4 ms·

Down with Algebra II

4 points by antman 8y ago

anonytrary 8y ago
> coders of the future shouldn’t have to master abstract math that they’ll never need This is awful. Humans should be moving rapidly towards mathematical literacy, not away from it. If you only need calculus for .001% of your job, that doesn't mean you only have to learn .001% of calculus. No one is paying you to use calculus everyday. They're paying you to know when calculus needs to be used and how to apply it, the one day they actually need it.
jstewartmobile 8y ago
If our educational complexes can't successfully hammer Algebra II into someone's head, why does this Wheeler fellow think they'd be any more successful hammering something else into it? Compared to the complexity of just about anything that is real, Algebra II is like learning to crawl or use silverware. Odds are, the educational system is failing just as badly on every other subject. It's just harder to screw up the metric on something as objective as mathematics.
southern_cross 8y ago
Throughout my school career I was a top student in math, generally enjoying it and even sometimes just doing math for fun of it. (I still do this on occasion.) But probably the single most useful math class I ever took was "Practical Math" in the 8th grade, which I just did on a lark. All of my other math courses were of the college-bound and later engineering varieties. But frankly I'm appalled at the amount of math many college majors still require today. I eventually grew quite tired of it myself, once I (as a student already working in my chosen profession) realized that most of it was just a waste of my time, which could be better spent elsewhere. For example, I see no sane reason why someone who has spent their entire life dreaming of becoming a doctor or whatever, and who is otherwise generally well-suited for that profession, hits an impenetrable barrier at calculus or some such and so has to give up their dreams. I once asked a medical instructor some years back how much calculus he and his students (future doctors) actually used, both in school and afterwards, and his response was that they generally didn't use much more than basic algebra. Today I'd expect that they just put a few numbers into a calculator or computer, press a button and they're done.

4 points by antman 8y ago

> coders of the future shouldn’t have to master abstract math that they’ll never need This is awful. Humans should be moving rapidly towards mathematical literacy, not away from it. If you only need calculus for .001% of your job, that doesn't mean you only have to learn .001% of calculus. No one is paying you to use calculus everyday. They're paying you to know when calculus needs to be used and how to apply it, the one day they actually need it.

jstewartmobile 8y ago

If our educational complexes can't successfully hammer Algebra II into someone's head, why does this Wheeler fellow think they'd be any more successful hammering something else into it? Compared to the complexity of just about anything that is real, Algebra II is like learning to crawl or use silverware. Odds are, the educational system is failing just as badly on every other subject. It's just harder to screw up the metric on something as objective as mathematics.

southern_cross 8y ago

Throughout my school career I was a top student in math, generally enjoying it and even sometimes just doing math for fun of it. (I still do this on occasion.) But probably the single most useful math class I ever took was "Practical Math" in the 8th grade, which I just did on a lark. All of my other math courses were of the college-bound and later engineering varieties. But frankly I'm appalled at the amount of math many college majors still require today. I eventually grew quite tired of it myself, once I (as a student already working in my chosen profession) realized that most of it was just a waste of my time, which could be better spent elsewhere. For example, I see no sane reason why someone who has spent their entire life dreaming of becoming a doctor or whatever, and who is otherwise generally well-suited for that profession, hits an impenetrable barrier at calculus or some such and so has to give up their dreams. I once asked a medical instructor some years back how much calculus he and his students (future doctors) actually used, both in school and afterwards, and his response was that they generally didn't use much more than basic algebra. Today I'd expect that they just put a few numbers into a calculator or computer, press a button and they're done.