29 Sep 2005 - 19:55

math versus computer science

Very interesting comment from Lesley Stevens:

Tangential to the "math brain" discussion, my husband has made a very interesting observation.

A smidge of background here: He has always been one who has no fear of questioning or correcting his instructors, something that many of his primary school teachers didn't much care for, as you can imagine. He has a double major in mathematics and computer science and he'll graduate with his B.S. this spring. (He is 31, finishing his degree after a 10 year hiatus.)

What he has noticed is that while his CompSci and gen ed instructors often resent being corrected, his mathematics instructors do not.

His theory is that people who do math are accustomed to being wrong. They make mistakes all the time, and it's easy to do when working a complex problem on a blackboard. He thinks that you pretty much can't do math all the time and still maintain an infallibility complex, or superior attitude towards students. Especially since math is a young person's game, and most math professors are already past their "peak" in math ability, and know it.

In addition, in "soft" liberal arts areas, or conversely, extremely complex areas like programming, mistakes may not be obvious, or may be open to some debate. In math, an instructor can't wiggle around a mistake. If he has added 6 to 7 and gotten 14, that's just wrong, end of story.

What I think I'm getting at here is that making math easy for students through "no one answer", etc. is not helpful because it delays an understanding that math is hard for everybody including people like my husband, and that the best mathematicians in the world make mistakes all the time. This understanding actually makes me feel a lot better about my own anxieties about math.

Oh, and as for "math brains", my husband's major the first time around, before the 10 year break, was Philosophy.

This discussion has been a revelation to me. I'm going to keep all the URLs handy so I can print out these comments out and/or send the links to friends, teachers, & administrators as needed.

The vast majority of people simply assume, without even realizing they are assuming, that doing math comes naturally to the select few AND that those select few are the ones who ought to be doing math, and who deserved to be put in Phase 4.

I was just this afternoon talking to a mom whose son was moved from Phase 4 to Phase 3; according to figures I was given, 35% of Irvington's Phase 4 5th graders failed the Phase 4 placement test at the end of 5th grade, something most parents don't know. Most of these children switched to Phase 3, though some parents refused the move. I know of two; there may be others.

All of this gatekeeping activity is based on the explicitly stated judgment that 'he/she doesn't belong in Phase 4.'

It's an essentialist argument.

I was already off the boat for the whole 'He's a three' business, thanks to Wayne Wickelgren, and to Ed ("We want Christopher to be an overachiever.")

Now I'm seriously off the boat. And I'm armed.


Confessions of an engineering school wash-out
more confessions of an engineering school washout
the Terminator, or 'the magical number 7, plus or minus 2'
On Having a Math Brain (by Carolyn)
Wayne Wickelgren on mastery of math & on creativity & domain knowledge
late bloomers in math & Wickelgren on children's desire to learn math
math brain debunked (by Carolyn)
math professors versus computer science professors
Wayne Wickelgren on math talent

Back to main page.

---

---

Comments

After entering a comment, users can login anonymously as KtmGuest (password: guest) when prompted.
Please consider registering as a regular user.
Look here for syntax help.

WebLogForm
Title:	math versus computer science
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	CollegeMath, CompareAndContrastPosts, IrvingtonMath, IrvingtonSchools
LogDate:	200509291554