I meant this has been my history in math classes. I spent way too much time plugging in players’ attributes to someone else’s formula.

When I tried to try to have classes where students produced those formulas (in a different context), every year I had to fight the same battles against parents, students, administrators and at time other professional teachers.

“If that’s the value proposition for a math education, why would anybody bother?”

That’s pretty much why I left.

The advice I give to virtually everyone I meet who is thinking about the future is: Before you decide there is something you want to do or become, talk to someone who has done it.

My final semester of undergraduate studies in engineering, we had a series of engineers from industry come in and discuss what they actually did. OMG! Where were they during my first semester when I really needed this kind of insight? Even in high school, I believe it would be beneficial for actual doctors, engineers, etc. to come in and talk not to seniors, but to freshmen to give them some insight as to what will be required of them four years hence. It is all well and good to try to make individual classes interesting, but students should keep their eye on the goal.

Conversely, it would be almost equally good to have some minimum wage graduates come in and cite the consequences of not preparing for life after graduation.

That is a good representation of the lessons I am trying to build. Learning something when you need it is the key to keeping students interested. Learning math is about so much more than using the math in a job, although for artists and engineers and medics and scientists and salespeople and managers and entrepreneurs…. Well, anyway, it is about opening up the student to possibilities. Students, particularly 7-11, even some 12 graders, don’t know how much is out there that they don’t know. If we can learn to facilitate “wondering” and curiosity and the “need to learn”, we have affected the way that child looks at life, whether they become a mathematician or not. Under your other assumptions, since I was not very good at sports, I shouldn’t have been required to play softball or volleyball or try archery or golf (all painfully required of me in my PE classes thru my senior year). However, I learned a respect for those things that has stayed with me. Perhaps we just want access to these things so that these kids we teach will have a chance at something they might not otherwise ever know existed! (And as an adult, I returned to those things: softball, volleyball…. I’m still not very good, but I know how to play, and how to teach others to play. And I would not have had those joys, without those terribly awkward years in PE! High school can be a taste of a university education (at least in the broadness of disciplines taught), as long as we realize our students are learning about the disciplines, not just the actions taken within the disciplines.

Why can’t we just teach everyone math through fractions and let those who are interested go further instead of trying to find some way to make everyone interested in higher math?

The fraction standards in the CCSS max out at fifth grade. If you had given me the option to opt out of subjects at age ten, I would have opted out of everything except PE and video games.

That seems like the abdication of an adult’s responsibility to me.

Why can’t we just teach everyone math through fractions and let those who are interested go further instead of trying to find some way to make everyone interested in higher math? They aren’t, and experience has shown that they will not do well in a subject they don’t like.

I would do horribly in geology. It is not that I couldn’t understand the material – I just don’t care much about it. I am glad there are geologists and mathematicians. I just don’t want to be one. Once again, the problem is that there is no practical method of gaining higher education after one starts working unless you are in just the right circumstances in just the right place. If I need to learn non-linear partial differential equations, there should be a way for me to without having to change jobs and addresses to get near a university that has a nighttime extension program.

Stop trying to teach everyone what only 1% of the people will need, and focus on changing the system so people can learn what they need when their situation dictates they need it.

You’re saying you can’t make sports engaging in math class. That’s wrong.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying there is as much variation within sports application problems as there are between application problems and non-application problems.

Ask me to pick a random sports application lesson and use it in a random class and I honestly would not be able to predict if it would interest students or not.

My uncertainty isn’t just on account of all the students who don’t find sports interesting. (Though that’s important.) It’s because some of those tasks will involve boring work within an interesting context. In those situations, the boring work often beats the interesting context.

Brandon:

This is exactly why it takes up until graduate school in order for many students get to see what math is all about — creating instead of following.

Ted Dintersmith:

I’d echo Brandon’s point that it isn’t until graduate school when anyone gets to the point of doing anything remotely interesting when it comes to math.

I’m familiar enough with Brandon and Ted’s work and I disagree so viscerally with both of their comments I feel I have to have misinterpreted them.

Their comments amount (in my interpretation) to telling students, “None of this will be interesting for sixteen years. But once you finish that undergrad math degree and decide to pursue graduate mathematics, it’s going to be great.” If that’s the value proposition for a math education, why would anybody bother?

I’m thinking they still calculate the totals, because it has to be done. But also, some sort of data analysis program where kids look at the relevant statistics and make decisions based on them.