Why should I bother with math...

[zetman]

I had a student tell me that he didn't need Math because he was going make video games for a living. Ignoring the fact that he most certainly thought making games was similar to playing them, I pointed out that computers only understand Math and yes, console are computers. He protested, eventually yelling "Computers don't only understand Math!" and ran out of the building.

[Delever]

Ok, in any subject, focus should not be on memorization, except when it is required by subject.

History: requires heavy amounts of memorization of exact dates. Events themselves and order of them is all right, but focusing on exact months and days..? Poor kids. And history is weird... it... grows every day.

Math: learning how to solve problems is all right, knowing what cos and sin actually is - allright, but requiring to memorize a table of sin and cos values? Actually, most don't even know what sin and cos is after that.

I am mostly arguing for more focus on using information.

Maybe we should simply start worshiping google. Nah.. damn, I seem to be loosing argument here. Maybe because I like to know purpose at all times, and memorizing without understanding why seems pointless.

[MasterNetra]

Ok Swoll said it better than me

Its because swoll is just better then everyone hands down!

[swoll1980]

mathematics has VERY little to remember.

Except tons of equations. Lets not forget about those.

[monsterstack]

arithmetic ~= spelling
algebra/calculus ~= writing sentences
maths ~= stories/poems/songs

if english were taught like maths there would be no writers. they don't really teach maths at school.

check out some maths books in pop science bit of your local book shop, eg Dr Riemann's Zeros, The Code Book, Godel Escher Bach.

computers just make whole new areas of maths explorable, as did abacuses, log tables, slide rules, and electronic calculators.

What a great way of looking at it. I had to re-learn a bunch of old mathematics for my work, after seven years of non-practice, and this is exactly the way I went about doing it. Learn the syntax, the grammar, the punctuation; become adept at moving the numbers around. The vocabulary invariably takes care of itself.

[Giant Speck]

I don't think it's safe to rely on computers rather than learning something.

[zetman]

Except tons of equations. Lets not forget about those.

Excluding DiffEq, if you're memorizing more than a dozen or so equations, you're doing it wrong and/or you have a bad teacher.

[stwschool]

History is that way at schools because most kids just can't cope past that level. Don't get me wrong, you get a few, but most really can't do it. I hated history at school, but at uni it became much more interesting (my degree contained bits of history) as we got to look at not just what happened but why, the contexts in which events took place. At that point, the things I learned in school became useful, as a backdrop to reference this stuff against, so I knew that while x was happening because of y, z was occurring somewhere else, which gave rise to questions about how they might be related, and perhaps part of an overall movement.

The point is, as much as we may dislike that stuff and view it as boring, it's essential. Additionally, school is important and MUST have some stuff we don't like, which we may find boring. It teaches us to persevere and take responsibility, as in real life we will all have to do something we don't like at some point.

Finally, remember that at school your teacher has to teach the whole class, not just you. I accept that this is not ideal, and I see this in the progress I can make with a student during a one-to-one tutorial session, but while it's not perfect it's the best we have at present (though I would certainly like to see investment in reducing class sizes, my best performing classes have always been the smallest ones, and that's no co-incidence).

[swoll1980]

Excluding DiffEq, if you're memorizing more than a dozen or so equations, you're doing it wrong and/or you have a bad teacher.

That's pretty funny. Just in geometry alone their are more than a dozen that I have to remember. I'm thinking more like 50 that I have to have remembered.

add: I'll scan my need to know sheets up for you.

[starcannon]

Why should I bother with math, when I can make computer do it?

If there is no common practical situation where memorized stuff is required, there should be no need to memorize it! There is a lot of stuff the world nowadays, and ability to a) FIND information b) USE that information is much more important than MEMORIZING it. Memorization can be part of learning how to find information faster, but not the main focus of learning.

Thoughts?

If your math skills are limited to rote memorization, then I can see your point to a certain degree. If however you understand the math, then you have an incredible resource in your mental arsenal. Math is in my opinion not so much about the numbers, as it is about learning a very good way of thinking about things; problem solving is a vital skill that math can hone to a fine edge. Anyway, yeah a computer can do your math for you, but a computer can not do your everyday life problem solving for you... at least not just yet; my .02, learn the math, understand it, own it.

P.S. yes, there are a lot of equations/formulas to memorize; we memorize those because they are useful. Why reinvent the wheel every time you need to use the quadratic equation? But can you understand and proof the formulas/equations that you have memorized? If so, then the goal of being a better thinker is being achieved; if the proofs make no sense, and all your doing is plug n' chug, then theres a good chance its time to go back over the material that didn't really stick the first time around.