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I wish mathematics education would incorporate more history and philosophy. Personally, I was never great at math in school, less because of aptitude and more b
by keiferski 3y ago
I wish mathematics education would incorporate more history and philosophy. Personally, I was never great at math in school, less because of aptitude and more because I just found it boring and disconnected from the things I found interesting as a kid.
Years later, I’ve been slowly trying to “catch up” with my mathematical knowledge, and I find myself the most interested in topics that relate to the lives of mathematicians (and how events impacted their work) and to the philosophy of mathematics. I didn’t get any of this in school math classes, which focused purely on calculations and formulas.
I had the same experience with accounting, as well: boring in isolation but fascinating when connected to the history of double entry accounting in Italy, global trade from the 1500s onwards, and so on.
- eXpl0it3r 3y agoBut aren't you then teaching philosophy and history instead of mathematics? I mean it can be a great story hook to start off with a subject, but in the end isn't math about the calculations, formulas and proofs?
- layer8 3y agoThe history and philosophy is about giving context and meaning to the calculations, formulas and proofs.
- keiferski 3y agoI don't think that's true at all and would consider the history and deeper structures (philosophy) of something to be integral to that topic. In fact, I think the (very modern) rigid division of subjects into separate categories is part of the problem. Intellectuals from a few centuries ago would find it absurd that we consider the liberal arts and mathematics to be entirely opposite types of things.
- glitchc 3y agoMaybe your true love is history, not accounting or math.
- keiferski 3y agoWell, the goal here is to help people who don't like math learn to like it, or at least find it interesting enough to learn. I think that people get slotted into the likes math or doesn't like math category quite early in life, often because they don't have an on-ramp to finding it interesting. They then spend the rest of their education avoiding it because "they're not a math person," when in many cases they probably just needed a bit more context/history/philosophy/something interesting to get them on the right track.
- mettamage 3y agoSimilar in my case. I'm beginning to like math just now because after years of software engineering I'm seeing commonalities in math and software engineering. Math feels like "creating a software systems for numbers" where I also am the compiler at the same time. From an intellectual perspective (different than my engineering perspective), I'd label mathematics as quantitative philosophy. I like philosophy too.
- ducttapecrown 3y agoYou might be interested to hear of the Church-Turing thesis!
- pokerface_86 3y ago[dead]
- itronitron 3y agoYeah, the big lie of mathematics education is that everything currently known just appeared fully formed inside mathematicians heads because they are mathematicians gifted with mathematical thinking. The reality is that every advance in mathematics evolved after decades of people crunching numbers (typically for some engineering application) with an earlier form of math until they worked out the advance. I think students would have more confidence in their own ability if they understood that the mathematical innovators were equally stumped for long periods of time.
- andoando 3y agoThis applies to every field. Public education in general sucks. Cramming kids into a box 8 hours a day for 20 years forcing them to learn a bunch of topics in the most driest ways possible. The lack of freedom to pursue wny individual interests aside, major subjects like History, mathematics, biology are all reduced down to a bunch of facts you can fit in a textbook and test in a multiple choice format.