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>>What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW]. Degree is incon

by tmptmp 10y ago

>>What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW]. Degree is inconsequential. I'd say "if she is a human, she will do better by learning math rather than not doing it." How so? Maths is more about "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" rather than about doing "arithmetic". And I guess, "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" is a very essential thing in human life. The entire human progress depended upon this skill and in fact, the very survival of humans depended upon this skill in the earlier world which was very hostile for humans. Now coming back to the issue of having to do long division in early childhood: yes, it may be the case that you don't need to do long division (later) in your life even for once. Long division may not be that important but the concept of division (and remainder) is very important in our life. Why is it important to learn division along many other complex (boring) topics in math? It's to hone your skills to "think creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract". Proofs in geometry and algebra help you more in this conquest. Sadly, most mainstream schools these days take out the creative challenges and motivational aspects from the math education and stuff it with mundane procedures to be followed like rituals. Sadly again, the much-tauted non-standard schools (like Waldorf, Sudbury etc) do away with the math almost entirely and which is very detrimental to academic progress of the kids. edit: corrected some grammatical errors.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
I agree with the thrust of your comment, I'm not arguing that maths isn't worthwhile, that it doesn't develop critical thinking skills, push the capabilities of the brain. Neither am I arguing that you should hold back on teaching younger children basic skills, even if it's outside their core competencies and outside their natural area of focus (all that changes quite fluidly when you're young). What I am trying to say is that at degree level, if you're mastering a field that has no intrinsic core mathematical content that you should be able to get certified in those abilities separate to maths ability. If an employer needs/desires a student to have mathematics abilities then they can request a certificate to demonstrate that. Suppose things worked the other way and science majors had to produce a paper on Chaucer and Puritanism in order to graduate? Whilst IMO that wouldn't be a wasted educational experience, would be mind expanding, it's pretty orthogonal to the skills one needs as, say, an astrogeologist. TL;DR more carrot, less stick.

by tmptmp 10y ago

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

I agree with the thrust of your comment, I'm not arguing that maths isn't worthwhile, that it doesn't develop critical thinking skills, push the capabilities of the brain. Neither am I arguing that you should hold back on teaching younger children basic skills, even if it's outside their core competencies and outside their natural area of focus (all that changes quite fluidly when you're young). What I am trying to say is that at degree level, if you're mastering a field that has no intrinsic core mathematical content that you should be able to get certified in those abilities separate to maths ability. If an employer needs/desires a student to have mathematics abilities then they can request a certificate to demonstrate that. Suppose things worked the other way and science majors had to produce a paper on Chaucer and Puritanism in order to graduate? Whilst IMO that wouldn't be a wasted educational experience, would be mind expanding, it's pretty orthogonal to the skills one needs as, say, an astrogeologist. TL;DR more carrot, less stick.