4 ms·

The analogy between band and math is problematic. Band has various payoffs that math doesn't: getting attention from peers, the inherent joy in playing music, p

The analogy between band and math is problematic. Band has various payoffs that math doesn't: getting attention from peers, the inherent joy in playing music, peer bonding via football games, band trips and whatnot. (Not that math doesn't have "inherent joy" -- it just seems more solitary, more cerebral, and less socially glorified than music.) There's no doubt that our math education destroys curiousity, and if we could teach math in a non-utilitarian way, as a sort of artistic endeavor, that would be amazing, but... is it even possible? Has it ever been tried? Whenever I think about this, I think about season 4 of The Wire.

m_for_monkey 15y ago
Really utilitarian math education would be good. The problem is that it's not even that. It's just test-oriented and boring. See this twelve minute video: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_m...
clarebear 15y ago
I always thought that band was "cooler" than math because some people make out on band buses during trips. I've never seen anyone make out on a math trip.
slindsey 15y ago
I always go to Vi Hart (http://vihart.com/doodling/ http://vihart.com/doodling/) when thinking about how we should teach math.
screwt 15y ago
Re "the inherent joy in playing music" - isn't that the whole point of the article? When it's not reduced to mindless rote learning, there can be an inherent joy in doing math.
xyzzyz 15y ago
I don't think that math is fundamentally different than band with regard to things you mentioned. Best mathematicians certainly get lots of attention from peer mathematicians. The equivalent of band trips are summer schools, where also lots of peer bonding happen. Inherent joy? Why, that's the whole point of doing math for me.
mechanical_fish 15y ago
Music can be exactly as solitary and cerebral as math. That aspect of music doesn't get the same press, is all. If you play three chords on a tall stage people know you're in a band; if you sit in your home working out a Bach fugue nobody needs to know. I have a slightly silly book about birdwatching. It has a section which talks about birding competitions - "Big Days", they call them - and the final two sentences stick in my head, always: Don't go away from this thinking that birding is an endless succession of fabbydoo games or fun, fun, fun without a moment's rest. Quite the opposite. Birding is mostly about looking at birds. It is no use to pretend otherwise. A useful motto. Birding is very popular, of course, even in the go-go all-action United States. Other popular activities include knitting, gardening, hiking, sudoku, crosswords, reading, fantasy football, Angry Birds, writing comments on message boards, and, ahem, hacking. All of them solitary, cerebral, and socially unglorified. (Though I guess fantasy football is arguable: You can probably spend an entire evening over beer talking with your friends about the performance of their fantasy football teams. For all I know it's even popular in high school. I knew several people in high school who were reliable authorities on every active major-league baseball player...) People have a warped view of other people's lives in general, and particularly the lives of high school students. I suspect that high school kids enjoy quiet, solitary activities as much as anyone else: In other words, more than you notice. The quiet hobbies are just unobtrusive, so they don't get a lot of press and they don't show up in movies or TV except around the edges. Speaking for myself, I think I stayed away from band in school because it was full of people and attention. I gravitated toward the quiet sources of pleasure and meaning. Of course, I was blessed with a math club mentor who knew what "recreational mathematics" was...
- nickpinkston 15y ago
  I think matrix math could actually be presented in a Sudoku-like format - for a Gaussian Elimination or some such - and that'd actually be fun for the Sudoku crowd to play. It's really pretty similar skills involved. Sudoku is probably just a special case matrix problem...
ckpwong 15y ago
I beg to differ on your point of math being inherently non-social. In high school, I actively participated--and later led--my school's math league team. Every Friday, we were either home or away for a match with another school. My school wasn't particularly known as a math hothouse (unlike other schools with gifted programs), but we managed to get pretty far in the playoffs for the years I was there, finishing 3rd in the district once even. Back then, I also actively participated in math and science contests, which eventually led me to be invited to a week-long math seminar. During that week, we had daily team competitions and other activities that were fun, social, and mind boggling at the same time. And it doesn't hurt on that one faithful June morning too many years ago, I also met the person whom eventually became my husband. wink

m_for_monkey 15y ago

Really utilitarian math education would be good. The problem is that it's not even that. It's just test-oriented and boring. See this twelve minute video: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_m...

clarebear 15y ago

I always thought that band was "cooler" than math because some people make out on band buses during trips. I've never seen anyone make out on a math trip.

slindsey 15y ago

I always go to Vi Hart (http://vihart.com/doodling/ http://vihart.com/doodling/) when thinking about how we should teach math.

screwt 15y ago

Re "the inherent joy in playing music" - isn't that the whole point of the article? When it's not reduced to mindless rote learning, there can be an inherent joy in doing math.

xyzzyz 15y ago

I don't think that math is fundamentally different than band with regard to things you mentioned. Best mathematicians certainly get lots of attention from peer mathematicians. The equivalent of band trips are summer schools, where also lots of peer bonding happen. Inherent joy? Why, that's the whole point of doing math for me.

mechanical_fish 15y ago

Music can be exactly as solitary and cerebral as math. That aspect of music doesn't get the same press, is all. If you play three chords on a tall stage people know you're in a band; if you sit in your home working out a Bach fugue nobody needs to know. I have a slightly silly book about birdwatching. It has a section which talks about birding competitions - "Big Days", they call them - and the final two sentences stick in my head, always: Don't go away from this thinking that birding is an endless succession of fabbydoo games or fun, fun, fun without a moment's rest. Quite the opposite. Birding is mostly about looking at birds. It is no use to pretend otherwise. A useful motto. Birding is very popular, of course, even in the go-go all-action United States. Other popular activities include knitting, gardening, hiking, sudoku, crosswords, reading, fantasy football, Angry Birds, writing comments on message boards, and, ahem, hacking. All of them solitary, cerebral, and socially unglorified. (Though I guess fantasy football is arguable: You can probably spend an entire evening over beer talking with your friends about the performance of their fantasy football teams. For all I know it's even popular in high school. I knew several people in high school who were reliable authorities on every active major-league baseball player...) People have a warped view of other people's lives in general, and particularly the lives of high school students. I suspect that high school kids enjoy quiet, solitary activities as much as anyone else: In other words, more than you notice. The quiet hobbies are just unobtrusive, so they don't get a lot of press and they don't show up in movies or TV except around the edges. Speaking for myself, I think I stayed away from band in school because it was full of people and attention. I gravitated toward the quiet sources of pleasure and meaning. Of course, I was blessed with a math club mentor who knew what "recreational mathematics" was...

nickpinkston 15y ago
I think matrix math could actually be presented in a Sudoku-like format - for a Gaussian Elimination or some such - and that'd actually be fun for the Sudoku crowd to play. It's really pretty similar skills involved. Sudoku is probably just a special case matrix problem...

ckpwong 15y ago

I beg to differ on your point of math being inherently non-social. In high school, I actively participated--and later led--my school's math league team. Every Friday, we were either home or away for a match with another school. My school wasn't particularly known as a math hothouse (unlike other schools with gifted programs), but we managed to get pretty far in the playoffs for the years I was there, finishing 3rd in the district once even. Back then, I also actively participated in math and science contests, which eventually led me to be invited to a week-long math seminar. During that week, we had daily team competitions and other activities that were fun, social, and mind boggling at the same time. And it doesn't hurt on that one faithful June morning too many years ago, I also met the person whom eventually became my husband. wink