Education for Mathematic

I recently found that the way Chinese teacher teaching Math is quite different than the way instructors use in the US, and it’s not just a personal stylistic difference between instructor. More precisely, the difference originated from the different teaching goal setting by schools or even the country.

I have never imagined I would be interested in math in college, and even choose a major closely related to it. In fact, I didn’t like math so much during high school, simply because of the extreme difficulty. I guess that’s where the stereotype that Asian people are good at math comes from.

Let me explain what do I mean difficult. First of all, the question is normally not about getting the number of A, it’s more like prove A = B/CD * C/AD. On the one hand, there is no way people can understand how to do this question by just reading the question. Since there is no obvious connection between the question and the solution, the only way to do such a question is trying. Using a paper to write down anything they can think of, and try to make some combination to reach the answer. On the other hand, there is no plugin allowed in such a question, all the calculation are about polynomial with letters. In this case, the calculation would be much more difficult, and the student must be really sensitive to the form of the polynomial in order to find out some part that can be canceled out or do some weird transformation.

Besides the difficulty, the focus of teaching is also quite different. Chinese math teaching is more exam-oriented. During class, teachers mostly focus on how to solve a related issue in the exam. The definition and visualization were covered, but certainly not as important as exam questions. Usually, 2/3 of a class is talking about difficult questions appears in homework and exams, that might be difficult to imagine for students here.

Then there is the pros and cons. Many people feel that Chinese math is for genius. It’s very helpful for those super smart people to realize how smart they are while allowing other students to see the difference between themselves and genius. But I would say such difficulty wasn’t completely useless. One main advantage is that there is no way students can do the question with mindless calculation. So most people can learn to observe and analyze the possible solution before actually start the calculation, which is a useful skill when solving a complex issue. Also, it allows students to be patient. Many people can get anxious when they find a question they don’t know how to solve, while for me, is there anything more usual than stuck in a difficult question??? Such a difficult question is also like training for people to calm down when they meet some troubles.

But there are certainly some cons. Firstly, it’s REALLY frustrating. I kept questioning myself why do I have so much trouble in math. I understand that many other people also have trouble doing this question, and there are tons of people having even more trouble than me, but I still feel not confident about my math. I think the actual reason for such difficulty is that college or even high school only considering exam score, also the large population of China makes the admission process highly competitive. In another word, those exams are designed to be selective, and it is normally that only a small percentage of people can actually get all the questions correctly done. But is this still education…?

Chinese education system always selecting smart people to receive higher education and left the other with confusion and frustration. As a result, smart people feel that they are better than anyone else in any sense, and they can confidently pursue their dream, while the other has to admit that they are worse from within. I am not saying this education system is bad, making smart people more confident and others less can be beneficial for everyone sometimes, but they actually neglect another important purpose of education, giving people the knowledge to know the world. Higher education is much more popular in the U.S, many college students are not so smart, but they still enjoy the thing they are learning. The thing they learned may be completely useless for their job, but it can give people a different perspective to view the world.

Education is not the privilege of smart people. Everyone should be able to enjoy learning.

*(just for fun)A sample question and translation:

source:https://www.sohu.com/a/220485426_579102

parabola C: y + x^2 have focus point F, and there is a point P moving in a straight line l: x-y-2 = 0, then make two tangent lines of C PA, PB pass through moving point P and intersect with C in A, B.

Q1: use a function to describe the movement of G, the center of gravity of triangle APB.

Q2: prove that angle PFA always equal to PFB