Do you remember the Quadratic formula from math class? For some reason the name has stuck in my mind; if not the exact make up of the formula itself or what it calculates. There are a lot of people who champion the process of trying to teach so called higher math and even making it part of an exit exam for High School. I am not one of those people. I was greatly discouraged with all the math associated with a basic business degree and it caused me to drop out of college before eventfully suffering through it to get a degree in Accounting. If there is one course in Pre-K through twelve grade that causes more students to fail and drop out than Algebra, I don’t know what it is. I remember the Algebra class at the university where two thirds of the class had dropped by the end of the drop due date. All along the way students say “we won’t ever use this stuff” and we are told yes we will need it. As it turns out I have never needed to know Algebra to function in life or at work, have you? I know some people use math in their jobs and I appreciate that some engineers used math to calculate how to build a bridge I drive over every day. Does that mean that every student regardless of aptitude or interest has to be tortured and in many cases weeded out of the student body? Even the engineer who builds the bridge does not have to memorize any formulas and he or she probably uses software that has the math built in. The Math classes I had were more about the skill of memorization than anything else. If you could keep that formula in your memory until Tuesday and know which problem it applied to, you could be a math wizard. I don’t know about your workplace but mine allows me to make notes and I don’t have to memorize a whole bunch of formulas that all look very similar. The mantra of education should be “To help get young people ready for adult life”. That is a very broad definition but that is what you want so you don’t limit yourself. I say “help” because the parents and society at large also should have the same goal and do the things they are best suited for them to do. Math education could and should be fun and apply to the real world. I would not make Math about memorization but about application. Bring in real world examples and give the formulas to students so they can practice working them. What was the formula used to calculate the stress loads on parts of the Golden Gate bridge. Bring in real world examples used in the automobile, space exploration, and pharmaceutical industries. It would be great if students could be exposed to snippets of software that is being used today and uses math to solve problems in industry. How does the McDonald’s restaurant corporation calculate how many cups to order next month and where to ship and store them? Using this educational approach gives students a feeling like they are learning things that they may use some day. I am a firm believer that business must work with our schools to help develop a curriculum that applies to the mantra “To help get young people ready for adult life”. You might be wondering how a teacher would test the students in this kind of class and that is what I want to talk about next.
People who do not learn at least beginning-level algebra do NOT adequately undestand Basic Arithmetic used in daily life. Algebra really does apply to the real world. Whether fun or not should not be of great concern; obviously, “fun” can give more motivation to learn. Should real-life algebraic skill have an aspect of “fun” just by being practical?
If students find beginning algebra to be MOSTLY confusing and impractical, then these students are not putting in enough effort to learn and study.
WordPress put a link to your page on my blog, and I was struck by the title of your post. Much of what goes for motivation in math class is of the incestuous kind, like: “You need this for the test at the end of the unit.” “You need this so you can pass your next math class.” “You need this so you can graduate.” Whatever real life applications exist at the end of this path – it sometimes seems pretty obvious that the teacher doesn’t know either. As to the quadratic formula, specifically – no, I’ve never used it in practice. I’ve worked as a mathematician, as an engineer and as a computer scientist, and more recently in teaching. The quadratic formula is important in school, as a secret handshake.
Now, I’ve come across needing to factor quadratic expressions before, but they aren’t always nicely quadratic, so a special method for quadratics rarely ever shows much use. A method such as Newton-Raphson can be used in a much wider range of circumstances. The quadratic method is like a specially forged tool that you use once every forty years where even then a simple dime will do.
Algebra does indeed play a role as a sorting course, with some people ending up on this side and other people left on the other. What is often not realized is that this can become a self-perpetuating situation: all the folks who survived the old system now are the ones telling everybody what a necessary thing it was to have these hurdles there. Typical survivor bias.
Anyway, thank you for your post!
Thanks for your comments Bert, I like the “survivor Bias” way of looking at the issue you mentioned.
What do you think about the idea of having some business math in our K-12 education. Real world applications like mortgage & car loan evaluation or balance sheet basics. The time value of money and investing and the list goes on and on. How to prepare and follow a personal budget or just balance a check book would go a long way to prepare people for adult responsibilities.
I have trouble getting a longer reply to get accepted, so let me just point you to this:
http://unlearningmath.com/2009/01/25/math-in-the-comics-part-1/