Math major in college, do software professionally.
I think that a good 80% of the population will basically never internalize the abstractions that are required from algebra on. Some of them may learn it by rote but it won’t stick. Some of them will never learn it.
50 years ago being able to “solve for x” probably mattered a lot when doing every day practical problems. Nowadays “there’s probably an app for that” more than likely.
Given that the vast majority of kids are never really going to get farther than mere rote learning and given that there really isn’t a practical need for those skills any more I would advocate that mandatory math be dropped in favor of basic coding and computer problem solving. Spreadsheet computations or programming embedded devices like thermostats is to today’s world as algebra was to the world of the 50’s and 60’s.
Sure, let the 20% of students who like, enjoy and are good at abstract math have as much of it as they can handle. But for the mandatory - everyone must do this - I think kids would be better off learning basic coding, algorithms, spreadsheets, device programming, and simple procedural programming.
Today if you stopped the average adult on the street and gave them some classic problem like 2 trains are approaching each other, they start off 40 miles apart, both speeds are given and ask them to calculate where the trains meet, very few could begin to solve the problem. As society becomes even more “computerized” this trend is only going to become more pronounced.
So accept it and move on - solving for x just isn’t as important in today’s world. Using a spreadsheet to compute total cost of ownership of a car bought on interest is.
As society becomes even more “computerized” this trend is only going to become more pronounced.
I fear you are correct but it’s exactly the general sort of question an underground development boss would have to understand and calculate. However, our school systems and most industry today are no more demanding than making change, very challenging for mosh HS grads.
“Nowadays “there’s probably an app for that” more than likely.”
I’m sure you see the problem with that when it comes to your kid. With myself and my daughter, math got easier after algebra when the need to know became more obvious in geometry, trigonometry and even calculus.