What's the point in compulsory mathematics in public schools?

[miscsoc]

Beyond the elementary level?

I mean, I forgot all my calculus within a year, and in fact I couldn't do long division right now if you held a gun to my head. I was actually pretty good at maths but I've forgotten the lot because I never have any cause to use it beyond basic arithmetic. Also calculators exist.

Reading shakespeare was useless too but it was enjoyable and helped develop our personalities. Trigonometry not so much.

[miscsoc]

1. i mean i am asking a genuine question, addressed to any educators around

I assume there is some substantial logic behind it, just wondering what it is

[CBGLuthier]

2. So that those who WILL use those skills have them

Be kind of late to wait until you are in college to be an engineer to get around to Algebra and such.

If you actually believe reading Shakespeare is a useless activity I have to question your viewpoint. What exactly do you think a useful educational activity is?

[miscsoc]

3. Well, I suppose I don't think it was useless to read him

Like I said, literature develops your personality, your ability to live. But it didn't have any straightforward use in terms of work etc. The usefulness was of a different nature.

Why not leave algebra til college though? All those hours teaching maths to kids who'll never use it could be used teaching them... well, shakespeare or something

[mike_c]

4. sigh!-- you can lead a horse to water...

...but you can't make students think.

Quantitative thinking is key to understanding the world around us. Algebra, calculus, geometry-- those and other math disciplines are just collections of techniques and methods for manipulating quantitative symbols in specific ways, to achieve specific outcomes, like finding the circumference of a circle or figuring out the trajectory of ballistic objects. They are the quantitative equivalent of different languages and written conventions in verbal thinking. Think of calculus as poetry for numbers.

What's more important is gaining an appreciation for symbolic thinking in quantitative terms, the abstractions that underlie the specific disciplines. Understanding spatial relationships, and numerical series, for example. We do that all the time when we recognize patterns in the world around us. Math gives us tools for describing those patterns and for understanding them.

[meow2u3]

5. In this age of technology, high school math is very important

Even if you don't end up going to college and decide to go to trade school, the math (algebra, trig, geometry) you learned in high school is an integral part of skilled labor. For instance, auto techs, computer techies, etc., need to know algebra to solve the problems they may run into on their jobs.

[struggle4progress]

6. Bwaaaahaha! All us math educators have had a good cozy scam going for years,

in which we persuaded people that quantitative skills might actually help you with things like shopping or calculating your mortgage or being able to survey land or do some basic carpentry or figure out whether somebody was yanking your chain with their statistical claims or write a useful computer spreadsheet or design electrical circuits or go to moon or all that other bullshit

You know why we really teach calculus? It's not because it's useful for just about every single branch of modern science. No, it's because we're sadists, and we enjoy watching little heads explode. Oh, I kept trying to get my university administration to offer a mandatory course where we just tied up the students and beat them with a nail-studded two-by-fours, but the chickenshits said, Hey, we already offer calculus! What more do you really need?

[miscsoc]

13. Hey, I wasn't asking sarcastically

I don't have an axe to grind, just genuinely asking the question out of interest.

You can shop or do your mortgage w. pretty basic skills and a calculator, the other stuff is pretty specialised.

And my calculus wasn't compulsory, actually, so I shouldn't have put it in there.

[struggle4progress]

17. OK. I've done activist volunteer work, on-and-off for years. On lots of issues,

the establishment grabs some consultants to write a program and a bunch of associated gibberish "proving" that this-or-that proposal is the only reasonable to thing to do

They often do this for new roads that real estate developers want or when siting big industrial facilities, for example

And you know what happens next? Lots of people look at a few equations, or a table of numbers, and their eyes glaze over, and they say, I can't handle this shit -- and meanwhile, the shills go out into the community and onto the TV and radio and babble about how Studies prove we need this

And much of the time, the "studies" are just 100% pure BS

Why shouldn't we try to encourage students to develop some basic skills that might help them become better citizens?

[miscsoc]

18. we probably should

[femmocrat]

7. I think it's to keep their minds off of sex.

JMO ;)

[Dr Morbius]

8. Without disrespect, you need to read more Shakespeare.

King Lear, Hamlet, and the Tempest contain messages about trust and courage which apply to daily life.

Many people actually use mathematics in their professions, so it isn't like geometry and algebra are worthless to everyone. In fact, geometry teaches basic syllogisms and rudimentary logic, and I'd argue these things are useful to everyone.

[Locrian]

9. learning

Much of education is learning how to THINK, and about being exposed to different things. It's about developing your brain, and understanding how *you* learn.

[TZ]

10. I have to do dilutional calculations

and alot of our software is based on quadratic formulas and calculating the slope of a line. Kinda helpful to have knowledge of algebra in my job. Also have to do a lot of conversions like micrograms to nanograms etc....
Alot of jobs in the sciences, even with calculators and computers do actually require passing familiarity with math and trig and algebra.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. to teach you how to think

[Richardo]

12. Math is not just numbers, it's a discipline ...

...that develops skills for structured thought, logical reasoning and the ability to prove your results.

Algebra teaches reasoning, logic, the ability to cogently describe a problem, create a rational hypothesis, and rigor in arriving at an answer. These skills are NOT applicable solely to math problems, either.

We need as much critical thinking as we can get in the world of Fox News and the anti-science agenda of certain political, media and religious organizations.

[miscsoc]

14. that actually makes some sense

Although for the same reasons they should teach basic logic in schools as well.

[phasma ex machina]

19. Couldn't have said it better myself regarding algebra.

And, sooner or later, all advanced math gets down to one's rigor in algebra, where the tiniest mistake caused by skipping a step can ultimately prove quite painful.

:rofl:

Looks like Rupert Murdoch's alter ego (Fox) got mentioned. To tell you the truth, it's hard for me to spot much difference between Murdoch's alter ego and Sumner Redstone's alter ego (CBS) or Jeffrey Immelt's alter ego (NBC) or Robert Iger's alter ego (ABC).

Some of the other posters in this thread mentioned Shakespeare. IMHO a person ought to read both Shakespeare and the bible to achieve a basic level of cultural literacy.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. A better grounding in statistics, probability etc. would help many people

to understand risk. While calculus itself, in terms of knowing what functions differentiate to, may not be needed if you're never going to study any science, the concepts of rates of change and of integration are good to understand properly - it comes into thinking about debt, revenue etc. for business and also for political talk about deficits and so on.

[HopeHoops]

16. You have NOT forgotten your calculus.

It isn't just about raw calculations, but rather about concepts.

Fifteen years ago or so, my next door neighbor wanted me to help him estimate how much mulch to buy to put around his front shrubs. The perimeter was a wavy pattern. I took a tape measure and marked it off as a rectangle, cutting through the rough centers of the wavy lines to create a straight line. I gave him a number in about two minutes. It was the right amount.

Before that, early 80's, my dad was putting in a 6' x 8' patio with 2' x 2' blocks. He wanted to known if it was square. I told him to measure both diagonals and when they are both as close to 10' as possible, it will be square. A classic 3-4-5 triangle (geometry).

You never really forget that shit, but sometimes you forget you know it.