Education System

In my high school, the way math is taught makes me roll my eyes. The teachers hold the hands of the students through petty, trivial exercises, emphasizing the importance of calculation and computation. The kids learn purely from rote and memorization. This leads to a problem: after a typical American math-less summer, the students simply "forget" how to do problems. Even the problems that are given aren't really problems, they're exercises. Creativity is never discussed, and therefore mathematics is treated as a binary topic: you're either right or wrong. Of course, it's important to note that not all students have the same objectives and goals that I do as an academic, so of course opinions vary. Some kids love the math courses and the way they're taught, as they're barely enough to get themselves a flimsy engineering degree most of the time. I dread hearing the collective moan of my math class every day when the bell rings. I just wish everyone could see the beautiful light of mathematics.

In México, students go to school since 3 years old (2 years of Kinder garden, 6 elementary, 3 middle, 3 high). There some students who end elementary school and don't know read and write, just pass beacause teachers can't reprobate. In math education is poor, students are accustomed to do all by a rule (machining) and they don't understand what they do(teachers don't know a difference between excirse and a problem) . In my school( that is on the top high school from Mexico) are students who don't know how solve cuadratic equation or find the slope, they only memorize and spit the information in the test, THEY WORRY FOR A GRADE NOT FOR LEARN, also they sheat a lot.

Classes must be more intereactive: teachers should discuss with students about problems that way students learn from the teacher's expirience, work in projects that help others to be better. Also should teach students to work, not all life is school, thay have to learn to create (carpentry, music, cooking, about construction) that will develope our creativity and manual habilities and students could earn money by their work. And be stricted, if you don't pass, you're not going to advance until have acceptable grades. Not reapet courses, I have taken four times systems of equations.

I have to say most of engineers graduates of Mexican universities are not prepared.

Students in Egypt don't go to school in grade 12 because the colleges in Egypt take students according to their score in grade 12 and they prefer to study at home and take private lessons. Egypt's curriculum are very bad and Useless, the score which you get, depends on how much you can save information without understanding furthermore most of teachers have no scientific back ground and they are restricted with the curriculum. there are no applications in the curriculum and teacher's doesn't get good salary so they resort to give private lessons and most of them don't illustrate the lessons at school to make students resort to take private lessons !!it's very weird as teacher doesn't teach students!! Egypt's education system is very bad and the curriculum have't be changed since 1920, they also get worst every year. who wants to be educated in Egypt, should educate himself!! Thanks Brilliant

It's been a while since I took classes in math, but I've seen recent [American] math course syllabuses, and most of the material has little to do with math. The poor kids today spend a lot of time doing organizational and group stuff, learning to be bureaucrats, not math. I could be wrong, but I'm waiting for students to tell me that I am. Please share your stories.

What Ryan said pretty much applies to the scenario in India too. The current education system lacks encouragement for those who are ready to go beyond the regular drill and are fascinated by the beauty of the subject. Textbooks lack emphasis on proofs and often topics with deeper meanings are treated as obvious, leaving the "curious" student struggling to grasp its meaning. This does not mean that the current education system is "bad". I suppose this stage is essential. If not proper exposure, it does provide a strong base for newer ideas to be consolidated upon. Also, provided the huge number of students, it becomes almost impossible to customize the syllabus. Plus there is all that politics in institutions to increase the pass percentage etc. That really brings down the quality of education. But these macro-factors need not trouble a student. There are always those little things- good teachers, friends and Brilliant, of course that'll help you out. But yeah, there is nothing wrong in introducing the "beautiful" part of the subject in the curriculum, besides the drill part. Wonder when will something be done about it. Whew! That was long.

Looking back it is almost a miracle that I still sort of like maths: Countless of tasks of that sort "bring this or that fraction into lowest terms", etc. I was lucky that I got a wonderful book as a present about different topics including non-Euclidean geometry, introduction to differentiation etc; or such beautiful results like the limit of the series $\sum_{n \to \infty} 1/n^2$. That book really fascinated me. Later I got a small collection of formuli e.g. from analytic geometry and made my first 'discovery". Sadly there are nowadays lots of books burying mathematics under a huge bulk of notation, formalism -- no I don't like these. So my suggestion would be: Math just for a few years, and those who want to go further can do so; there's no point in forcing people who just can't do with math into math lessons. Even worse, there are lots of concepts like 'mixed fractions' and nonsense like that still being taught that no one will ever use later.

Yes, as a student in the modern education system, I can also confirm my dissatisfaction. I believe that many things are completely unnecessary and interfere. A lot of time and effort goes into additional classes, but on the other hand, it is good that you can find more info here as help in writing a term paper or dissertation. The main problem is that the student’s life is spent on boring things that will not be useful to him.