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Re:American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math'... by lumost on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @02:49PM (#28132643)
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that most Americans experience k-12 math as an exercise in memorization. Even relatively simple algebraic manipulation such as quadratic equations are drilled for factorization first.
Re:American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math'... by jdgoesmarching on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @03:59PM (#28133525)
Yep, it’s like teaching someone how to cook by quizzing them on recipes. I didn’t understand the purpose of calculus until grad school despite having “learned” it several times by that point.
Re:American parents are sending their kids to 'Russian math'... by jacobolus on Tuesday August 10, 2021 @04:16PM (#28133795)
If anyone wants a book focusing on the purpose of calculus, check out http://www.math.smith.edu/~callahan/intromine.html

This is significantly different style from Russian textbooks. If you want a nice one of those translated into English (albeit not the easiest to find a paper copy of), I like Piskunov’s book. https://archive.org/details/n.-piskunov-differential-and-int...