical language and reasoning too (learn ways to prove stuff, logic reasoning and tools that will be used in other languages) (we also learn how to build the different sets of numbers that was pretty cool). then after this class we also take arithmetics which is very cool and also a pain in the ass

from here on every semester builds on top of what we learnt the previous one. we go from calculus in one variable to two variables, then there's complex analysis, etc. algebra splits into pure algebra (groups and rings and very technical stuff that's very important but very dense) and geometry (linear and projective) and topology, then there's differential geometry and so on. we go more in depth into probability and statistics too

then there's also the standalone classes we take. there's numerical methods (which is why we had to learn to code. they are ways to approximate things irl because nothing is exact), then we have history of mathematics my beloved, graphs (very cool subject), and mathematical models and dynamical systems (heavily applying calculus to real life. think the covid prediction models that was this)

we also get a bunch of optatives to go more in depth if we want to, and we can also take some physics, economics or tech classes to get a minor in them

for some subjects this is very cool because the field is beautifully build. you start small or with what you want to do and things just fall into place (linear algebra, geometry, topology). then there's calculus (we hate calculus in this household). solving problems is fun but by god who came up with all this bullshit I just wanna talk (it's just unnecessarily convoluted imo)

as for how each subject is structured it's all the same: definitions, properties, lemas, propositions, and theorems (and their proofs). then the teacher shows us how to apply the theory to some problems and we usually have a laboratory to show we understood it

we basically learn the Why and How of it all :]

and yeah that's basically it. idk if I answered your questions but you can always ask!!!

#ask:null #i love this degree i really do #sometimes it's ridiculous what we have to learn and do but i love it

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a-room-of-my-own · 4 years

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Hello, I was wondering if I could discuss something with you? I'm training to be a teacher and last week we discussed whether boys and girls learn (foreign languages specifically) differently and if so, how we could best adapt our teaching. The topic came up since girls, broadly, achieve better results in FLs than boys. A number of reasons have been identified (I'll come back to this) but the consensus seems to be that teachers need to do a better job of teaching boys. Now, I think the reason/1

boys do less well is that languages aren't as valued a subject as STEM and so boys can't see the point (less prestigious), boys need to be coddled and don't like being told they're wrong (so less likely to show up a funny accent or a grammar mistake and therefore less likely to participate in class), among other things. FL teachers are more likely to be women too, so I wonder if that plays a role, even if subconsciously. This prompted a conversation about "how to get boys involved in FL" /2

Apparently, we need to make lessons more dynamic, more interesting, cater more to "boys' interests", get them moving in class, not just copying out words, etc. Which fine! Those are good ideas! HOWEVER it implies that girls will learn in any old boring lesson, even when the topic doesn't interest them but boys, oh no! boys will NOT learn anything in a boring classroom. I'm sorry, what Maths lesson were you ever in that was 'dynamic'? I don't see research /3

papers being churned out on that topic. I tried to mention a few of these things in class- such as how examples in textbooks use male pronouns and names approx. 70% (?) of the time (despite there being fewer boys taking languages!!! it's not compulsory at GCSE in the UK so it's up to the pupil), etc. and I had some of my colleagues disagree. According to them gender has nothing to do with it and saying so is stereotyping, to the disadvantage of boys. Not all boys are rowdy, and some even like /4

languages! Fancy that! By the end of the session I sounded like the hysterical woman who wanted to frame boys' underachievement as their fault instead of improving my teaching to be more inclusive of boys, I'm sure you can picture the scene. Do you have any thoughts? Am I insane for thinking that a big part of the reason boys don't perform as well is because... they don't want to? Another colleague brought up girls and boys having "different brains" but I didn't have the courage to get into /5

conversation (although I need to learn to dismantle this!) OBVIOUSLY I want boys in my lessons to do well, but equally, they're still statistically more likely to be hired as a translator than any girl I ever teach so who is really disadvantaged here? This turned out to be quite long, I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd be able to offer a radfem perspective on this. Equally, if I'm barking up the wrong tree please point it out! 6/6

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You came to the right place as I am very (very!) old-fashioned as far as school is concerned.

Once upon a time, my grandmother was an elementary school teacher in rural Alsace, Eastern France. She was 18, since teachers in those days started working at that age, and she had 60 pupils. In the same class. It was during the 1930's, and these children's maternal language was either the local dialect or Polish, as many polish workers had immigrated there. So my 18 year old grandmother had to teach French to children who didn't speak it, children of different ages and origins, plus writing, reading, calculus, history etc... Amazingly enough she managed to do that, just like every other teacher.

Nowadays, in our school system, many children arrive in middle school without being able to read or write. Many graduate without even being able to write a text without grammar and spelling mistakes. And what do people say? We need smaller classes! Innovative methods! Computers! Interaction!

Nope. You need simple methods and authority. That's about it.

You know why girls thrive at school? Because school is for many girls an environment that is less authoritarian than their home, where they can thrive and be praised for their efforts. And the more conservative the family, the truer it is. Girls are expected to be good, they're not raised to be rebellious, but to listen to figures of authority. At home they're not complimented when they behave well, it's considered normal. Whereas at school they have an opportunity to shine, to be noticed for their good work and their behavior. Since they instinctively respect your authority as a teacher, they don't need to be scolded or punished in order to do a good job. So they perform better, because new teaching methods (less authoritative, more interactive) are adapted to them.

Boys don't perform well nowadays because while they are still raised like little princes, the institutions that used to keep them in check are gone. And if they're raised in conservative environment it's worse. Teachers are women and they don't respect women as authority figures. Their vision of authority is 'someone bigger than me who can use violence against me' therefore your status as a teacher means nothing to them, and the punishments you could use are seen as ridiculous. You may even have several cases of parents who think their sons are extraordinary, and that if they have bad grades it's only because you're mean.

So what can you do? I'm not a teacher, I only gave private tutoring classes when I was a student (I would burn out in 6 months, you people are heros) but honestly in my opinion it's not a problem of method, but of behavior and education. I don't know what you're allowed to do to assert your authority and put them back to work, but if your method works with girls, it means it's a good one!

#Education #Teachers you're welcome to chime in

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