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Is Math Worth the Sacrifice

Since remote times, people have complained for the need of learning math. I'll never need to use it in the concrete world. My desire is to be a fireman or a cowboy or a news reader and they don't need to know how to do math. Today, with the existence of pocket calculators and even calculators on the cell phones which are skillfully operated by young children, we really have to ask ourselves a question. Why should someone put effort in the formulas and memorize the times tables they learn in class Is there any point to the effort involved in memorization of formulas and procedures when you only need to punch in a symbol to receive a digital answer to the math question?

The answer to this question has some depth, which goes a bit further the evident. It is obvious that no one enjoys memorizing just for the sake of memorizing; nevertheless, the basics is what is usually better learned initially. It is a possibility that showing math in a different way, though, could radically enhance the comprehension of why we study math.

The main reason why math studies are helpful is that they force them to read and understand the question or problem. The student learns to organize their thinking in order to understand the true dimensions of the problem. The formulas by themselves won’t help to comprehend how to apply a formula. In order to master that ability, the students need to train their brains in order to recognize patterns and elements that will allow them to associate knowledge and to gain understanding. To be able to lay out the parameters of the math problem will help a student learn the same procedure for other fields of study as well.

In addition to learning how to organize your thinking due to math, you will also be forced to come to understand the meaning of the formulas, in terms of knowing how to apply them. In short, unless you really understand something about how math works, you won't have any idea how to enter numbers into a computer. In fact, the actual calculation performed with the aid of an electronic device can be simply of no use if we don’t know how to interpret it, or how to apply it. And this has to do not only to relatively meaningless calculations but to calculations that have consequences in our lives. For instance, we can use a calculator to compute a mortgage payment based on the current interest rate and term of the loan, but the result canl be meaningless if we don’t understand the mechanics of the calculation.

This state of affairs in American education is troublesome at best. Even the tests which are provided with the purpose of monitoring the progress of students show a continual decline in the understanding of math. Criticism of teachers for 'teaching to the test' wide and strong, but specifically for math, it is hard to see how logic and inductive reasoning which are needed to solve most real life math problems can be considered teaching to the test.

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Robert is an active member of StatisticsBrain, a tutoring company that offers help with statistics homework.

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