Dad, do you use the Quadratic formula? August 20, 2007

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.