[vntx]

Indeed. A disgrace for education but a win for educational communism. It’s a good thing the US can import talent because California’s students are being trained to be cognitively lazy. How will these children fare in a society that is getting more technologically advanced, dynamic and complex by the day without the problem solving tools to handle it? I can’t wait to find out.

[throwvirtever]

> A disgrace for education but a win for educational communism.

I was under the impression that (actual) communist educational systems were geared predominantly toward the most advanced students, rather than the other way around. Cranking out prizewinning physicists, mathematicians, and chess grand-masters at a somewhat greater than expected rate.

[anthk]

Spivak. Heck, even Yakov Perelman. Recreational Math books that could make American teens cry over themselves.

[vntx]

Read my comment again. I made no mention of education systems implemented in communist states. I said educational communism, education where everyone is pulled towards the mean no matter their individual effort or talent.

[thaumasiotes]

"Educational communism" in that it seeks to eliminate inequality (in education) by reducing everyone to zero, just as communism sought to eliminate inequality (in wealth) by reducing everyone to zero.

Not "educational communism" in the sense of educational systems modeled on those of communist countries.

The analogy is from "if I can't afford a car, then nobody should be allowed to have a car" to "if I can't understand algebra, then nobody should be allowed to learn algebra".

[anthk]

Communism? The Soviet books on Math were crazily more deep than the US ones.

Read about Spivak's Calculus.

[todd8]

Spivak's Calculus is intended for use in a two semester course covering differential and integral calculus. It is a challenging but rewarding introduction to calculus; in my opinion, this text is appropriate for math majors while other STEM students might be better off with a textbook that didn't focus quite so much on learning proofs. It was used at MIT for the first year of Calculus, but only by the math majors.

Michael Spivak is an American mathematician born in Queens, New York.