🚀 go-pugleaf

There is an article in the January 1, 1993 issue of Science which
compares the mathematics achievement of Chinese, Japanese, and 
American children.  The article finds that American students continue
to lag far behind their Asian peers.  Only 10% of Japanese fifth
graders and 8% of Japanese eleventh graders had scores which were
lower than the average score of their American counterparts.

Eleventh graders from each country were asked the following question:
"Here are some factors that may influence students' performance in
mathematics: a good teacher, innate intelligence, home environment,
and studying hard.  Only 27% of American students chose studying
hard, as opposed to 72% of Japanese students.  However, 54% of American
students selected "a good teacher", versus 14% of Japanese students.

The teachers of eleventh graders were asked the same question.
93% of Japanese teachers chose "studying hard", and 7% chose "innate
intelligence".  However, only 26% of American teachers thought that
studying hard was the most important factor, while 41% selected
innate intelligence.

I think that these attitudes are very destructive.  In my limited
teaching experience, students have often told me that they are
not "math people".  When I try to emphasize concepts rather than
algorithms, students are resentful.  I think the reason for this
is that my students don't really believe that they can understand
mathematics, so they memorize procedures and hope to bluff their
way through the course.  They are not necessarily lazy, but they
become frustrated easily; if they can't solve a problem in a few
minutes, then they give up.

Any comments are welcome. 

---
David Radcliffe
Graduate Student, Dept of Mathematics
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
(INTERNET) radcliff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu