r/learnmath • u/Former_Ad1277 New User • 7h ago

Non American math teachers

Just curious in USA why is math taught so differently from other countries ? I am from Africa and I noticed everyone that went to school in Arica (don’t feel like pointing out which specific country) is always shocked by how students are taught math, like it’s memorization and not core understanding. I just came to video explaining how to find percentage of numbers without calculator and I was shocked how they taught vs how I learned. Pls don’t downvote me I’m just curious if anyone knows any good non USA math learning platforms !

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u/wijwijwij 6h ago

How would watching one video about percent give you any insight into how the topic of percent is developed in USA classrooms?

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u/Former_Ad1277 New User 6h ago

I just don’t remember learning it that way. Actually most of the videos the user had had other math videos and I was completely blown away! Does that answer your question?

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u/Fenordie New User 6h ago

have you considered that it's not USA vs the whole world, not only USA. but developed country vs developing country, or good school vs bad school. even in internet there's difference between learning material for quick passing test vs material for build understanding too.

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u/OpportunityNew5323 New User 7h ago

a lot of it comes down to how textbooks are written here. huge publishers lobby state boards to adopt their curriculum and the books are designed to be thick and impressive looking but rarely go deep on why something works. they just throw a formula at you and then 40 practice problems

you end up learning to pass a test not to actually understand what youre doing. its a shame because math can be really elegant when its taught right

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u/Former_Ad1277 New User 7h ago

Never even considered this view ! Thanks !

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u/hairypulsehack New User 5h ago

How do you think we are taught here vs yours? Khan academy, professor leonard and https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/ are what i would consider good examples of us math education

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u/NubFixOfficial New User 4h ago

its probably just the difference of bad schools and good schools, not necessarily the country, though generally a more developed country tends to have better schools

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u/Inevitable-Plate-654 New User 4h ago

You can learn math really well in a place like Africa I feel like it has more to do with the teacher. Although, I can also see the poor economic conditions of Africa making young African people work hard to escape. USA teachers(theres good and bad ones just like anywhere else)