Academic Life Raft

(Note: This is an AI-assisted teaser for my prior manual writing. If you like it and want to read more details about this topic/perspective, then check out my 100% manually-written blog and books!)

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.

Some students don’t really learn the math in their course.
They just learn how to survive the course.

They get their smart friend to help carry them through the homework.
They hunt for partial credit, lobby for retakes.
They cobble together just enough hacks to pass the class.

It keeps them afloat for one semester, but it never really teaches them how to swim.
Then the next course assumes that they can – that they know how to swim.
Now the raft is gone, the water’s deeper, and they’re in trouble.

The goal should not be helping students survive math class with some kind of makeshift academic life raft.
The goal should be actually teaching them how to swim.

Here are the 100% manually-written long-forms that this teaser is distilled from, if you want to dive deeper:

• How “Kicking the Can Down the Road” Happens in Education
• The Math Death Spiral: How Knowledge Gaps Lead to Student Failure

Want to get notified about new posts? Join the mailing list and follow on X/Twitter.