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I’m far from being any kind of serious mathematician, but I’ve learned more in the last couple years of taking that seriously as an ambition than in decades of relegating myself to inferiority on it.

One of the highly generous mentors who dragged me kicking and screaming into the world of even making an attempt told me: “There are no bad math students. There are only bad math teachers who themselves had bad math teachers.”

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thefaux 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sadly, when I was a postdoc, an eminent mathematician I was working under once shared a story that he found amusing that one of his colleagues was once asked a question in the form: "This might be a stupid question, but..." and the response was "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people."

Run into too many people like that, who I daresay are common in the field, and it's easy to see how people become dispirited and give up.

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ckw 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

That’s a south park quote: https://youtu.be/wWfacULP1o0?si=ddBWXFuQMoxxY-Yu

	▲	benreesman 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		That was a belly laugh on a tough day. Thank you Sir or Madame.

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Jensson 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't that a positive statement, that you can ask questions without worry since they aren't stupid?

	▲	cutemonster 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe, I guess it's easily misinterpreted though O.O

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benreesman 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think we can recognize Pauli for his identification of one of the few magic gadgets we accept around spin statistics without accepting his educational philosophy: “Das ist nicht einmal falsch.”

He was right on the nature of the universe, he was wrong on making a better world. I for one forgive him on the basis of time served.

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yimmothathird 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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cchi_co 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How much of math aversion stems from a chain reaction of ineffective instruction

	▲	benreesman 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		According to an excellent mentor: all of it minus epsilon.

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mr_mitm 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Wouldn't it then follow that all students of the same teachers end up with the same skill level in math? Not sure that's the case.

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benreesman 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Cantor gave his life to the Continuum Hypothesis, Hilbert gave much of his life to similar goals.

You’re making an argument somewhat along those lines, but given that I didn’t stipulate a convergence condition your conclusions can be dismissed by me.

If it were a valid argument then we’d need Gödel.

	▲	mr_mitm 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Did you mean to reply to another post? I don't follow at all.

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diffeomorphism 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn't follow. Bell curve in, shifted bell curve out. Ideally this also tweaks the variance a bit.

In other words: Some students flourish despite their teachers, some flourish because of them.

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mr_mitm 4 days ago | parent [-]

And how would you call the students in the left tail of the Bell curve if not bad students?

	▲	diffeomorphism 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Below average students and as long as the average is high enough they are still very competent. A bad teacher instead gives you a bimodal distribution and just doesn't bother teaching those students.