I was appalled to see this titular question on the front of today’s (Sunday) New York Times opinion section. It came along with this sidebar quote:
There is no good reason to force students to master quadratic equations. Doing so holds them back.
That really riles me up, seeing as how these polynomials work so well for response surface methods (RSM) for process optimization. The author, Andrew Hacker–emeritus professor of political science at City University of New York, believes that, by making math mandatory, our educational system filters out talented scholars. As an alternative to hard-core number-crunching, he proposes the “exciting courses” in ‘citizen statistics’ such as the Consumer Price Index. His aim is “to treat mathematics as a liberal art, making it as accessible and welcoming as sculpture or ballet.”
I enjoy seeing statues and I admire the grace and athleticism of dancers; however, Hacker’s vision is for me dystopian. But so long as the educational system provides for a branching of those who like math versus the others who do not, then we get the best of all worlds. I agree–let’s not force algebra on those who abhor it.
#1 by jem777dy on August 14, 2012 - 2:35 pm
I used to be a student assistant at an International Baccalaureate granting high school. Most students took the equivalent of 4-5 AP level classes every term in their sophomore and junior years. Senior year was filled with college level classes. The worst students in the program only took math, in high school through Calc 1. The better students took through Calc 2. The best students took the equivalent of a survey course in Calc 3/Diff Eq/Linear Alg.
Most of the students in the program were from countries outside of the US.They took the IB program because they wanted to get admitted to universities in their home countries. Even if they went to a “highly regarded” prep school, they would find it hard to get admitted into a foreign university.
The economics teacher at this school taught his classes with the expectations that every student in the class had at least pre-calc. At an American university, that would be the equivalent of an Honors College class. There are some MBA programs that won’t teach econ to the MBA students at the level of the IB high school class!
I now work as a math tutor at a community college. About a third of my students already have bachelor’s degrees in liberal arts. They are coming back to school to get better training for higher paying jobs.
I don’t think everyone needs to take a Calc sequence. I think most people would do well taking a class or two in applied stats and a class or two in “Probability and Linear Models”. Most universities offer such a class at the intro level. Some universities require it for business and econ majors. It covers a lot of the material that I covered in my graduate level Intro to Operations Research. It has a lot of applications in business.
When I work with students taking math classes, they tend to hate it. Most of the professors ask students to solve 50-60 problems within the next 2-3 days. The profs assign questions without answers in the back of the book and do not appear in the student solutions manual. In 90+% of the problems, the numbers are on the page and the student just solves it. That makes it taxing on the students patients. It reinforces that math is horrible. Most of the problems do not resemble what someone in the real world will do. Then you read the story problems.
When I begin teaching these classes, I will apply the material to what students actually need and do. I will use 5-6 story problems to illustrate the application of the material and where it is actually used in the real world.
Now, when a student complains to me about math being hard, I’ll ask them if they want to be a politician, a fry cook or a barista.
#2 by Wayne on August 14, 2012 - 4:32 pm
I don’t teach my daughter algebra. I teach her that five pennies make a nickel, two nickels make a dime, two dimes and one nickel make a quarter, etc. I figure if I can teach her the basics she can decide if she is interested enough to keep going with the concept.
Doing math with letters didn’t make any sense to me for a long time. Story problems though, those made sense. I guess that is why I’m a statistician today.
#3 by sharik on August 15, 2012 - 9:16 am
In the June 2012 Significance magazine, the winner of the Young Statisticians Section/Significance Writing Competition was an article titled “What’s the point of a point estimate? Why statistics lectures confuse students” (author Danielle Morris). The end result is an argument that I have been making for years – that people have to get excited about the results, before they can get excited about the theory. There has to be a reason, a motivation to learn. Most stats schools teach a Theory class, followed by Application. I argued, and in fact got permission, to take the sequence in reverse. I needed to understand WHY i should care, before I was willing to invest the time into learning how it is done. I can understand some of the intent behind Mr. Hacker’s statement. He too, suggests that we demonstrate the practical application of math, thus getting students interested in how it is applied. Then teach the applicable theory and there is a better chance students will care. I also believe that some foundation in math is essential for everyone 🙂