High school maths in USA

jackdaw

Anyone know what they do in high school maths in the USA ?

im AMAZED at the terrible knowledge of yanks with areas such as Calculas
Trig ..

and these are college students!!!
they seem to do what we do in 2nd year in their 1st year of UNI !!!

so what the hell do they do in high school ??

claire h

There's no standard syllabus, that's the problem. There's also different requirements depending on the state (I think? District, maybe? I would despair if they left these things up to the individual school) as to how many maths courses you have to take in high school. So things like algebra, trigonometry, calculus etc are offered in high schools, but unless someone was actually into maths, they might only take the minimum requirements (say, algebra) and leave it at that.

Of course, then you have the students who are taking AP (advanced placement) maths classes, which are supposed to be equal to first-year college level stuff, in theory.

I would argue that there's a bigger gap between the most and least mathematically able at the end of second-level education in the States than in Ireland, but then if you look at the failure rates for Leaving Cert maths, or the numbers taking foundation... it's a close call.

spurious

We had a child applied to come to our school from a US school. She wanted to enter 5th Year to start a Leaving Cert. course. She claimed to have done 'Geometry' in Maths classes - just Geometry. Her report gave a grade for geometry. Our teacher asked her about algebra, trigonometry, statistics etc. to blank stares - 'we just did geometry - algebra is next year'. We couldn't take her as it would have required too much work for her to catch up with the others.

Saruman

As someone said, it depends on where they went to school.
My brother in law is a lazy fecker but he is smart and loves calculus.

Still i know their education system is no where near as good.. However they put a lot more emphasis on the practical and sports side of things. And their schools will usually be better equipped with the latest computers etc. Except poor inner city areas with metal detectors etc.

PurpleFistMixer

I'd say people in other countries would look down on the shoddy state of mathematics in Ireland (if they were aware of our existence), too.

ironictoaster

I remember my friend from Florida telling me that she just has a calculus class and not general math class. Seems they just dedicate a class to a certain math topic over there. Well in Florida anyways.

JSK 252

spurious wrote:

We had a child applied to come to our school from a US school. She wanted to enter 5th Year to start a Leaving Cert. course. She claimed to have done 'Geometry' in Maths classes - just Geometry. Her report gave a grade for geometry. Our teacher asked her about algebra, trigonometry, statistics etc. to blank stares - 'we just did geometry - algebra is next year'. We couldn't take her as it would have required too much work for her to catch up with the others.

Thats lousy.

Why didnt she take up ordinary level maths or are you talking about ordinary level maths?

Naikon

JSK 252 wrote:

Thats lousy.

Why didnt she take up ordinary level maths or are you talking about ordinary level maths?

Maybe, because a single geometry class is not enough for either Higher or Ordinary level maths?
Higher is obviously more challenging, but even "Ordinary" maths requires a prerequisite knowledge base such as JC maths which would provide some algebra etc.
Btw, Those S.T.E.P.S papers look unbelievably tough, and for a very good reason I suppose.

dan719

Naikon wrote:

Btw, Those S.T.E.P.S papers look unbelievably tough, and for a very good reason I suppose.

Yeah they are aimed at the top one percent of the people taking a-level maths. Only oxbridge and warwick use them for entry.

carlowboy

American Education System isn't too bad. If you're rich you're ok!

spurious

JSK 252 wrote:

Thats lousy.

Why didnt she take up ordinary level maths or are you talking about ordinary level maths?

We might have taken her if we thought she could have managed Ordinary Level.

There are many things can be said about national standard exams, good and bad, but at least they do give some clue as to the levels a child is at. We have similar problems with children from some other countries, where all a translated report will say is 'good' or bizarrely '9/10' beside a subject.

To take her or not was not entirely my decision, but I may have been slightly influenced by the fact that she wanted to do the Leaving Cert. in Ireland and go to college 'because it's free here' and then go back 'home'. She had both a US and an EU passport. No doubt she found a place somewhere else.

Manic Moran

It's not just America, though everyone loves to point at them.

When I moved to Ireland from Belgium, I went into 5th year, and on day '1' was the 'Honours or Ordinary level?' selection for the various courses. I was a perpetual "A" student in Maths in Belgium, so happily said 'Honours please.'

They kicked off with an 'Algebra review.' "Fair enough", thought I. Teacher puts a quadratic up on the board. "Aha," thinks I. "I know how to do that." I had barely started working on it when someone else puts up a hand. "Hmm" thinks I. "There must have been a trick to that one I missed. No matter, I'll get the next one".

Same thing. And the next one.

I was well behind, and it took a lot of work to catch up. At the end of the year, the teacher mentioned that she had no idea where I was coming from during the first couple of months and evidently considered me out of place as well.

Nobody often makes fun of the Belgian curriculum, the American one being a far more popular target, but the fact is that the Irish mathematics curriculum, at least as it stood back in the early 90s, was superior to most any you could try to compare it with.

NTM

Gangsta

What are the S.T.E.P.S exams? Anyone have a link?

JSK 252

American Maths:
Prove that:
20 pieces of chicken, 2 fries, a side and a "Diet" Coke > 0

Where chicken, fries, side and coke are all elements of fast food and are constants.:D

E92

The Americans have no idea of languages either, last year I was in Germany on a student exchange, and while I was there there was a crowd of Texans who had been "learning" German for I think it was 3 years, were staying there to "learn German" they were too lazy to bother learning German, while there was I speaking to the German family in what little German I had, they weren't even prepared to say "Wie gehts?"(how are you).

Their German teacher introduced the "best" pupil to my exchange family's dad and all she could manage was "Entschuldigung"(excuse me) and the aforementioned "Wie gehts"(which of course should really have been Wie geht es Ihnen(polite you), because he was older than her)?

I remember thinking that an Irish student would have managed that after only a week in first year! And we suck at language learning:D .

homah_7ft

jackdaw wrote:

Anyone know what they do in high school maths in the USA ?

im AMAZED at the terrible knowledge of yanks with areas such as Calculas
Trig ..

and these are college students!!!
they seem to do what we do in 2nd year in their 1st year of UNI !!!

so what the hell do they do in high school ??

Maybe things have changed since the 1990's but Irish students would be laughed at in America for their presentation or research abilities. I'm not saying one is better than another rather that, "All Americans are stupid" comments are not warranted.