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Feels like many other comments here are trivial objections for the sake of sounding contrarian. Or even, humble bragging about how easy math was to the commente

Feels like many other comments here are trivial objections for the sake of sounding contrarian. Or even, humble bragging about how easy math was to the commenter. I found the article to be a great, new (to me), and widely applicable perspective on the matter.

wwarner 3y ago
I am definitely not bragging — I’m saying the opposite, that all that pressure and elitism around math and science are unnecessary and counterproductive. I also liked the article just fine. The only controversial point I made is that science > art :)
BWStearns 3y ago
It's almost like no one finished reading the post (emphasis added). > I don’t particularly care what grades my kids get once they start school. But I do care that they consistently prove to themselves they can do hard things. If Calculus is how they want to do it, fine, but there are many, many more options. Separately, as someone just recently learning calculus as an adult now I'm digging the obliviousness of the "math is just inherently easy" folks. I get where y'all are coming from but there's a deep lack of empathy there. Go teach some people something (anything) and learn that other people's brains don't necessarily contain your knowledge.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  > I get where y'all are coming from but there's a deep lack of empathy there. Go teach some people something (anything) and learn that other people's brains don't necessarily contain your knowledge. Concerning the empathy point: I do believe that to become good in mathematics, you seriously have to believe that everything in mathematics is actually easy, and you either don't work hard enough (so you fail understanding it; solution: work harder) or you are too stupid to understand the material (which means that you should better work even harder to understand the material to compensate for this weakness).

wwarner 3y ago

I am definitely not bragging — I’m saying the opposite, that all that pressure and elitism around math and science are unnecessary and counterproductive. I also liked the article just fine. The only controversial point I made is that science > art :)

BWStearns 3y ago

It's almost like no one finished reading the post (emphasis added). > I don’t particularly care what grades my kids get once they start school. But I do care that they consistently prove to themselves they can do hard things. If Calculus is how they want to do it, fine, but there are many, many more options. Separately, as someone just recently learning calculus as an adult now I'm digging the obliviousness of the "math is just inherently easy" folks. I get where y'all are coming from but there's a deep lack of empathy there. Go teach some people something (anything) and learn that other people's brains don't necessarily contain your knowledge.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> I get where y'all are coming from but there's a deep lack of empathy there. Go teach some people something (anything) and learn that other people's brains don't necessarily contain your knowledge. Concerning the empathy point: I do believe that to become good in mathematics, you seriously have to believe that everything in mathematics is actually easy, and you either don't work hard enough (so you fail understanding it; solution: work harder) or you are too stupid to understand the material (which means that you should better work even harder to understand the material to compensate for this weakness).