A well-reasoned rant that’s long overdue. (HT: Ray Sawhill)
Some of us are good at math, some of us struggle merely to get through it.
Whether we’re good at it or bad, few of us will ever again use anything we learned in calculus or trigonometry class ever again, not even once. After graduation, few will even be able to recognize such general terms as sine and cosine, much less be able to explain what they mean.
For those who want to become engineers, scientists or economists, math is the foundation of their careers. It’s vital, not to be questioned.
For the rest of us – and I include technicians and medical workers* among the rest of us – math is, more often than not, a painful and soul-breaking ritual that we are forced to endure if we hope to have a decent life.
Spot on! I managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, without properly learning, in my 2nd year calculus class, Green’s Theorem and Stokes’ Theorem; I managed to pass the course without learning them, somehow. I’m proud of my maintaining my ignorance in those pointless (i.e. for most people) endeavours.
“Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.” – Fran Lebowitz
But some people might like algebra and become mathematicians. They should have an opportunity to learn about these things.
Of course they should. But the rest of us shouldn’t have to. Algebra and calculus aren’t useful in everyday life, and so shouldn’t be required, but optional.
Finally,…..I get here.. Saw this post a couple days ago, but have had a very busy and hectic weekend. (darn kids,
)
You are absolutely right, Will. So much useless Maths is taught to students in high school.
In fact, I dropped Maths in my last year of high school, because it was soooo boring and just seemed like a waste of time to me.
Logarithms? Who needs ‘em I thought.
Years later when I discovered that my son was autistic, I discovered a program, ‘Precision Teaching’, that would help my son to learn.
When he was three years old I started the program myself ( under the direction of the person who developed the program) it helped my son enormously. Through this program I taught him shapes colours, basic math etc..
And you know what? His progress was charted daily on a Standard Celeration Chart, basically a sem-logarithmic chart. LOL!
At first I was full of dread, but it did not take long for me to learn and understand, because I had a purpose and a goal.
I am still not sorry that I dropped Math in my last year of high school, either!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_teaching#cite_note-7
Hey Kathy,
Logarithms have their place, but not often.
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