Michelle Obama at WWDC: Bad Math Teachers Drove My Daughters Out of STEM

https://slashdot.org/submission/7118947/michelle-obama-at-wwdc-bad-math-teachers-drove-my-daughters-out-of-stem

by theodpHN • 9 years ago

37 71 9 years ago

mpweiher4• 9 years ago

So Mrs. Obama says that her daughters had bad math teachers and so took themselves out of STEM, and this is "what happens to girls". Hmm...so what happened to the boys who had the same bad teachers?

schoen• 9 years ago

I've encountered plenty of adult men who seemed to say they hated math or were scared of it. Apart from gender issues, there seems to be a strong thread about young people having bad experiences with mathematics education.

I'm reminded of Paul Lockhart's work as an example of the claim that contemporary mathematics education is broken across-the-board. And then there are lots of reports that say that the U.S. is doing considerably worse than other countries at teaching mathematics and other technical subjects. This is a theme that dates back at least to Sputnik and the Cold War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis

I think that forms of the Sputnik crisis have repeated themselves in subsequent generations, even if there isn't a single event that triggers this anxiety as dramatically as the Sputnik launch did.

It's hard to tell from this summary of the presentation how Michelle Obama felt that this interacted with gender (although maybe the recordings would make that clearer). One possible interpretation would be that girls' enthusiasm for mathematics is more fragile and easier to throw off-track through poor teaching. Another is that the bad teachers treated boys and girls differently in a way that discouraged the girls. A third is that boys and girls might be best interested or motivated by different teaching methods or projects.

sahara• 9 years ago

RTFA.

"And there's something going on that is not just about the girls. There's something going on with how these subjects are taught."

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

Isn't that just annoying politician speech? If she has an idea how to make education better, she should say so. If not, she has nothing to say. It is a trivial thought that "education could/should be made better".

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

Maybe nothing. Or maybe something. Either way, we won't find out if we approach what she's saying without curiosity. Incredulity toward what she's saying serves to preserve the status quo, not effect change.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/01/female-teachers-math...

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/01/436525758/how-teachers-unconsc...

mpweiher4• 9 years ago

So we need to get women out of early childhood education?

(Both referenced articles talk about female teachers, who are the vast majority of teachers at that grade level, transmitting their anxiety about or dislike of math to female students)

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

So, that second link was so crazy to me that I started looking things up, and it seems like there is evidence in all directions:

Physics is biased against women: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201604/grading.cfm

Elementary school teachers are biased against boys who do not socialize well: http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/06/do-teachers-really-discrimi...

Indian teachers are biased against lower caste students: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/remahanna/files/discriminat...

In fact the paper the NPR article talks about actually says "We show that there is large variation within schools in this measure, and that it has a significant effect on the academic achievements of both genders during middle school and high school in math, science and language and also on the choice of the level of math and science study programs in high school" it also has this line "Math teachers' assessment in primary school, on the other hand, is on average gender neutral (0.01). However, these means hide quite a large heterogeneity among teachers."

They also say "In terms of effect size, these estimates indicate that increasing the average stereotypical bias against girls from zero to its maximal value of one will reduce girls' outcomes by 0.317 of a standard deviation"; which doesn't sound huge (given that's with the most amount of bias), but I guess it all adds up.

The physics one is perhaps the most interesting since it says that male German teachers had no bias, and hypothesized that anti-bias training worked there, which if true is a positive sign.

I'm sort of rambling without a point, I guess I was just surprised how directly you could measure this effect. I had always assumed it was much more indirect.

30minutes• 9 years ago

I attended a rural high school that provided a subpar education (including STEM). I was not exactly "college ready" and graduated not having even taken a calculus course. I was at a disadvantage entering college, since pretty much everyone I knew attended a magnet school or a well-taught high school where their teachers were PhDs in the field. High schools that offered upper level mathematics courses. Kids like this very well may have already taken data structures/algorithms, linear algebra, real analysis, abstract algebra etc. prior to entering college with 30+ credit hours and 5s on all AP exams. Compare those kids to someone like me that never had the chance to even take an AP class... Anyways, how did I turn out? I completed a pure math degree, but it took me much longer to get there since I started much further behind.

ColinWright• 9 years ago

I have some experience of this, and I've read a lot of the research. In general, and on average, boys and girls react differently to bad teaching. In general, and on average, boys and girls react differently to a lot of things.

In general, and on average, when asked questions, boys tend to just shout out answers, sometimes with no apparent care or concern as to whether they are right. They compete to be the loudest, most noticed, and to get the most reaction from the teacher.

In general, and on average, when asked questions, the girls will sit quietly and try not to be noticed. Those who are actively engaged with the subject will try to work out the right answer, and will still not react or respond when called on.

I keep repeating "in general, and on average" because some children behave according to the opposite characterisations, but these differences are over-whelmingly obvious to anyone who works with children and takes the time to notice. Proving it scientifically is hard, because society in general frowns on experimenting on children in ways that can potentially damage their progress. But the signs are there to be seen.

So yes, a bad teacher really can put children off doing STEM subjects, and this can happen depressingly quickly. What's more, it really does seem to affect girls more than boys. I don't know why that should be the case, but the same story is told over and over again. Your implied scepticism is most likely honest, but misplaced.

https://xkcd.com/385/

Edit: To whomever downvoted this: I just spent several minutes trying to share my experience after giving literally thousands of workshops in math with young people, and attending dozens of conferences on the question of how to increase and retain engagement in the STEM subjects. Given the submission, if you think such a response is inappropriate for HN then I'd really like to know why.

losteverything• 9 years ago

You described me & spouse. One is attn seeking shout answer and other won't ever volunteer answer.

One has bs in math the other bs in another science field

Great comments

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

So I guess your thesis is that STEM teachers are worse than non-STEM teachers and this funnels women into non-STEM careers because they react more to bad teachers.

I could buy that I guess, but it's hard to believe that the schools that the Obamas sent their children too would have any bad teachers. Though I guess they were in primary school before he was president.

Still, if the most well off people can't find good teachers for their children, what hope does anyone have?

I'm also a little confused since she calls out the ages 8-11; I don't think I had any significant amount of math or STEM teaching at that age. I think all the math I knew at that point was how to multiply (and divide?) numbers.

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

What do her daughters do now? Would Michelle even have preferred them to do something in STEM? If so, why didn't she push them to do STEM things?

Edit: according to Wikipedia her daughters are 19 and 16 years old - not too late to study a STEM related subjected, are they? Michelle, if you can't make your own daughters go into STEM, what message are you sending to young women of the world?

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

"If you can't make your own daughters go into STEM, what message are you sending to young women of the world?"

I feel sad when I hear anyone say they think forcing others into a career path is a wise or sustainable decision. Doubly so for their kids.

The message she's sending is she doesn't know what the solution is. And that's OK. The first step to resolving a problem is acknowledging you have one.

Denying the existence of gender bias both prevents the human mind from perceiving it and persists the problem, if there is one. Denying someone else's individuality and autonomy isn't a sustainable solution. In complex systems, it leads to pathological, extreme states/transitions.

See the US's political climate for perfect examples on both sides of the aisle.

Ronsenshi• 9 years ago

Same thing happened. I didn't have a great experience with math in school which led me to non-STEM. Now that life brought me back into STEM field I feel sad that to get into it I had to go in a completely roundabout way which would have been significantly shorter if only my teacher managed to get me to "grok" the math.

solotronics• 9 years ago

so one of the most powerful people in the US couldn't get their children good math teachers? something doesn't add up here.

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

Weren't their children in public school?

If her children were turned off of STEM and didn't want to stick with it until they saw cultural change, I could see the Obamas as the type of parents who'd respect their childrens' chosen paths here.

starik362• 9 years ago

Obama's kids were in private school. And not just any private school. The "Harvard of private schools".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidwell_Friends_School

gradstudent• 9 years ago

My first thought too. If there are good teachers to be found anywhere surely they'll be found by those working for the leader of the free world?

devnonymous• 9 years ago

/Meta

gawd, been literally years since I've visited /. ...and tho it still is a bit of what it used to be, I don't think I like what it is anymore than when I quit it around ~2009.

I can't even remember now just what the tipping point was anymore but I do remember that the quality of conversation had gone south.

Does anyone else feel the same mix of sadness for what /. has become and a longing for what it once was? (...and for me personally, no, HN doesn't completely fill the gap, hence the longing)

gaius• 9 years ago

3 words: Slashdot PT Cruiser. That was the point of no return.

ameister14• 9 years ago

Not to trivialize her experience with her two daughters, but if I didn't do something because the person that taught me the basics of it at 10 or 11 was terrible, I would have a very small range of potential jobs.

Nobody I grew up with was taught to code in school. Most teachers were pretty bad - Math and Science particularly; they weren't just bad at the subjects, they were often cruel. Middle school was an awful experience for everyone, I think.

That's not a reason not to improve things - I'd love for things to get better for everyone.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr• 9 years ago

Not being taught by school teachers can actually be more beneficial than being taught badly. When nobody taints your experience with a particular subject and you attack the problem yourself, you start neutral. It is curiosity and discipline that drives you forward. If, on the other hand, someone taught you the basics but did this in a terrible way, you associate negative things with the subject. Your curiosity is curbed, you won’t pursue the subject further.

mirimir7• 9 years ago

That's how it was for me. For most of my education, the focus in math was very practical. There were proofs in set theory and geometry, for sure. But math was mostly about calculating.

Then, at university, the focus in math shifted to pure theory. I was lost. Totally lost. And then I discovered engineering math, and was happy again.

So anyway, I wonder if I'd have been better off without so much practical math.

noobermin• 9 years ago

Then the question is how will you know to either pursue something further or not without being exposed to it first? How will you know about category theory or topology without well...learning about something related to topology or categories theory? How will you know that you can or can't pursue it?

rjsw• 9 years ago

My experience was that biology teachers were universally good as there wasn't much else for them to do, all of mine had done research before becoming teachers.

I decided to become a computer programmer at age 10, I'm old enough that none of the careers literature available when I was at school even listed it as a possible job. I can't remember wondering what anyone else thought about my choice.

paganel• 9 years ago

I had an ok-ish math teacher in middle-school, not bad but not good either, long story short she didn't made to really start understanding and trying to like maths. But I was incredibly lucky that my highschool teacher was the opposite of that, he really made me understand maths (and logical expressions, among other things) and he's definitely one of the main reasons why I chose the STEM route. When I entered computer science school I didn't even know how to program, I learned that afterwards, but I was only able to do that because said teacher had taught me how to approach these type of problems.

monk_e_boy• 9 years ago

I'm a coder and now a new teacher. Schools would rather employ a good art teacher to teach comp sci than a bad comp sci teacher.

Controlling 35 - 40 students is hard. Coders are not naturally good at it. Someone who likes to sit at a PC and read HN and slashdot is not the sort of 'drill sergeant' who is needed to take control of them.

My coding skills are not used. The most complex things the students are asked to so are simple loops.

So this leads us to Michelles question. How do you get teachers to get girls interested in STEM? The role models are weeded out at the teacher training stage. I would estimate 90% of nerds and coders remove themselves from the teaching profession. Of the other 10%? They find the school system almost impossible to target a student.

Say I see the students for 60 minutes a week. Of those 60 minutes, 5min is registering them while they log into the computers. Then we are asked to do a 'starter' something to engage the students with the lesson, that's 10min. Then we teach and the students work. At the end of the lesson we do a plenary, 5 - 10 minutes. So I get about 30 minutes of teacher student time, so a minute per student.

How am I supposed to explain to a stroppy 13 year old girl why computing is a good career choice? Or why maths is interesting? In 60 seconds? In my last lesson a boy took a girls coat, so that girls rugby tackled the boy and punched him in the head. I had to drag them apart then wait for someone to come help. This is not uncommon. Imagine telling students how much fun a career in IT is, then tend to shout "This is fucking boring sir"

The school system has too many people asking things of it. English lessons. Science. Music. Sports. Tech. Religion. There isn't enough time. There isn't enough money.

The type of person that can survive a teaching qualification is not the sort of person who is sitting in an apple conference.

Having spent a great deal of time looking at the lack of women in STEM and what teachers can do about it, the most effective solution is to have great women role models come into schools and give talks or help teach. I can not tell you how many hoops I would have to jump through to make this happen. Even if I could find any women role models who would talk in front of a class of students. It would take months of paperwork. It's the sort of 'once a year' event that could take place. It would take the combined effort of my, my manager, the head of department, senior management and the head teacher to be involved.

I don't know what the answer is. I don't think anyone does.

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

Before getting to the end of your comment I was about to suggest that maybe schools should bring experts in, so I think you're on to something.

It's crazy that you need a lot of paperwork for that, even if there are background checks necessary, that seems like the kind of thing that could be made more efficient... with computers ;)

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

For anyone whose skepticism was trickered (tricked into triggering) because of the source of the message, let's think about this briefly:

1. Teaching is hard.

2. Teaching abstract concepts (ie. math) is often harder because not everyone thinks the same way. (This is why rote learning in math was the standard for so long.)

3. Teaching abstract concepts in a gender-biased abstract composition of fields (STEM) in a gender-biased country (USA) is harder to teach equally to both genders.

4. Teaching in that context to kids is hardest.

There we go...now you can forget it was an Obama making the claim and come at me instead.

xienze2• 9 years ago

3. Teaching abstract concepts in a gender-biased abstract composition of fields (STEM) in a gender-biased country (USA) is harder to teach equally to both genders.

How do you figure? They just started college, the absolute most advanced level of mathematics we're talking about is probably Calculus I. I'm just not seeing the gender-biased way to talk about trigonometric functions or quadratic equations that would lead one teacher to do poorly with girls but not boys when they're being taught simultaneously.

Unless you're arguing that there's a "better" way to teach girls math versus boys, which would imply that boys and girls learn math differently. And as we all know, there's absolutely no difference in the intellectual capabilities of males and females so obviously that's not it.

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

How to bias material: lack confidence in it.

How to bias responses to children expressing problems with grasping material: be human.

How to gender-bias responses to kids having difficulty: be human while teaching both genders.

More specifically, my teachers in the past weren't always able to clearly convey how equations directly related to their graphs. I developed a rote sense of functions, rather than a visual intuition. When I tutor kids, I pass on my intuition that since things real numbers raise to even powers gets you positive real numbers, your graph will be above or touching the x-axis. That's different enough from saying "Consider y=x^n. If n%2=0, then y>=0." to click for someone who isn't catching on to the symbolic reasoning.

mirimir7• 9 years ago

How is STEM gender-biased?

Are you arguing for innate gender differences in abstract thought?

Or is it just that boys tend to intimidate and shut down girls?

Would gender segregation be better? My wife thinks so.

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

There is data on gender segregated education. So that question should be easy to decide.

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

STEM is gender-biased because we live in a world where societies are gender-biased. Systems theory says the bias will be visible in lower levels, so it's safe to assume it's in teaching.

That's how you can logic it out. If you want data, go find it. Failure to do so is work ignorance and that's OK because changing beliefs is scary and hard.

I'm arguing for humans to learn how to observe themselves and be open to seeing the impact they have on others. And for passing special attention where bias is present in order to properly apply whatever the appropriate anti-bias is.

You seem to really like problems with singular problems and solutions. Maybe looking into systems theory will help you recognize complex systems work a bit differently?

Personally, I think the ultimate solution is for humans to learn they can largely abandon judgment. I have some ideas on how to pull it off, so I'm gonna go back to writing about them.

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

"a gender-biased abstract composition of fields"

What does that even mean? Do you mean things like not counting medicine as STEM, because more women than men study it?

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

That's my weird way of saying STEM is gender-biased.

And why would we exclude a science from STEM? That's like...exactly the opposite of science. Is that a thing you've heard is happening?

syngrog66• 9 years ago

bad math teachers and bad math education approaches also turn away males/boys too. also I suspect some people just have more of an affinity for math, than others, regardless of gender or race. let's be blind to gender and race and just talk about improving math/STEM for everyone

douche2• 9 years ago

What reason would the Obama daughters have for being interested in STEM? They are royalty now, with the gates of power and prestige and celebrity opened to them for the rest of their lives. Why put themselves through the work of a STEM education? Pre-law is much easier.

It's an incredibly rational choice.

mquander• 9 years ago

Your profile says you program as a hobby, so how can it be a mystery to you why someone might be interested in something?

ausjke• 9 years ago

US education needs a revamp.

1. Establish nation-wide professional education colleges(the Normal Universities), students graduate to be teachers, government shall fund the colleges as much as possible, including lower tuition for students as long as they are into teachers profession.

2. boost pay for teachers, make teacher a proud profession socially and financially.

Both 1 and 2 are popular in Asia countries, it's nothing revolutionary. Our public education system here is so sub-par and good teachers are so hard to find, all the time.

drewhanson• 9 years ago

Perhaps the problem is that we continue to start STEM education with MATH. I've never really liked math but I"ve worked as a software developer for over a decade

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

Yeah the boys have the same bad math teachers.

madengr2• 9 years ago

It's a farce. The Obama daughters won't go into STEM anyway, rather finance or law/politics. (S)TEM is for Suckers who enrich those I just mentioned, or so says this cynical, middle aged electrical engineer.

Despite both parents being engineers, my 9 YO wants to be an ophthalmologist. The guy who runs the LASIK clinic down the street drives a "Lambo", despite the actual LASIK being performed by a machine built by those (Suckers)TEM.

carsongross• 9 years ago

Sure, but suing companies that don't have enough female engineers is certainly a lucrative future direction to pursue.

I do not expect nursing programs to be affected.

crawfordcomeaux14• 9 years ago

You spell "capitalism" differently and with more capitalized letters than I do.

DrScump• 9 years ago

Doesn't being a medical doctor (of whatever specialty) fall under "Science"?

madengr2• 9 years ago

Probably yes and no. An MD in NIH or some other research facility, sure. The guy cranking through LASIK procedures, no. I'd call that the service sector. Though it's obvious where the money is.

rabboRubble• 9 years ago

Doesn't surprise me... my fourth grade teacher told me was "bad at math" because I was a girl. Gave me a great excuse to not even try. My mom is still pissed at this teacher as of today. Took stumbling into geometry 6 years later, where I found I had natural spacial awareness allowing me to breeze geometric proofs and a teacher who didn't hold my prior years' bad performance against me, to change a barely C math student into an A math student. After this class, I realized that if I tried I could succeed.

Edit: sort of a PS, the geometry teacher also expressed surprised that I wasn't a terrible math student. My next math teacher would see the grades from the prior year, and I think that had a lot to do with the next successive teacher not investing much time. I was a girl, I was clearly a shit student, so not much reason to bother.

ivan_ah• 9 years ago

I wrote a math book that helps a lot with math de-fearing. The technology is very old-school: the printed word, but the teaching style is new. The tone is very conversational so it feels like you're reading a really long blog post. It's not free, but there is and extended preview here https://minireference.com/static/excerpts/noBSguide_v5_previ...

Basic Math. People knew some of this shit 2000 years ago. Surely any modern teenager can learn this stuff if we give them the space of a year, good learning resources, and a detailed "spec" of what they must know at the end of each grade. Instead of the `stick` of failing this grade, you offer kids the `carrot` of skipping ahead multiple grades if they pass tests on the "spec"s for these grade levels.

Suppose students spend n years in high school and on average pass the entire math spec in m years, where m < n (maybe m ~ n/2). Math wiz kids won't be held back and can go on an all-you-can-math binge, while artistically inclined youth can choose to skip math for several grades and then "catch up" during later grades.

Nomentatus• 9 years ago

So math is easy for you and you can communicate well - you're worth a lot of money! Do you go teach? In Finland, yes you might well - they'll pay you and respect you to boot. But in the West, they'll starve you and force you to be a part-time cop and social worker in classes that are too large. Bad math teachers? If they knew math inside out and well enough to clearly explain it even to children, they wouldn't be teachers; that would be crazy - saints are rare. So this really boils down to the ancient problem of: "There aren't enough saints!" Well, no... no there aren't, nor will there ever be (future genetic re-engineering aside.)

PS - 100 years ago we spent an incredible amount on children's education and health as a society - we forced nearly all women of genius to either teach or become nurses. That represented a ridiculously large subsidy (on the backs of women) for both endeavors that we've never replaced. Certainly not by dollars. So of course there's a problem, now. Outside Finland where they pay teachers very well, of course.

anothercomment10• 9 years ago

This just in: "women in male-dominated fields are not more likely to switch fields compared to their female peers in other fields"

From "Do They Stay or Do They Go? The Switching Decisions of Individuals Who Enter Gender Atypical College Majors"

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-016-0583-4

Michelle Obama at WWDC: Bad Math Teachers Drove My Daughters Out of STEM

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