Observations about kids at the camp

[Arcadia]

But It seemes Belgium has a lot of girls studying Math, but they are all opting for being a teacher in Secondary school.

They choose not the academical bachelor.

Is it because being a teacher have better maternity/childcare benefits? Back home, a teacher can take up to three years of no pay leave after her paid maternity leave without losing her job. Quite a few of my lady teacher friends exercise that option.

[lewelma]

 I had not the slightest blip of interest in math as a social activity.  No offense to those who do, but I didn't.  I was good in math but it was a tool, a means to an end. 

 

Me too. Not a hint of interest in doing math on the side, for fun.  But I ended up in population dynamics, and area of applied mathematics.  At the time I was doing my research, I was the only woman in the world publishing in the field.  Well, publishing in English.

 

So I'm not super competitive either, but still mathematically focused.  So I know what you mean.

 

[Loesje22000]

Is it because being a teacher have better maternity/childcare benefits? Back home, a teacher can take up to three years of no pay leave after her paid maternity leave without losing her job. Quite a few of my lady teacher friends exercise that option.

That could be a good reason, but that is not the case.

The first 'few' (5-10) years you work contract based, so you have work from 1 september - 1 juli, and then hired back in september again. A continuing contract is very hard to get as teacher in Belgium.

 

But,

And that could be a reason,

It is not difficult to get a contract as there is a high need for Math Teachers.

[8filltheheart]

I am so glad I posted about this because you guys have really helped me to see what I could not see. I was assuming that boys and girls would be equally competitive, and expected that twice as many boys might be interested in math as girls because of cultural influences. And the numbers just did not add up. Those numbers would give 17 and 9; rather than the observed 24 and 2. But saying that girls are less interested in co-ed competitions, and that competition clubs can have a group identity that is hard to vary from, has gone a long way to explaining the huge skew.

 

I certainly don't feel that competitions are the be all end all, I just thought that the numbers represented the talent, and it sounds like that is simply not true. For which I am very glad!

Yes! That was my point about the research. Not that girls aren't equally capable of being good at math, but there is a difference in females and males and that they just might find other things more enjoyable/pleasurable which causes the disproportions. I'm sure if I pushed math on my dd that she would be her brother's equal (or perhaps even better b/c she is more globally gifted vs. her brother's skew) BUT then it would be extrinsic vs. intrinsic b/c her brother did it on his own. I'm not sure then that it would actually be equal b/c his was pure pleasure pulling him forward and hers would be encouragement pushing her from behind.

[SKL]

Me too. Not a hint of interest in doing math on the side, for fun.  But I ended up in population dynamics, and area of applied mathematics.  At the time I was doing my research, I was the only woman in the world publishing in the field.  Well, publishing in English.

 

So I'm not super competitive either, but still mathematically focused.  So I know what you mean.

 

 

Sure, I use math all day long, but it's in the context of a job that mixes legal/tax analysis, reading/writing, and social progress and uses math as a tool.

[maize]

I had an experience in high school that made me wonder if male brains might be inclined to process math differently from female. I was one of the top students in terms of mathematical problem solving, at least based on exams like the current AMC10 (I think it was AHSME?) and its follow on (I didn't do well in math classes at all, but that was primarily due to executive function challenges). I remember asking another top math student (male) to explain how he solved something to me once and finding it nearly impossible to follow his explanation. He manipulated symbols as if the symbols themselves were all that was needed, whereas to me I had to translate all the symbols into something linguistically meaningful in order to process them. I think his method was more visually based and mine was more verbally based. We could both solve the problems, but our approach was different. Possibly for related reasons, I found math classes taught be female teachers easier to follow than those taught be males.

 

I have no idea whether that is a common experience.

[wapiti]

All I can say is that I wish I had had some exposure to real math, probably via math competitions.  I hadn't even heard of competition math until this board, honestly.  (My dh, on the other hand, participated in high school; my all-girl high school wasn't exactly known for its academics and didn't have a math club.)  It is the math style, not the competition itself, that is so interesting.

[Kerileanne99]

Whilst I agree that there is a difference in how female and male brains process math, especially in visual/spatial form, I think there is a huge cultural component in the US. A bit of this may be due to the effects of sex on competition, but I also think that the WHY of that is more nuanced as girls hit puberty. It becomes less acceptable to be smart and competitive in Maths/science:(

http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/03/14/gender-stereotypes-about-math-develop-as-early-as-second-grade/

 

And studies in the US have shown that gender stereotypes regarding math are internalized very young. I remember reading something about a study done with 2nd graders showing this.

 

When I was pregnant with Alex I came across a reference to a study done in the US on 1000 pairs of female twins. Girls with more masculine or unisex first names were more than twice as likely to pursue math/science at a higher level than their twin with a more traditionally 'girly' name. Here is an article in the Guardian I found, and I will try to find the paper as it is very interesting!

 

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/apr/29/theobserversuknewspages.uknews

 

ETA: I am on my phone so am posting and will add the links to avoid losing the post...again!

[Gratia271]

At least around here, my children (2 girls, 1 boy) are all outstanding in math yet have never been interested in math competitions. It certainly isn't due to not being competitive, insecurity or enculturation.  Oldest DD enjoys math well enough; she simply prefers to invest her free time in other pursuits. At the same time, she is considering pairing Math and Chem minors with a Classics major in college.  Go figure. :tongue_smilie:

[Butler]

I recall back in elementary school having to go talk to the director about the level and pacing in my son's math class. Came to find out that the two Asian boys in the class were being given differentiated work. After talking to their parents I realized that they had never requested/demanded that their children be given higher level work. The teacher just assumed that because they were Asian they were much more math-able than the non-Asian children. If not for me demanding that they accelerate my (caucasian) child he would have been left with the rest of the class. I'm sure there were other non-Asian kids in that class that could have handled the challenge but were not given the chance because of the teacher's perceptions and because their parents didn't make waves.

 

Perhaps that is part of what is feeding into the heavily Asian dominated math at higher levels. It's become a cycle - elementary school teachers percieve that the asian students are good at math so they challenge them and give them more math. The asian students become even better in math. Keep this up through high school and you are left with only Asian students capable of competing at the higher levels.

 

Edited to add: My extremely math advanced (American) son has never been interested in math competitions. Could it be that the competition itself is reflecting a cultural difference? Are Asian cultures just more competitive by nature?

[madteaparty]

.  I hadn't even heard of competition math until this board, honestly. 

 

Neither had I. DH was "gifted" in his public school in the midwest, was an engineering major at Purdue for a while, and he hadn't either.

 

I am going to drive 1.5 hours each way for DS to participate in a monthly math circle at a college. I don't want to do him a disservice. He is becoming like me :(

[wapiti]

Perhaps the "competition" part of competition math is a distraction.  It's the style of math, the puzzles, that I would have loved.  That's why I love AoPS Prealgebra so much.  (I wonder which side of me would have won out, the math-lover or the slacker...)

[SKL]

Funny thing, my best math experience was in college when I took Calculus and Analytical Geometry.  The teacher was Iranian and most of the students said they couldn't understand a word he said.  However, I had no trouble at all.  I liked the way every problem was a real-life application.  I wonder if the language barrier made me draw on the more visual aspects of my brain.  Just a thought....

[Gratia271]

I recall back in elementary school having to go talk to the director about the level and pacing in my son's math class. Came to find out that the two Asian boys in the class were being given differentiated work. After talking to their parents I realized that they had never requested/demanded that their children be given higher level work. The teacher just assumed that because they were Asian they were much more math-able than the non-Asian children. If not for me demanding that they accelerate my (caucasian) child he would have been left with the rest of the class. I'm sure there were other non-Asian kids in that class that could have handled the challenge but were not given the chance because of the teacher's perceptions and because their parents didn't make waves.

 

Perhaps that is part of what is feeding into the heavily Asian dominated math at higher levels. It's become a cycle - elementary school teachers percieve that the asian students are good at math so they challenge them and give them more math. The asian students become even better in math. Keep this up through high school and you are left with only Asian students capable of competing at the higher levels.

 

Edited to add: My extremely math advanced (American) son has never been interested in math competitions. Could it be that the competition itself is reflecting a cultural difference? Are Asian cultures just more competitive by nature?

This is interesting about classroom differentiation. My brother had to solicit pull out information for his two elementary boys.  Thanks to his tenacity, they are now in advanced math.  Given their interest in it, I am going to start going through BA with them in addition to the regular schoolwork. 

 

In terms of cultural differences, of the specialist Indian docs I have seen for various medical issues, they all shared with me that they do separate math curricula with their children after school hours.  My other docs have never commented beside standard track and honors track.

 

I don't know whether it is the competitive aspect itself or not, as I have two children who can be highly competitive.  For DS, he prefers fencing competition to academic competitions.  I can imagine him growing into a competitive mindset, though, with Comp Sci. 

 

[maize]

One significant cultural difference may lie in different perceptions of childhood. Many culturally American families I know view childhood as primarily a time for fun and exploration, with minimal emphasis on preparation for the future. Culturally Asian families in my experience place a much higher emphasis on the concept of childhood as preparation for adulthood.

[Kathy in Richmond]

Perhaps the "competition" part of competition math is a distraction.  It's the style of math, the puzzles, that I would have loved.  That's why I love AoPS Prealgebra so much.  (I wonder which side of me would have won out, the math-lover or the slacker...)

 

This. I'll always be grateful to Mr. Grimm, my 11th grade math teacher, who introduced me to the AMC contests. I fell in love with mathematics that year. It was the first time in my life that it came alive, instead of consisting of dry, boring textbook exercises. Turns out the stuff I loved was number theory and combinatorics, two kinds of math rarely taught in US schools.

 

FWIW, I also don't see a strong correlation between competitive students and math contest lovers, & I know plenty of the latter. I've met many competitive kids who eschew these contests (you have to accept that you won't win them!) and even more totally non-competitive kids who love participating. Math teams are a safe way to enjoy & learn math in a group, and they can be very collaborative environments. :)

 

 

[Tsuga]

In my children's case, "I don't want to go... it's all boys, they won't talk to me."

 

People have no idea how that kills girls' enthusiasm. A little girl is supposed to just love being the only girl because boys imagine they'd love all that teasing. (And yes, boys tease, as do girls.)

 

As for Asians--they make their kids work. Sorry, but it's true. I make my kids work way harder than my white partner. We aren't Asian but I've been to Asia. I really think it's not about culture so much as it is about seeing the competition. I told my partner, "If you'd seen the schools in the slums of India and China, and you calculated your kids' chances, you'd be on them like I am on mine." But he continues to think they'll be just fine--even though they do continue to fall behind their Asian peers for no reason other than the fact that they don't work as much. That's a whole other thread--the difference in our own household between kids' achievement.

 

 

Girls with more masculine or unisex first names were more than twice as likely to pursue math/science at a higher level than their twin with a more traditionally 'girly' name.

 

Makes me glad my kids have foreign names that nobody can wrap their heads around!

[MBM]

One significant cultural difference may lie in different perception of childhood. Many culturally American families I know view childhood as primarily a time for fun and exploration, with minimal emphasis on preparation for the future. Culturally Asian families in my experience place a much higher emphasis on the concept of childhood as preparation for adulthood.

 

I think there is tremendous value in play and exploration. Those are the seeds of creative thinking. If anything, I think more time should be devoted to it. My two older kids did very little in the way of studying when they were young (except at school) but had a lot of fun building and exploring at different museums and home. Homework began around junior high and was usually just an hour or maybe three at most. Weekends were usually very free. Those two are now 30 and almost 29 and both are engineers working in creative fields, mostly building and exploring to solve problems or invent things. It's as if they are still like they were when they were children.

 

I do like the gentle, encouraging discipline that I see in my kids' Asian friends. A number of them moved here from China recently and all of them work hard and attribute their success to hard work.

 

 

[Kerileanne99]

Makes me glad my kids have foreign names that nobody can wrap their heads around!

Yep.

Reading that study whilst trying to find a name for my dd5 is one of my the reasons she has a more 'masculine' nickname. Her name is actually Alexandria, so much more 'girly', but we use Alex as a shortened moniker.

[Arcadia]

Edited to add: My extremely math advanced (American) son has never been interested in math competitions. Could it be that the competition itself is reflecting a cultural difference? Are Asian cultures just more competitive by nature?

Asia is the largest continent by size and population. Asian cultures are very diverse. Even in China, the different regions and cities have different sub-culture of their own.

 

Asians who just came to the U.S. on H1 visa are already competing for green card slots. Then they get confused by the American style of college admissions. If their child is not excelling in sports, parents are likely to panic and send their kids to chess and other academic competitions. Add on to that is news of college admissions not being race blind and you get worried Asian immigrant parents.

 

From the statistical point of view, the Gao Kao in China and the joint admission exam to IIT in India is already a crazy competition. A lot of IIT grads are in my area. IIT acceptance rate is 2%. These people are used to competing for survival in their homeland. They will do what they can to help their kids improve their odds of college admission.

 

ETA:

I also know parents who came here penniless as Vietnam refugees. They are afterschooling their kids to boost their kids chance of getting into the UC and CSU system. Most have an AA and hope their kids are able to get a bachelors or higher.

[wapiti]

This. I'll always be grateful to Mr. Grimm, my 11th grade math teacher, who introduced me to the AMC contests. I fell in love with mathematics that year. It was the first time in my life that it came alive, instead of consisting of dry, boring textbook exercises. Turns out the stuff I loved was number theory and combinatorics, two kinds of math rarely taught in US schools.

 

FWIW, I also don't see a strong correlation between competitive students and math contest lovers, & I know plenty of the latter. I've met many competitive kids who eschew these contests (you have to accept that you won't win them!) and even more totally non-competitive kids who love participating. Math teams are a safe way to enjoy & learn math in a group, and they can be very collaborative environments. :)

 

Perhaps this is a good thread in which to plug The Math Prize for Girls.  As RR said (PDF p. 10 and/or video around 25:30):

 

This is one of the wonderful things about The Math Prize for Girls. They’re bringing all these girls from all over the place. Some of them might be the only ones within a hundred miles that have the same passion for what they’re doing that they do. You bring them all together, and they all start to lift each other up. For some of these students, it’s awfully lonely. You see beauty somewhere that no one else in the school is even looking, and that’s lonely.

 

And, you don’t have the long view. You don’t realize that fifteen years from now, you’ll see beauty in places where other people are desperately looking.  ...

 

I could quote on and on, LOL; I better stop there.

[Matryoshka]

From the statistical point of view, the Gao Kao in China and the joint admission exam to IIT in India is already a crazy competition. A lot of IIT grads are in my area. IIT acceptance rate is 2%. These people are used to competing for survival in their homeland. They will do what they can to help their kids improve their odds of college admission.

 

Yeah, the Asian immigrants here who are Tiger-schooling their kids are not a cross-section of the Asian population.  They are the top of the top of the top that got the invite to come here.  And yeah, they probably had to go through crazy competition themselves as kids to get to that point.

 

The town I live in is full of those kinds of Asians.  The high school is getting very competitive.

 

Meanwhile, I'm also just a few towns away from a city that has a huge population of Cambodian immigrants.  These are people from refugee camps and the Killing Fields.  Less math competitions, more gangs and drugs.

 

Not only is Asia not homogenous, but we're also selecting mostly for the top of the educational heap in terms of who's coming here.

 

it's like the mirror-image of the Latino immigrant population, who tend to fall on the most-disenfranchised scale in terms of who is getting here.  People escaping poverty and violence who are largely poorly educated, not people who went to Gao Kao and IIT and want tech jobs.  If all the Asians who came were from refugee camps and all the Latinos were the top 1% of university grads from Latin America, we'd see different trends...

 

[Gratia271]

I think there is tremendous value in play and exploration. Those are the seeds of creative thinking. If anything, I think more time should be devoted to it. My two older kids did very little in the way of studying when they were young (except at school) but had a lot of fun building and exploring at different museums and home. Homework began around junior high and was usually just an hour or maybe three at most. Weekends were usually very free. Those two are now 30 and almost 29 and both are engineers working in creative fields, mostly building and exploring to solve problems or invent things. It's as if they are still like they were when they were children.

 

I do like the gentle, encouraging discipline that I see in my kids' Asian friends. A number of them moved here from China recently and all of them work hard and attribute their success to hard work.

 

This is how we feel around here.  I really believe (at least for us) that a relaxed yet purposeful approach in early years is most beneficial.  Creative capacity is crucial for problem solving as you reach higher and higher levels of learning.

[SKL]

I have close friends from India.  They were pretty shocked when they discovered how academically capable I was despite having had so much free time as a young kid, so many chores, and so many jobs as a teen / young adult.  The concept that kids form a foundation for academics via creative play and real-life problem solving was new to them.  They also had a hard time believing that there are blue-collar workers who are really intelligent.

 

On my side, I learned that young kids are capable of a lot more, academically, than US families typically give them credit for.

 

And I find it hard to balance the two, but that's a topic for another thread.

 

If I may venture a guess, I suspect that in some Asian cultures, it is considered unacceptable to not be math-y, so they do a lot to shore up the "weaknesses" of their average kids.  So by US standards, because some are naturally mathy and others are "remediated" a lot, the whole population seems to be above average in that area.  In the US, we accept that some kids are not into certain things, and when we have a kid who isn't, we aim to remediate up to the average US level, not way above it.  (In general.)

 

I'm not sure how to word the cultural differences as far as competition goes.  I know in India, from very early on, they publicly label kids "first in class, second in class," etc., and this is important to the educated classes at least.  Test scores are posted for all to see, etc.  In the US, we don't like to make public comparisons of children.  I was never allowed to show or discuss my report card in school (I would be punished if I did so).  So competition/official comparisons just didn't enter into academics.  There were a few high school extracurriculars that were exceptions, but by that time, I was not interested in spending my time doing that.

[maize]

Yeah, the Asian immigrants here who are Tiger-schooling their kids are not a cross-section of the Asian population. They are the top of the top of the top that got the invite to come here. And yeah, they probably had to go through crazy competition themselves as kids to get to that point.

 

The town I live in is full of those kinds of Asians. The high school is getting very competitive.

 

Meanwhile, I'm also just a few towns away from a city that has a huge population of Cambodian immigrants. These are people from refugee camps and the Killing Fields. Less math competitions, more gangs and drugs.

 

Not only is Asia not homogenous, but we're also selecting mostly for the top of the educational heap in terms of who's coming here.

 

it's like the mirror-image of the Latino immigrant population, who tend to fall on the most-disenfranchised scale in terms of who is getting here. People escaping poverty and violence who are largely poorly educated, not people who went to Gao Kao and IIT and want tech jobs. If all the Asians who came were from refugee camps and all the Latinos were the top 1% of university grads from Latin America, we'd see different trends...

 

I don't know, having lived and attended school in a couple of Latin American countries, I actually don't think that this would be a comparable group. The culture of academic competitiveness simply isn't there.

 

That's not a value judgment. I have lived in Asia as well, and I like and admire things about each culture I have been exposed to. But cultural differences are real and do in fact cut across class and educational boundaries.

[Kathy in Richmond]

Perhaps this is a good thread in which to plug The Math Prize for Girls.  As RR said (PDF p. 10 and/or video around 25:30):

 

This is one of the wonderful things about The Math Prize for Girls.

They’re bringing all these girls from all over the place . Some of them might be the only ones within a hundred miles that have the same passion for what they’re doing that they do. You bring them all together, and they all start to lift each other up. For some of these students, it’s awfully lonely. You see beauty somewhere that no one else in the school is even looking, and that’s lonely.

And, you don’t have the long view. You don’t realize that fifteen years from now, you’ll see beauty in places where other people are desperately looking.

 

I could quote on and on, LOL; I better stop there.

 

Thanks for sharing this, wapiti.  :)  The part I bolded just speaks so loudly to me!

 

Dd and I went to Math Prize together, and this is exactly what it was like for the girls there. It's just the sort of program that young women who love math and desire a math career need to keep them going.

 

Is Ravi B around here still? If so, big thanks to you for all your work in establishing & running MPfG!

 

[8filltheheart]

I can't get multi-quote to work.  Below is MBM's quote that I had to cut and paste:

I think there is tremendous value in play and exploration. Those are the seeds of creative thinking. If anything, I think more time should be devoted to it. My two older kids did very little in the way of studying when they were young (except at school) but had a lot of fun building and exploring at different museums and home. Homework began around junior high and was usually just an hour or maybe three at most. Weekends were usually very free. Those two are now 30 and almost 29 and both are engineers working in creative fields, mostly building and exploring to solve problems or invent things. It's as if they are still like they were when they were children.

 

I do like the gentle, encouraging discipline that I see in my kids' Asian friends. A number of them moved here from China recently and all of them work hard and attribute their success to hard work.

 

 

I agree!  This is definitely my view.  I do know, however, that the Asian/Indian students my ds has been around at various camps have a completely different childhood experience.  I would never trade my approach even if it meant "less success."  My kids are turning out fine, but the way they approach things and view life is very different.  Not a bad different.  Just different.

 

 

As for Asians--they make their kids work. Sorry, but it's true. I make my kids work way harder than my white partner. We aren't Asian but I've been to Asia. I really think it's not about culture so much as it is about seeing the competition. I told my partner, "If you'd seen the schools in the slums of India and China, and you calculated your kids' chances, you'd be on them like I am on mine." But he continues to think they'll be just fine--even though they do continue to fall behind their Asian peers for no reason other than the fact that they don't work as much. That's a whole other thread--the difference in our own household between kids' achievement.

 

 

I don't.  My little kids don't do much academic work.  They spend their days playing.  As they get older, their work loads are age appropriate (from my perspective.  I know probably even most typical American public school families would think it wasn't enough.)   I think there are many ways that lead to this sort of thinking and it doesn't have to be confined to academics.  It won't be found watching TV or playing sports, though.  I think a lot of can be learned through building projects,multi-step strategy games, direct interaction/engagement that leads kids to seeking out answers through self-exploration, etc.

 

I think the difference is that focus on intense academics will get you there.  I believe the other will get you there as well, but it is more time intensive in a different way....it takes direct involvement of the parent vs. the supervision of the parent.  

 

I don't think we (as in humans) have unraveled the mysterious way the brain works and processes information that leads to certain outcomes.  There are so many variables involved.  It is easy to hone in on one aspect that has more linear evidence (high levels of academic work lead to high levels of academic success.) But that does not mean that it is the only path to that outcome. (not even addressing the genetic, nutrition, etc factors.)

 

 

 

[quark]

I think you can be relaxed and hard working in an age appropriate way...it just depends on how these energies are channeled. I don't believe you have to give one up to enjoy the other.

 

ETA: posting at the same time as others...I don't mean this as a reply to specific posters!

[SKL]

Oh, and I think that in general, traditional US parents don't tell their high schoolers what school clubs / sports they are going to participate in.  That is pretty much left to the child's inclination.  I don't know to what extent that differs from Asian culture.

[quark]

There is no such thing as one Asian culture! :D

 

ETA: I know it's not easy to say what one wants to say without generalizing to some extent. :laugh:

[8filltheheart]

 

 

FWIW, I also don't see a strong correlation between competitive students and math contest lovers, & I know plenty of the latter. I've met many competitive kids who eschew these contests (you have to accept that you won't win them!) and even more totally non-competitive kids who love participating. Math teams are a safe way to enjoy & learn math in a group, and they can be very collaborative environments. :)

 

I agree.  My ds is definitely NOT the competitive type.  He actually hates competitions.  He only did the physics competition b/c the prize was a HUGE financial incentive.

 

My dd also hates competitions. Ironically, with each other, though, they are cut-throat competitive (our family game time is definitely not for the faint of heart!!)

 

I would say between the two of them, Maize's description is the best.  Ds sees the world pictorially.  He thinks dyslexia is an outcome of how his brain processes images.  Dd, otoh, thinks verbally.  

 

I wish I could multiquote b/c I am running out of time.  Having lived in Brazil for 2 yrs.....definitely a different culture.  I agree that the academic mode there is vastly different again.  Totally laid back.

[Tsuga]

Yes, I should have written, those Asians (and I am talking about people born in Asia, not 2nd generation Asian heritage individuals whom I'd consider American / British / Canadian / etc.) who get their kids get into all these activities, competitions and camps. That was not clear.

 

And I do mean all Asians, not because of culture, but sheer population density. There's a competitive atmosphere due to not enough spots for all the talent. This to my mind isn't a culture thing. It is an awareness of the odds thing.

 

 

I can't get multi-quote to work.  Below is MBM's quote that I had to cut and paste:

 

I agree!  This is definitely my view.  I do know, however, that the Asian/Indian students my ds has been around at various camps have a completely different childhood experience.  I would never trade my approach even if it meant "less success."  My kids are turning out fine, but the way they approach things and view life is very different.  Not a bad different.  Just different.

 

 

I don't.  My little kids don't do much academic work.  They spend their days playing.  As they get older, their work loads are age appropriate (from my perspective.  I know probably even most typical American public school families would think it wasn't enough.)   I think there are many ways that lead to this sort of thinking and it doesn't have to be confined to academics.  It won't be found watching TV or playing sports, though.  I think a lot of can be learned through building projects,multi-step strategy games, direct interaction/engagement that leads kids to seeking out answers through self-exploration, etc.

 

I think the difference is that focus on intense academics will get you there.  I believe the other will get you there as well, but it is more time intensive in a different way....it takes direct involvement of the parent vs. the supervision of the parent.  

 

I don't think we (as in humans) have unraveled the mysterious way the brain works and processes information that leads to certain outcomes.  There are so many variables involved.  It is easy to hone in on one aspect that has more linear evidence (high levels of academic work lead to high levels of academic success.) But that does not mean that it is the only path to that outcome. (not even addressing the genetic, nutrition, etc factors.)

 

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

Oh, and I think that in general, traditional US parents don't tell their high schoolers what school clubs / sports they are going to participate in.

Somehow in my area the Caucasian moms are pushing gym (ETA: gymnastics) competitions on their middle and high schoolers. The competitive gym classes are dominated by Caucasians while the recreational classes are diverse.

The elementary school boys are encouraged by parents to be in soccer and basketball. By middle school, they are already in youth soccer teams for competition.

Plenty of parents chauffeuring and paying for the sports since we don't have school sports. All the clubs and sports at the local public schools are paid activities that cost a lot. School band is available only if PTA can afford to sponsor.

 

I think it really depends on who is paying for the sports. If the school is well funded, parents can be more hands off.

[mathwonk]

This is a very interesting thread, and the personal experiences make it extremely believable.  I think all the facets of the problem mentioned here are valid, and I cannot discern one reason for the phenomenon being examined.  I am led to add a few remarks on the US cultural  aspect of motivation to become a professional mathematician, especially a college math professor.

 

I.e. in the US, being a math professor is not a position that is highly respected generally (although of course it is in some circles) or highly paid.  This may make it more attractive to recent immigrants, who may come from a culture where the opposite is true.  I suspect bright and/or competitive women, and men also, in the US, are more likely to obtain high paying and respected jobs in business, law, medicine, entertainment, technology,..., than in pure math.  A quick count of the full math professors on the UGA website showed roughly 10 out of 19 were foreign born, and of the 2 distinguished research professors, one was foreign born and the other, an American, had an asian surname.  Of the 3 recent female full professors who come to mind, 2 were foreign born.

 

As a college professor, I saw years of attempts by the US government to increase participation in math by various "underrepresented groups", especially racial minorities (except asians), and females.  In some cases, as a department responding to these pressures on favored hiring or graduate acceptance, we chose European or middle eastern females and males from Africa.

 

Then the pressure shifted to a stress on promoting participation from US citizens, since that is where the real deficit was and still is.  There is a multi million dollar NSF program called VIGRE, which is open only to US citizens or permanent residents.  This aspect of the program is not even mentioned prominently on some university web pages describing the program only by its acronym: "vertical integration of research and education(?)".

 

http://www.stat.ncsu.edu/programs/grad/aid.html

 

http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~may/VIGRE/

 

When we introduced this program at UGA, we found some of the entering students benefiting from it were not ready for beginning graduate work.  There was during this time some tension created by the availability of especially generous funding for which the qualification was restricted to American students, when in many instances the most mathematically qualified students were foreigners.

 

The program has apparently since been terminated, and replaced by another federally funded one. 

 

[Dmmetler]

This is interesting about classroom differentiation. My brother had to solicit pull out information for his two elementary boys.  Thanks to his tenacity, they are now in advanced math.  Given their interest in it, I am going to start going through BA with them in addition to the regular schoolwork. 

 

In terms of cultural differences, of the specialist Indian docs I have seen for various medical issues, they all shared with me that they do separate math curricula with their children after school hours.  My other docs have never commented beside standard track and honors track.

 

I don't know whether it is the competitive aspect itself or not, as I have two children who can be highly competitive.  For DS, he prefers fencing competition to academic competitions.  I can imagine him growing into a competitive mindset, though, with Comp Sci. 

 

DH has several co-workers from India, and one of the things that DD bonded with their girls over is that they ALSO had a schoolroom at home and were doing the same sort of math work ;). Except that for their girls, this was all after a day of school, and for my DD, it WAS a day of school!

 

 

[Tsuga]

What sport is "gym", like for gym competitions?

[Arcadia]

What sport is "gym", like for gym competitions?

I'm not sure what you are asking so my reply may not be what you are asking for. The gymnastics center nearest to my home trains for the NorCal state championships and the high school aged winners do tend to get some scholarship money from the colleges they get accepted to.

 

The link is the gym competitions the moms are encouraging their kids from preachool age to aim for. The moms keep a portfolio of their kids gym meets accomplishments. Lots of public and private school kids in that center.

http://www.norcalgym.org/statemeets.htm

[quark]

What sport is "gym", like for gym competitions?

 

I used to be able to multiquote but that's not working for some reason...I think Arcadia means gymnastics?

 

[SKL]

DH has several co-workers from India, and one of the things that DD bonded with their girls over is that they ALSO had a schoolroom at home and were doing the same sort of math work ;). Except that for their girls, this was all after a day of school, and for my DD, it WAS a day of school!

 

This is interesting too.  At The Little Gym, a new family from India joined.  Their oldest daughter was in 2nd grade.  In our initial, brief small-talk conversation, the mom told me that her daughter is in 2nd grade AND does KUMON after school.  I had not asked any question to elicit that response; it seemed the mom felt I needed to know that lest I think less of them.

 

Another anecdote.  We had a business lunch with some entrepreneurs from China who have opened some after-school centers that focus on enrichment as well as the usual sports / relaxation / social stuff.  It sounded interesting for my kids, so I looked it up when they were old enough.  Well, according to all I could see, 100% of the kids there are Chinese, mostly boys.  I didn't look any further as I figured my daughters would not fit in there.

 

As a contrast to this discussion, though, my kids attended a preschool / KG that was founded by an immigrant from Eastern Europe.  She was adamant that US schools don't challenge kids enough, and she set pretty high standards, especially in reading/language.  The kids all studied Spanish and French from age 2/3, and they were supposed to memorize 220 sight words in KG.  But the math standards in that KG were average, and my kids were at a disadvantage in math when they entered a Lutheran 1st grade.

[Arcadia]

I used to be able to multiquote but that's not working for some reason...I think Arcadia means gymnastics?

 

Yes. Forgot that gym is also short form of gymnasium :) My nearest center raised their fees substantially :P (my family has been sneezing for days, winter allergies, I'm not very coherent now)

[mathwonk]

I found the comments above on sounds in languages interesting as well, and the possible link with mental functions.  There is an ancient teaching in Indian tradition on the link between sounds of different frequencies and different locations in the physical body, or "chakras", which are thought of as centers of energy.  The higher the location of the point in the body, the higher is the frequency of the sound said to resonate with it.  E.g. bass notes resonate theoretically with the lowest, or 1st chakra, (the base of the spine) associated traditionally with survival.

 

The 4th chakra is one most people may actually have experience with associating to a note.  This is the "heart" chakra, associated traditionally with compassion, and resonating with the sound "ah" which occurs in many ballads of love and worship.  Vocalize the sound of "ah- men", and you can perhaps feel the vibrations in your chest from the first syllable, (and in your head at the end when the humming sound of "nnnn" occurs).

 

Higher pitched sounds are thought to resonate with the (5th) throat chakra associated with teaching, the (6th) forehead or "3rd eye" associated with objective insight, and the highest ones with the top of the head, or 7th chakra (???).

 

Interestingly, this would suggest that higher pitched female voices are more likely to vibrate the "higher" chakras.  

 

For full disclosure, my impression is that western science does not confirm the theories of chakras and their associations.  I confess to once hearing a music professor remark that he had no idea why "high" notes are so called as he knew no connection between altitude and pitch, and almost raising my hand.  (His comment seems odd though since higher pitch is associated with higher frequency, or did he mean why is a larger number called a "higher" one?)

 

 

As to connections between language use and mental function, my most recent AARP bulletin had an article stating that people who speak two languages throughout life are less disposed to alzheimer's, (although learning a second language as an adult apparently does not help).

 

On still another aspect discussed here, parental involvement, I used to notice that some of the best athletes in basketball, especially ones from "underrepresented groups", such as Bobby Hurley, Mike Dunleavy, Pete Maravich, had fathers who were basketball coaches.

 

In the same way, highly accomplished academicians and mathematicians may often benefit from having parents who are teachers.  E.g. everyone on this forum is a teacher, and this presumably especially benefits your children.

[lewelma]

. Math teams are a safe way to enjoy & learn math in a group, and they can be very collaborative environments. :)

 

This is why my ds is in the competitions.  It is all about the human element.  With the exception of the squad exam on Friday, then entire camp is all about collaborative problem solving and team battles and relays.  At night they do fun stuff that is only tangentially mathematical - airplane races (longest in the air, furthest, most flips, etc); juggling; pool; card games including Mafia.  But he is surrounded by kids like him -- kids who don't think he is just odd for loving higher-level math. They bond quite quickly in that one week -- ds is still hanging out with the same kids he did last year. With the exception of Auckland, there are no math clubs, circles, groups etc in other cities.  My ds feels like one of those girls someone was describing upstream, where he is the only one in the area, and it is isolating for a gregarious child. I also think that the competitions give him something bigger to be a part of.

 

[lewelma]

Interestingly, I have found that the Chinese and Indian immigrants that I have known have moved to NZ because of the lack of competition.  In NZ, you can *be* someone; which is simply not true in their home countries.  My Indian friend told me he moved to NZ to give his kids a better life; that in India you could be a 1 in a 1000 applicant for a great job and you will still have only a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting it.  My Chinese friend told me that she moved to NZ to get her kids out of the rat race that is their school system. So I am wondering if NZ gets a different set of Asian/Indian immigrants than America does, immigrants with subtly different goals for their kids.  And keep in mind that NZ does not have a lottery system for some of the immigration slots like America does -- entrance here is all based on 'points' that you earn by being educated, experienced, rich, young, and in a job where there are shortage of workers.

[Kathy in Richmond]

This is why my ds is in the competitions.  It is all about the human element.  With the exception of the squad exam on Friday, then entire camp is all about collaborative problem solving and team battles and relays.  At night they do fun stuff that is only tangentially mathematical - airplane races (longest in the air, furthest, most flips, etc); juggling; pool; card games including Mafia.  But he is surrounded by kids like him -- kids who don't think he is just odd for loving higher-level math. They bond quite quickly in that one week -- ds is still hanging out with the same kids he did last year. With the exception of Auckland, there are no math clubs, circles, groups etc in other cities.  My ds feels like one of those girls someone was describing upstream, where he is the only one in the area, and it is isolating for a gregarious child. I also think that the competitions give him something bigger to be a part of.

 

 

Yes! That sounds so much like Mathcamp here. In addition to the tantalizing math classes, my kids got more fresh air and sunshine than they did spending the summer at home. Lots of hikes (though I should say tramping...love that word!), swimming, bike rides, exploring new cities, amusement parks, berry picking, trips to bookstores and coffee shops, endless board & card games (yes, Mafia!), music-making, relays, puzzle hunts, and interactive literatures. They made so many lasting friendships. It was one place that they could truly let their guards down and just be themselves. The comments by the campers on the front page of the MC website are really telling.

 

[SeaConquest]

Yeah, the Asian immigrants here who are Tiger-schooling their kids are not a cross-section of the Asian population.  They are the top of the top of the top that got the invite to come here.  And yeah, they probably had to go through crazy competition themselves as kids to get to that point.

 

The town I live in is full of those kinds of Asians.  The high school is getting very competitive.

 

Meanwhile, I'm also just a few towns away from a city that has a huge population of Cambodian immigrants.  These are people from refugee camps and the Killing Fields.  Less math competitions, more gangs and drugs.

 

Not only is Asia not homogenous, but we're also selecting mostly for the top of the educational heap in terms of who's coming here.

 

it's like the mirror-image of the Latino immigrant population, who tend to fall on the most-disenfranchised scale in terms of who is getting here.  People escaping poverty and violence who are largely poorly educated, not people who went to Gao Kao and IIT and want tech jobs.  If all the Asians who came were from refugee camps and all the Latinos were the top 1% of university grads from Latin America, we'd see different trends...

 

 

This is such an astute observation.

[Arcadia]

Interestingly, I have found that the Chinese and Indian immigrants that I have known have moved to NZ because of the lack of competition.

It is the same here. "Competing" in the US is far less extreme than competing in China or India. It is the same logic driving people from SG and HK to AU and Canada when the immigration gates were relaxed at a time. The less competition perceived, the more attractive/tempting to the parent. Parents want their kids to be big fishes in a small pond, to have more opportunities. (As long as quality is not in the dumps)

Chinese parents has sent their kids back to China for elementary school and found it too tough so their kids are back here in public schools.

[mathwonk]

here's an interesting related post.  Of the 150 "greatest" mathematicians listed here, born by 1930, only 3 are Asians, and by far most are Europeans.  Ignorance?  I myself was over 60 when I first learned of Liu Hui.  What would a more up to date list have?  There may also be some bias in the choices since only 2 are women, (#26 is Emma Noether.  This reminds me of the refusal to grant her membership to the Gottingen math faculty based on her gender, to which David Hilbert responded that the faculty was a scientific body, and "not a bath house!")

 

http://fabpedigree.com/james/mathmen.htm

 

 

here is a list of the 56 fields medalists (somewhat similar to Nobel prize in math) since 1936, of whom about 6 have Asian sounding names.  Thus in the past 2000 years Asian names on these 2 lists are up from 2% to over 10%.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_Medal

[slackermom]

Thanks for sharing this, wapiti.  :)  The part I bolded just speaks so loudly to me!

 

Dd and I went to Math Prize together, and this is exactly what it was like for the girls there. It's just the sort of program that young women who love math and desire a math career need to keep them going.

 

Is Ravi B around here still? If so, big thanks to you for all your work in establishing & running MPfG!

 

 

I took dd10 to see RR speak at the most recent MPfG (thanks to Ravi B for the open invite!).  It was very inspiring.

 

RR did say some interesting stuff about math being one of the best ways to teach problem-solving, so the study of math was of great value even if one was not anticipating a career as a mathematician.

 

And yes, the majority of the audience were from Asian families, which prompted some discussion of cultural attitudes.

 

This thread is full of so many interesting thoughts! 

 

I'll just add that dd, who is very vs, thinks of math as a language, or multiple languages. She also enjoys studying foreign languages, playing the fiddle, and Irish dance, which requires her to learn fairly complex steps performed so quickly there is no time to think it through.

[Runningmom80]

This thread has been a fascinating read!

[dauphin]

DH has several co-workers from India, and one of the things that DD bonded with their girls over is that they ALSO had a schoolroom at home and were doing the same sort of math work ;). Except that for their girls, this was all after a day of school, and for my DD, it WAS a day of school!

This for me begs the question of:if the public (or private?) education their children are receiving is so significantly lacking, requiring several MORE hours of "school" to supplelement, why do more of these families not pursue educational alternatives like homeschooling (acknowledging that many may not have the financial freedom to but for those who do.....we knew friends, 1st or 2nd gen from India who afterschooled (paid tutoring) even though their DDs were receiving fairly differentiated instruction, as this was a Montessori school, and my DD was never offered this even though she was in their same instructional group...).