Yes, Please Study Math
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 7 months ago
Via reader Mack, this sad perspective.
Thousands of American high-school students on Tuesday will take the Advanced Placement calculus exam. Many are probably dreading it, perhaps seeing the test as an attempt to show off skills they will never use. What if they’re right?
I started thinking about this recently when my 14-year-old daughter was doing her pre-calculus homework. I couldn’t help wondering: Is this the best direction for children her age? Students need skills to thrive in the 21st-century workplace, and I’m not convinced calculus is high on that list.
The subtitle is “They’d be better off taking AP statistics or computer science.” James Markarian is apparently the chief technology officer for SnapLogic.
Uh huh. So James, have you ever taken a course in statistics? I have. What do you have to know to do statistics right?
At this rate America will trail the entire world in mathematics except Africa, leaving the engineering, fabricating, designing and difficult technological work to others. Here is a tip for you James. The corporations of the world can only take so many lawyers, HR overlords, managers and accountants.
Sooner or later, someone has to make a product. Please do emphasize math of all categories with your children – algebra, statistics, calculus, trigonometry, and numerical solutions techniques and higher math. I don’t expect James to listen to me, but perhaps you will.
On May 23, 2018 at 11:33 pm, I R A Darth Aggie said:
For statistics? higher level math. Calculus and more. When you abstract the equation to compute the mean, the summation becomes an integral, usually from -infinity to +infinity.
And that doesn’t even touch central limit theory. I’ve done baby statistics, and I work with statisticians. “Being a statistician means never having to say you’re certain.”
Odd folks…
On May 24, 2018 at 7:52 am, bob sykes said:
From my personal experience learning engineering, probability and statistics are some of the most intellectually challenging topics in mathematics. The subtleties are often daunting. And advanced calculus is at the very core.
I taught engineering for 37 years. A large percentage of the graduate students in all branches of engineering and the physical sciences is Chinese nationals. As MS and PhD candidates they do the research that our colleges and universities contract to do, and they create the ideas and technology the research produces. A good graduate student needs only a light touch of advising, and they often teach the adviser new things. The experience is a pleasure. Dumb graduate students are another matter.
And then they go home with their cutting edge skills and knowledge. And who actually makes all our high tech gear?
On May 24, 2018 at 8:08 am, Frank Clarke said:
This will horrify Herschel, I know, but I’ve often thought that mathematics is God’s first language.
On May 24, 2018 at 8:37 am, Fred said:
“Is this the best direction for children her age?”
This turd is a communist. How would a child be trained up in a meritocracy? Well, let’s ask God.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
That’s the way that HE SHOULD GO. Not the way you want them to go. Yes this is a moral question and answer but it also applies to a child’s proclivity. I’m all for a broadly educated and well rounded young adult. Sadly many waste time and harm relations with their children by ascribing attributes to them that they simply don’t have. He rightly questions his own daughters need for this, very likely because his gut tells him that it’s not her thing. Fine. But, because he is a communist and an atheist and has outsourced the raising of his child to the state he doesn’t understand what that means. Yes, some children should be studying calc and perhaps at even younger than 14 . The question every parent should ask is; “what is my child good at, and what seems to satisfy them.” This is the way that a child should go. In this way they will find what God has made them to do.
Ya know @Frank, all science used to be understood in a manner that solved the mystery of His creation. Sadly it has become a religion unto itself.
This will further horrify Herschel, I’ve often thought that the basketball player Micheal Jordan is perhaps the greatest mathematician of my lifetime. He simply doesn’t expresses it in a way that uses a chalk board.
On May 24, 2018 at 9:32 am, Herschel Smith said:
@Darth,
Will you have your steak with 1σ or 2σ, sir?
On May 24, 2018 at 4:32 pm, scott s. said:
I don’t know. Back in the 60’s we somehow managed without any AP classes. Maybe it was expected that all HS students had a certain level knowledge. As far as calculus, I don’t think taking calc in HS was common, at least in the Milwaukee area where I grew up. A change from that time, though is the need for discrete math and predicate calculus plus some number theory.
On May 25, 2018 at 11:32 am, Gryphon said:
Frank Clarke – Exactly So, and God’s Universal Laws are the Laws of Physics, the Violation of which have Automatic Consequences…
On May 25, 2018 at 9:32 pm, Ned said:
I know a local lawyer whose brother was salutatorian of his HS class. His brother had to take remedial English to get into college. Since 90 plus percent high school students are taking one or more AP classes, clearly something’s wrong here.
And like Amway, no matter how many people are “under” you, someone, somewhere, is going to have to be selling some soap.
On May 26, 2018 at 10:43 am, Bob Kerstetter said:
Calculus is gymnastics for the brain. Anyone who does not know it would benefit to learn it, even a small piece of it.