+Geoyce411 Thanks!

PLEASE DO NOT FOLLOW THIS MAN IF YOU ARE DEALING WITH ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS!!!

ahmad najeb Thank you for your comment, we are glad you like the presentation.

I've been saying that since I was in school myself and will probably die old saying the same thing as everybody shuns me for saying it. Mostl;y everything in school is like that: memorize, don't think.

A lot of music is just plain memory based, which part of the staff corresponds to which fingering on the instrument, playing pieces over and over again until it's muscle memory. Instead of just playing a recording of the music and talking about what it means, we waste so much time teaching kids to play music. It's terrible. They make mistakes and then it doesn't sound right. And this distracts from understanding the music. It takes a while for their ears to learn what's right and what's wrong. We could just play the music on Spotify for them and then they'd know.

Varun Dutt Thank you for your comment! It is surely challenging to change patterns, but let people like Conrad Wolfram inspire you to initiate change...

Same in Pakistan

ما العمل بالنسبه لطالب يا صاح

+Wilmer Newland yes, you need to know why it is true that when you have 1 object in 1 hand and another object in your other hand, then you are carrying 2 objects. But that doesn't mean you have to know how many objects your carrying if you have 417852965217926345972 in one hand and 358327405324078 in the other. Computers can do that without any error. You still understand the concept, but the computer does the work that would require a long time for a human to do.

The point you should understand is that more jobs will require maths and other analytical subjects and people without these skills will have less and less opportunities.

You are right. I guess, what Wolfram meant is: Learn the basics (problem solvings and how math works) first. U can also calculate by hand, etc. But after you understand some principles, it is useless to make calculations by hand over and over again. For indtance: once you know how a division works, you could make a division by hand or by computer. 27864566686543,64449776 divided by 187655433,45556975443322 so... it will take a few seconds for the computer, but it will take you hours by hand. The chance of mistakes is high as well... so why bother with it ? So this is how I see it, my chocolate ice cream if you will !

+ALIEN BERNHARD Right. Like learning the alphabet and phonetic sounds in order to read. However, new theories in learning indicate that 21st century learns master these 'basics' in synch with technology. Actually, they're often learned with technology, especially 3D technology that allows children to manipulate objects.

+Satyavan I agree 100% with you. I think the whole speech was an advert for the Wolfram computational engine- which is a great tool - but not that great for real world problems! Take linear algebra - it can only do operations with very small matrices - I think it only allows to use something like 250 characters - so if you have fractions as matrix elements you end up not being able to compute even very small problems. So, there.

Satyavan, from my understanding of what he is saying, it is more about the order in which you learn. If you learn to program in any language that lets you declare and manipulate variables, you've just learnt basic algebra in a meaningful context. If your programming lets you plot points on the screen, you're learning and using Cartesian geometry and are well on the way to building mathematical models. I would say you could teach children how to program at this level in a far shorter space of time than you could teach them algebra manually with pen and paper. Back in the stone ages when I was learning senior cycle maths, we had log books and slide rules. The argument I'm seeing put up against Wolfram here is the same argument that was put forward against the calculator in the 80s and is essentially very weak. The notion of learning maths by rote in a bottom up style is in my opinion a waste of time and accomplishes very little. Learning to apply maths in a dynamic and meaningful fashion and gives you reason and motivation to learn the first principals.

Mathematica is invented by the speaker

@@preenan5123 No, his brother :-) For a more beginner friendly program I'd say GeoGebra. They have a great community.

Creative people are able to link them to real-life problems without being given a scenario.

Shadox Don Yes but that doesn't necessarily mean they know where it's (for lack of a better word) meant to be applied.

you can find me , math dyslexic is called dyscalculia . a lot of ppl have this just they dont know

because he is english

Titan Army many English on streets speak unclear

+martmart1 Exactly on streets. Southern English people, like myself, generally speak like him.

Toby Talks i live not far from London. some people speak very clear. some do so unclear that i cant repeat what they say. and they say not a poem of Shakespeare but the simplest things. and they are not youngsters with a modern slang but quite old.and they are not Irish who often can be unclear because of their accent.

martmart1 some people are smart, well educated and cultured. Others are dumb, ignorant and inbred. Guess which one you are.

I think the argument for mathematics being divided into context according to its several uses was for the benefit to understand computational math being used for the progression in mechanics of computers - and then mental math for the benefit of everyday life. Like he says, think of the subject (as vast as it is) being taught in a way that would put the many branches of real life application into focus for students.

Indeed as Thomas X said, I believe you misinterpreted the his speech.

Michael Lavigne Michael, I agree 100% with your comment. Nicely stated.

M Stephens I offer you reiteration of my first comment as token of my willingness to de spell any contempt in the idea of misplacing the familiar forms of mathematics.

Thomas ™ Hi Thomas. I did not read ANY contempt with misplacing the familiar forms of math in your comment; I actually agree with what you said. One thing that I rarely hear is something that is extremely important, especially in math & the sciences -- Students NEED an excellent teacher. Someone who breaks things down and makes them fun and understandable. Someone who takes the mystique away. For example, I just got done a lecture to a class of nursing students. The course is "Basic Math and Dosage Calculations" and the first three lectures are designed to help break that wall many students have against math. I put a ratio on the board of 1:2 and told them they could put a horizontal line between the two "periods" in the ratio symbol *:* and let them see it now as "1 "divided by" 2. This means 1:2 is equal to 1 divided by 2 which equals 0.5.....Most were amazed at that! Just simple things to help increase understanding and to get them to THINK!

I dont think substituting numbers into a formula and finding an answer to it makes you get addicted

@@alanneville5249 True. That is precisely Paul Lockhart's complaint.

M Stephens if both are of equal importance, state your logic in stating why any one thing should be first to learn?

In anything you are learning "why" is always more important than "how". I wish my math teachers had understood that.

Joshua Pittman How many people do you know that have ‘Mathphobia’? I used to dodge math in college like a drug addict dodges random drug tests, but that’s not just me... TONS of people are like that. There are a very, very large portion of would-be scientists over in the humanities departments that don’t pick that STEM Major solely because they are _afraid_ of the math involved. I never understood where that fear came from. I just accepted that some people are “math people” and some aren’t. *The fact is that most people graduate high school without a concrete, ironclad grasp of the 4 basic operations.* Brute force mental arithmetic is same as a basic language literacy. It is absolutely essential for children to be able to do long division and multiply multi digit numbers mentally as it is for them to speak in their native tongues. Would you consider someone who had to open an English translation dictionary in very conversation with you, a native English speaker I assume, a “speaker” of English? Here, I agree with OP. However, I do agree with Wolframs point. While I am a big advocate of mental math, I’m not gonna attempt even a basic task like build a wooden table without a calculator handy. If I forget to carry a number in my head, I just wasted money and wood. The thing is though... I would never even have the nerve to attempt the project at all without the CONFIDENCE that comes with just being good with numbers in my head. To repeat, I do agree with Wolfram point, but he’s talking to people who are career scientists. They can’t afford to screw up their very important, very expensive problems by trying to be 2nd rate calculators when they can write programs to do calculations for them. But for us laymen... we could pass from cradle to grave not even imagining we could fill their very ordinary shoes without being mentally fluent at the 4 fundamental arithmetic operations first.

+Nerian not for free, definetely. But altruism deals with care, atention, love. Being really human. It does not have to mean work for free, but anyone who truly cares about education, has a strong foundation of their character in the essences of human being, which are quite far from making money

***** Wow that is awesome that youre working on this project! I can see your passion and idea from your comment. What are you working on? Please let me know when you have finished so I can see it.

What if reality is added to the discussion? Backtrack the OUTCOMES produced by people in the real world. WHO did what and how? should be asked and connected to initial rankings. I personally KNOW I was under ranked, told to be a construction laborer, but pursued my own path in acctg/finance, rooted in computer programming/problem solving/critical thinking, and am doing quite well despite NOT being a master of hand-based computations. AND I know countless number of people in finance-based jobs who calculate great but are lousy with turning data into meaningful, useful knowledge. Their spreadsheets are a mess of spaghetti logic, page & cell & range references (plugs everywhere to stop the leaks rooted in bad design, ie bad thinking), and much more. They are lightning fast on an electric desktop calculator, but blunder horribly in the creation of analyses, reports, presentations, etc. So eager are they to present their calculations that they bore the hell out of the poor minds they display their "work" to.

Ryan plz I agree with you that Maths lessons WAS boring because it was a subject with endless procedures and calculations. But that was in 90s when I was a student. There has been a shift (slow but gradually) in the Singapore Maths Curriculum from rote learning to problem solving. The new curriculum focuses on process of problem solving, rather than the results. Students are exposed to activities, with aim to relate learning to real life application. Teachers are happier preparing interesting lessons too! It seems great but problem comes when assessing the child. Due to the education structure (and maybe its purpose in serving the gov agenda?), many of the 'ideal' lessons are being sacrificed to preparing students to be 'exam smart' (Like doing endless worksheets and tests). Unless the mindset of students/parents change from grades achieving to real learning, students in Singapore schools will continue to experience some of those boring Maths moments which I had before.

not everyone dreams of becoming a mathematician

Florent Dravet, Possibly there's difference between 'Knowing' and using it 'over and over again' .

What wolfram was arguing is that computers and programming will take away some emphasis on procedural understanding, which is clearly practiced on schools, and give more to conceptual understanding. Practicing hand calculations surely trains students to get the feel of math but it takes away time and energy that should be spent on relating math concepts into real-life problems which is the first step in solving real problems.

The founder of Wolfram Alpha is Stephen Wolfram.

Nonsense! Nobody likes challenge because they have NO idea what challenge is. I know this from first hand experience with my ex-schoolmates(university now), where they would give up on a problem because it is BORINGGGGG or because they didn't understand everything in 5 minutes! If everyone developed a habit of deep work in primary school, everyone would appreciate the difficult problems FAR MORE than any computational stuff. It is important for everyone to know how to calculate, however examples in class should be proving theorems and showing interesting intuitions and applications with the real world, while homework could be problems like from channel Mind Your Decisions(Some are VERY difficult and super interesting). If you prove theorems and assertions, develop models for a situation(be it in geometry, analysis, linear algebra, whatever) or be presented with a real world problem and would have to find a way to solve it(physics ofc.), then you UNDERSTAND all those things and you know how to calculate easily(if I know what an integral REALLY is I can derive other integrals and I can learn methods of solving them WAY FASTER). If you only solve calculations without deep insight problems, you will be shown sth where your tools are useless and you will stop dead, while the other guy would spend hitting his head on the wall and would actually find a way, maybe invent some new math on the way(Newton for example). In the end though, I think that the current system does a great job filtering the pupils to willingly make the wast majority go into easier production fields and only some into science or humanities, which makes sure that the standards of a normal person are high and that the country GDP is high as well. Still I hate to see people being SUPER ignorant about math and physics.

what he means is not everybody needs to learn sculpting in school when in work they will have no choice but to use designing softwares

Are you being obtuse on purpose?

Damian Torn hes being acute minded

Your story makes a great point. One of the first thing children should learn is coding. If traditional education works why have so many of our children failed to learn? When I taught in public schools I endeavored to engage students. Give children a problem to solve and they'll learn math. Of course they need to learn numbers, just like they need to learn the alphabet. Once they've learned the only real basic, the rest is about discovery and problem-solving. For example, I used a problem from a book titled I Hate Mathematics to introduce algebra to my gifted elementary students. How many permutations of double-dipped cones can you get from 31 flavors? Although I wanted them to approach it algebraically, I allowed my students to "use their brains" to discover a way to calculate the results - it was 1979 and we had no computers. Now, I would encourage them use their laptops, tablets, or smart phones to solve the problem and figure out how. They were smart, so they collaborated and came up with an algebraic equation and each got the double-dipped cone from Baskins&Robbins I promised to the winner.

+Joe Leon This is a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics. Once you know the theory computation is trivial. Ask anyone who has taken Real Analysis to do some integration, trivial. Why do most people know how to get the answers to any number multiplied by ten or 5? Once you understand the underlying mechanics the rest comes easy.

+Joe Leon Your perception on this is outdated. You do learn the basics when you learn computer programming, you can't program algebraic calculations without knowing algebra. It's when you use the computer to PUNCH IN NUMBERS ONLY. That's when you don't learn math. The computer is only "doing it for if you" when you don't UNDERSTAND HOW THE COMPUTER IS DOING IT FOR YOU. When you program the computer to HANDLE input, then you learn programming and math at THE SAME TIME.

+Brandon You have misunderstood Joe Leon's point. You are arguing the same thing. When you don't understand what the computer is doing, then you have no business programming it. So we cannot abandon calculation techniques in favor of programming or "new math" or whatever else. We must have both.

Steel Beard I disagree. I think if you learn to program derivative calculations, you will simultaneously learn derivatives. If you ONLY do derivatives on a calculator, where the program was placed in the calculator without you programming it, THEN you don't learn, and then the computer is just giving you the answer. Programming means YOU TEACH THE COMPUTER. And usually when you teach a subject you learn it better yourself.

That't not how IQ or logical deficiency work.

Which country are you talking about ... if you are talking about India.. I dont agree.

usha sharma ji i dont think that indian kids are unsuccessful in maths. Point is that Maths is mostly become a burden to kids in school time and teachers are only teaching the formulas and equations but they dont tell us where we can use these formulas in our life and in our profession.

I not trying to stereotype, but I have never heard of Indians bad at maths.

Being good at math does not really equate to being a good problem solver (real-life problems). Wolfram was talking about extending the power of math thru computers and programming. He did say that the math subject can be treated as a highly specialized subject for those who wants it but should not be the same for the whole population. Conceptual understanding and should be enough since the computers will do the calculation for real-life problems.

Hi. This reply is a bit late due to the youtube algorithm but; as a system, I find what you have just said mildly infuriating :)

What is your problem with maths? What is there to cringe about? Maths is the preferred short form of mathematics in Britain and commonwealth countries. It is just as valid as math is.

@@xenozodiac852 I guess because I don't live in Britain and we don't put an "s" on the short form of "mathematics" in the USA, it makes me cringe. it just sounds----wrong----to me.

@@Xontar02 Then it is a you problem, not the problem of the presenter.

C Pope Wait, you're calling him a hypocrite because he wasn't taught in this hipothetical system he thought up?