[saraid216]

You're taking away the wrong thing from the grandparent post.

If you teach math as a prerequisite for something else, you're naturally going to be undervaluing it. Math should be taught for the sake of learning math, not because it's the gateway to something else. It is, yes, but that's not the point.

[birdsareweird]

You know the problem with that sentiment? Most people do not find abstract patterns and rote symbolic manipulation to be interesting. They simply don't, and if you teach math class mistakenly assuming they do, 90% tunes out.

If you can show them how those abstract patterns reflect things in nature, and how those symbolic manipulations represent ideas and algorithms and systems, and can explain complicated things, that's something else.

e.g. You don't need computer graphics to teach linear algebra, but how many people who 'know' matrix algebra know that the columns of a matrix are the basis vectors for the principal axes, and that matrix multiplication is the (affine) transform tool from photoshop?

I would also suggest that if you want to get kids interested in trigonometry and you fail to mention that every single thing in a 3D video game is made out of triangles, you are a bad teacher and you should feel bad.

[Ntrails]

Rote symbolic manipulation is not inherent to solving the mathematics described in the paper. That's part of the point.

I'd argue that the endless swarms of people playing bejeweled variants suggests pattern analysis is extremely popular.

Mathematics is currently taught with the excuse "you'll need this later, it's useful - honest". If you're advocating an additional helping of that, why is THIS future possible application relevant in a way that the others aren't?

[saraid216]

I'm not interested in teaching math to people who don't want to learn math, honestly. It baffles me why so many people think that if someone is uninterested in math, they must be tricked into being good at it anyways.

Teaching shouldn't be so dishonest.

[birdsareweird]

Why do you think creating interest from real life is going to make them not "want to learn math"? That makes no sense.

Teaching is all about benevolent dishonesty. The first thing a teacher does is dumb themselves down to their students' level.

[saraid216]

> Why do you think creating interest from real life is going to make them not "want to learn math"? That makes no sense.

I don't. I think it's entirely possible to cram knowledge into people's minds unwillingly.

But you're making an unnecessary assumption: that you have to teach everyone math. Why is that?

[birdsareweird]

Why do we teach everyone history? Because it's valuable to know where we came from, and to realize that whatever's going on today, it's probably happened before.

Why do we teach everyone math? Because it creates quantitative literacy, because it helps people deal with systems and complexity, to break down problems logically, and to not let biases get in the way of the truth. Or at least that's what I wish it would be focused on, instead of producing droids who know how to execute symbolic algorithms.

[saraid216]

> Because it creates quantitative literacy, because it helps people deal with systems and complexity, to break down problems logically, and to not let biases get in the way of the truth.

None of these things are math. These things can take advantage of math, yes, but they have as much to do with math as figuring out how to use Microsoft Word does.

> Or at least that's what I wish it would be focused on, instead of producing droids who know how to execute symbolic algorithms.

You want to know how to get them to focus on it? Ask them to.

Stop asking people to teach math. Ask them to teach quantitative literacy. Recognize that this isn't necessarily math. Ask them to teach systems theory and complexity theory. Recognize that math is not the best vehicle for understanding those things, especially for grade schoolers. Ask them to teach logic. Recognize that set theory isn't covered in grade school at the moment, and that learning logic isn't going to happen through math. Ask them to teach ways of discerning truth despite bias. That means covering the scientific method, covering statistics, covering research strategies, covering fact-checking.

Be. Honest. With. Your. Goals.

Your goal isn't "Students should know how to derive polynomial expressions." You've stated your goals. Recognize them for what they are. Stop asking math teachers to carry all that weight for you. Stop hoping that students will magically gain "quantitative literacy" from geometry proofs about angles.

You get "droids" because you've asked for "droids".