I went to decent schools in a decent district, they had “Academically Gifted” programs for elementary and middle school students, with “honors” and “AP” classes for high schoolers. A structural problem I think they had is they were operating kind of on video game logic: “You’re smart so for you we’re going to make classes harder for you.” You’re doing too well on Medium, we’re bumping you up to Hard.

Which basically did the opposite of what I really needed. I didn’t need more and longer assignments. In most subjects you could go a little deeper in detail with me and I’d keep up. In math class, I needed more concrete explanations of what the numbers meant. Math class is so often just “Here is how you do this algortihm. Follow these rules and you get the answer.” “Okay, I got 7.” “No, you were supposed to get -2, you forgot the transistational property of non-equal equality. You need to talk to the guidance counselor about your future because at this rate you’re not going to pass this class.” Funny how I did extremely well in chemistry and physics where they explained the math in concrete terms that I could build an intuitive relationship with.

I think there’s also a problem where…Picture a mathematician. What do you see? A man in a sweater vest in an ivy covered building filling a chalkboard with greek letters and arcane symbols that prove some deep truth about reality, right? That’s what it looks like to be good at math, so that’s what we’re going to make math class look like for every single citizen. Never mind that administrators rarely do math at all, a lot of office workers are fine with a 4-function calculator, meanwhile a carpenter needs a functioning understanding of trigonometry. In academia, aesthetics is more important than reality.