Political Science Prof Asks: Is Algebra Necessary?

Capt.Albatross writes "Andrew Hacker, a professor of Political Science at the City University of New York and author of Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It, attempts to answer this question in the negative in today's New York Times Sunday Review. His primary claim is that mathematics requirements are prematurely and unreasonably limiting the level of education available to otherwise capable students ."

Comments

yes

[yagu]

Yes!

substitute in his thesis,

Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white.

and substitute to:

History is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white.

and you have a perfect argument for me and the school system not requiring History.

Even better,

$yourWorstSubject is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white.

and we've eliminated the need for any required subjects.

"I am not good at", or "I don't want to" are not good arguments for not requiring learnin'.

(-e**(i*pi) st post)

Re:yes

[Missing.Matter]

Mathematics is a tool, but it's not a tool everyone uses to its fullest extent. In my high school, we teach all the way up to Calculus 2, and what percentage of the population actually uses that kind of mathematics? My Uncle, and cousins run a very successful business with revenue in the hundreds of millions of dollars. My cousin is dyslexic and has terrible trouble reading and doing mathematics, but he's sitting pretty on a pile of cash and he's great at his job. Would he be better at his job if he knew how to integrate? Maybe.... but it's not necessary for him, which is what the article is asking.

So by counterexample it's apparent not all mathematics is necessary for everyone... so I think these blanket answers I'm seeing floated around here by people who probably rely on mathematics daily for their jobs is a little short sighted.

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Mathematics is the language used to describe how the world around you works. At the very least you should understand the concepts of exponential growth and decay (which I think is algebra 2). Most people are going to have credit cards, 401ks, mortgages, car loans, etc. Knowing how these things work is the first step to financial success. I went through differential equations in college and honestly I can't recite off-hand the formulas for those things but I do understand how it works and could look up and calculate loan totals payoffs, monthly payments, etc.

Re:yes

[larry bagina]

All mathematics? No. But math (including algebra) isn't just making sure you give the correct change in your menial fast-food cashier job, it's problem solving. And that doesn't exist (certainly not to the same degree) in other subjects.

Re:yes

[Yvanhoe]

Anyone not understanding what an exponential is does not have a good enough understanding of demographics to make a fully informed decision about making babies and should not be authorized to take a loan.

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

How many people use a substantial fraction of their high school education in their working life?

The purpose of a high school education is to enable a person to be able to be able to think and be able to have an intelligent conversation. It is not specialization nor is it designed to train someone how to perform a specific job. Math, arts, science, history, music, language, writing, civics, etc., all play a part. A person with a well rounded education is a person who can make useful judgements as a citizen.

High school doesn't prepare people to be salesmen, barbers, engineers, doctors, receptionists, or mechanics. Each of those fields will have specific training. High school only makes it possible that once you do enter one of those fields that you can do so as an intelligent citizen.

Is this worth it? Some developed societies separate their education systems half-way through high school into a vocational and college prep line because they want to use high school to prepare their citizens for a job. They choose specialization over breadth. It has been argued that this stifles creativity. Math and science scores are nice on paper to show off your education system, but perhaps the true measure is how creative your students are. Everyone is going to specialize after leaving high school, but the well rounded students who might be a step behind on specialization will be two steps ahead with creativity.

Re:yes

[kubernet3s]

Really now. This presupposes that the point of education is to provide students with things they will "use." If this were the case, why not just send students to trade school? No one really "needs" to learn how to read anything more advanced than a children's book, especially if they're a carpenter or plumber. You don't need to know history, you don't need to know anything, really, except what your job is. Except the point of creating an educated populace isn't to provide students with tools they will always use every day, but to extend their perception of the world in a way which allows them to engage in it effectively. A poor understanding of science is what makes people object to the "theory" of evolution, a poor understanding of math is why phony quantum mechanics treatises fly off the shelf, and a poor understanding of history makes people believe that the Northern US didn't practice slavery, that the declaration of independence was the founding document of our country, and that cavemen rode on dinosaurs.

No, the point of educating people is not so that, one day, they will go "aha!" and use their knowledge of geometric series or the battle of Gettysburg to found a company and make a million dollars, but to ensure that the constituents of the very influential body politic (in a democratic society) are capable of interacting effectively with their world. While you will never be asked to solve for X in your daily life, you will likely be asked to apply similar concepts, and you will definitely be asked to use your knowledge of, for example, plotting of functions, to understand things like graphs which are presented to the public by the media in ways which are either unintuitive or outright deceptive.

The same arguments in the TFA could easily have been applied, in an earlier time, to literacy: there are historically plenty of people who lived long, happy lives who never knew how to read. However, it is essential in today's society, because our commitment to a literate society has gone hand in hand with out commitment to an advanced society capable of effective and efficient engagement and contribution to the experience and knowledge of our collective self. Mathematical literacy, of an increasingly advanced degree, is a similar requisite in the modern society, where the sheer amount of information available grows larger and more formidable every day. In such a time, it is the duty of us as a community to ensure all persons are capable of effectively interacting with and utilizing this information. To do less, simply because the individuals prove recalcitrant, or might find ways to ignore our information rich society, is to condemn ourselves to mean regions of social existence, consciousness, and ultimately human experience.

Re:yes

[microbox]

Anyone not understanding what an exponential

Anyone not understanding what an exponential is should NOT be making policy decisions at all. Period.

A very sad fact.

Re:yes

[countach74]

Logic/critical thinking very much tie in to Algebra and vice versa. It seems strange to me to present one without the other. Yet it seems logic/critical thinking classes are very rare in contrast to Algebra.

Re:yes

[countach74]

Indeed. Unfortunately, power hungry people who are actually not good at real world things jump into politics instead. In other words, we end up with a bunch of retarded ass holes running our nation. What a bunch of fuckers.

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw that, it doesn't matter what algebra is good for.
My 5th grade math teacher said this, math helps change the way you think. It doesn't seem like much, but you'll need that way of thinking in the future. And she was right.
Advanced math, physics, chemistry, programming, anything that required even a bit of abstract thinking was easier because of those "useless" algebra classes.

Are they perhaps trying to kill institutionalized education? If so, they're definitely on the right path.

Re:yes

[nospam007]

" Most people are going to have credit cards, 401ks, mortgages, car loans, etc. Knowing how these things work is the first step to financial success."

Not to burst your bubble but this guy teaches future politicians and as you know they have no idea that they have to pay back any loans nor such things as 'interest' and other things.
If you have to promise the moon to people to keep your job, knowing that you can't possibly pay for it is just a hindrance.

Re:yes

[zippthorne]

Are they perhaps trying to kill institutionalized education? If so, they're definitely on the right path.

I don't think they want to kill the institutionalized part...

Mathematics is a tool

[GodGell]

NO.

It's the unintuitive ways in which it's taught (which in turn causes the societal alienation of the subject) that is the problem, not the fact that it's a requirement.

Mathematics is nothing less than the upmost tool of rationality. Lose it, and all progress decays.

That's A Convenient Theory

[Revotron]

I'm pretty sure if I wrote that paper, the resulting Slashdot headline would be "Engineer Asks: Is Political Science Necessary?"

This guy is an idiot

[zero.kalvin]

The point is not learning how to do complex calculation, the point is by learning these mathematical subjects you develop certain skills in logic, problem solving , and in critical thinking. It goes beyond mathematics and to how to be a rational thinker ( and yes I am exaggerating a bit ).

The real question is:

[EnglishTim]

... is High School necessary?

Dumbing down

[Taco Cowboy]

The way I see it the ultimate aim of the author of TFA is to dumb down the future generations

The dumber future generations get the easier they can be manipulated to do the dirty things that the elites themselves do not want to do
 

Re:Political Science Professor

[PyroMosh]

No, political science isn't about controlling people any more than zoology is about controlling animal populations.

It's a study. It's no more unified than politics is, because that's what political science is: the study of politics, government, and state.

Also, I'm sure some fringe school somewhere does what you say, but the UK has a standardized uniform grading system that is widely used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_grading_in_the_United_Kingdom

I think this guy's idea is dumb too. But your assertions don't seem grounded in reality.

Re:Yes, but when does it do so efficiently?

[ShakaUVM]

>the main problem in early education is that math, with its many abstractions of notation and convention, is brought in far too early

This is a myth from our child development overlords.

My wife, who grew up in Hong Kong, was learning algebra in elementary school. Kids are capable of learning algebra much younger than it's taught here in America. When she immigrated, she literally didn't learn any new math for four years. It's not a mistake we're ranked so poorly in the world math standings.

Re:Calculus and Shakespeare

[JakartaDean]

If you want to study engineering, that is where you should be able to concentrate.

I did that, 25 years ago. Recently I returned to my alma mater (UWO in Canada, if anyone cares) and 6 of us were invited by the fairly new Dean to discuss what they should be doing to improve the curriculum. While lab methods had changed a lot in 25 years, most of the core curriculum hadn't -- which is probably the right thing. Anyway, when he asked what we didn't get at university, but should have, we came up with two: project management and English.

Project management is an obvious skill for an engineer, and should have always been there. When he was surprised that we mentioned English (specifically a writing course) we all said that a lot of our work since graduation has included writing reports, and learning how to write well early on would have been a great advantage. I have forgotten an awful lot of math in 25 years, and learned a lot of English writing.

By all means learn the math and physics. I think you cannot possibly do anything worthwhile in economics or finance without calculus, and even political scientists must need to know about trends and statistics, both of which are built at least partially on calculus. But to do only, e.g., calculus, leaves one poorly equipped for life.