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Exactly. Why is it important whether boys or girls or Chinese or gay people are better at maths? Why are scarce research funds going into this? Questions I wou
by tungstenfurnace 18y ago
Exactly. Why is it important whether boys or girls or Chinese or gay people are better at maths? Why are scarce research funds going into this?
Questions I would be more interesting in: how can elementary maths be made more interesting? And how can we save children who aren't interested in maths from having it forced upon them?
- jrockway 18y agoI would rather find the answer to the question, "How can we make it more interesting for them." Regardless of whether or not mathematics interests you, it's a vital skill like reading. I don't really like "reading"* per se, but I still need to do it anyway. * s/reading/analysis of fiction/
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- tungstenfurnace 18y agoIf a skill is truly vital then I will _want_ to learn it, sooner or later, whatever my present interests are. So there's no need for 'needs' to overrule 'wants'. (And in particular no need for thousands of people to be paid to deem what children's needs supposedly are.) For example, if I'm interested in a sport then eventually I'll want to learn elementary arithmetic to keep track of scores and the league tables. If my favourite thing is fantasy computer games I'll eventually want to read the names of other characters, etc. The new knowledge in both cases will enhance my love of the activity and I will not regard it as a sacrifice to learn it.