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I was a math / physics major in college. Two useless subjects. ;-) But I still love both of them, and use them in my job. Any work site with enough people will
by analog31 4y ago
I was a math / physics major in college. Two useless subjects. ;-) But I still love both of them, and use them in my job. Any work site with enough people will hand all of the math related work to the "math person," and that person will be forgiven of other kinds of drudgery. It's a fair trade.
Still, that's survivor bias, and I'd be the first person to support reforming math education. I would divide K-12 math into 4 quadrants:
1. Arithmetic, which is the manipulation of symbols, up through algebra and calculus.
2. Computation, which is the use of computers to solve problems.
3. Dealing with data.
4. Theory, which includes things like sets, proofs, and so forth.
If any 1 of those 4 things makes math come alive for a larger number of students, it's preferable to focusing exclusively on arithmetic. (Theory is gone, my kids did virtually no proofs in school, and never learned about sets).
Note that I didn't mention statistics. Memorizing statistical formulas made sense when computation was expensive, but I think learning about data by playing with random numbers would make a lot more sense, would reinforce computation, and lead to students being able to try things on their own. To this day, despite taking a year of statistics and doing a PhD in physics, I still don't trust myself with statistical formulas unless I check if they make sense by throwing random data sets through them.
- WheelsAtLarge 4y ago"Memorizing statistical formulas made sense when computation was expensive" Statistics is way more than formulas. It's easy enough to learn and, if you understand it, so applicable to one's life that it should be one of the principle courses in school. Here are some basic ideas where it will help. - helps you understand why the most dangerous part of any flight is the time you spend in a car not the plane. - why it's useless to try to break even at a gambling establishment - why the best way to win at the lottery is to never buy a ticket - why birth control is good at its function but it's not absolutely secure I can go on for hours. Statistics needs to be part of any educational reform. It's so useful
- analog31 4y agoI'm in agreement about those examples, and maybe we agree overall to the extent that for me, "way more than formulas" includes working directly with data. I think the ability to interrogate data directly adds to the ability to think quantitatively. It was just not practical to do when I was in school. And the blizzard of formulas is an obstacle to learning for most students.
- guythedudebro 4y ago> - why birth control is good at its function but it's not absolutely secure - why the pullout method properly performed is not really less secure than other popular options
- omginternets 4y agoWell sure, if you just ignore the fact that properly performing the method is hard to do ...
- rawgabbit 4y agoHmmm. Statistics is about dealing with data. I don't understand how you came to the conclusion it is not. The origin of statistics is the question of how you can argue that the entire population has X property, when you can only sample a portion of the population.