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Comment by curuinor | Hacker News Reader

Math education research is not math research: it's education research, which is among the worst among social science, which is among the worst of all sciences in evidentiary practices. There are almost no valid RCT's in educational research by the standards of non-social science researchers. My own impression is that folks who publish on this sort of thing and not mathematics, like education and do not like mathematics per se.

I've read Boaler's stuff. I agree mostly in form with RJ Milgram's attack on her claims, which basically accuse her of statistical incompetence.

It is possible to be a great research mathematician and to be an awful mathematics teacher. It is not possible to teach great research mathematics without being a great research mathematician. I also do not believe it possible to inculcate in younger students an enduring love of mathematics without having oneself an enduring love of mathematics.

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> It is not possible to teach great research mathematics without being a great research mathematician.

I'm not sure it makes any sense to talk about "teaching research mathematics". If it's research mathematics (as in, discovering new math), it should not and cannot be done in a classroom setting.

With that in mind, it is certainly possible to be a good math teacher while being a poor or mediocre researcher. Their students are probably not be prepared for an academic math career, but they can walk away with a solid understanding of established mathematics nonetheless.

I mean, if we are talking about teaching elementary school, then you don't need to be world class researcher to get them ready for next level. You need to like math and, imo, you need to like problem solving, you need to understand math instead of having it memorize etc.

However, you definitely don't need to be actual researcher. I would even argue that it will be more beneficial to study psychology, child development, child behavior etc then spending time doing serious math research.

I'm not talking about elementary school, I'm talking about masters or bachelor's level advanced mathematics that has nonetheless been established for decades or centuries.

All I'm saying is that teaching and researching are different skill sets. One does not prepare you for the other except indirectly, nor is one a prerequisite for the other. One could just as easily say some pedagogy is required to communicate original research. It's true to an extent, but you don't need to be a excellent teacher to be an excellent researcher, or vice versa.

Boaler work is all about children, so I interpreted it in that context. I mostly agree with you.

Math teaching until upper years of undergrad is "The Technical History of Mathematics", which really could be taught very well by teachers yoinked by a time machine from the 1800s...

My favorite math teacher was a linguist by training, but had a knack for getting across the intuition behind Linear Algebra. Some of my mathematics researcher acquaintances mentioned that in teaching their own children mathematics, they focus on clarity of thinking and language...

Here's a relevant RPF quote: "Mathematics is a language plus reasoning; it is like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning." ― Richard Feynman

What is the point of this comment? Are you trying to say we should just ignore all existing research on education?

> which is among the worst of all sciences in evidentiary practices

Linguistics is worse: It's quite literally based on hearsay.

Edit: I think that's relevant. Perhaps mathematical skill is diametrically opposed to linguistic faculty.

Of course that's nonsense, but it's an observation inferred from the completely separate treatment of these subjects -- and other stereotypes. At least they are seperated to such an effect that being good at one of these is not perceived as prerequisite for the other. If it wasn't for informatics I would never heard the word "logic" in school. And even then, CS is very much focused on number crunching.

In fact, being good at one is often purported as apology a pro pos being bad at the other. I'm not sure why such a schism exists.

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