The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions

John Batchelor show ^ | 29 June 2016 | John Batchelor interviews author Andrew Hacker

[Lorianne]

audio 19:01

“Hacker's accessible arguments offer plenty to think about and should serve as a clarion call to students, parents, and educators who decry the one-size-fits-all approach to schooling.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A lively argument against the assumption that if the United States is to stay competitive in a global economy, our students require advanced training in mathematics.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“The Math Myth persuasively and satisfyingly debunks assertions about the practical value of requiring all students to master higher-level mathematics—and also points up the real harm caused by the Common Core standards and college-admission exams, which are constructed on those dubious claims. In a friendly and accessible style, Hacker, himself no slouch in terms of quantitative expertise, systematically demolishes every argument used to support the advanced-math-for-all position. His book is now my go-to resource on this topic.”

—Alfie Kohn, author of Schooling Beyond Measure and The Homework Myth

“The Math Myth is an important book. Hacker demolishes some totally unrealistic policies that will prevent many students from ever receiving a high school diploma and leading useful lives.”

—Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Error and The Death and Life of the Great American School System

“The Math Myth vividly demonstrates that America’s uncritical celebration of school mathematics does a disservice to students, institutions of learning, and the wide array of urgent public needs. His book is important and timely—and a great read.”

—Howard Gardner, Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of The Unschooled Mind

[Calvin Locke]

Howard Gardner. Author/creator of the multiple intelligences movement?

I remember hearing Gardner during the Clintonista years.

I don't remember him pushing "multiple intelligences" to restructure the educational system, but rather as way to help people examine what they can be good at.

However, when he wanted to help Bill Clinton improve his innate grifting skills, I hit the seek button on the radio.

[AndyTheBear]

Not everyone is going to get advanced math. Not everybody is going to be able to draw well. Not everybody is going to be able to write a good novel. Not everybody is going to be a charismatic speaker. We all need to learn the basics, but lets not kid ourselves. Most people just don't have an aptitude for advanced math. As somebody with a very high aptitude for it, I accept that. Its ok. Nothing wrong with it. Not knowing how to read or write or do arithmetic is a bad thing. But beyond the basics, let people be who they are.

[justlurking]

I took calculus in high school. Since I graduated 40 years ago, I have never needed any concept beyond algebra and trig. I realize some fields would require it, but statistics would have been more useful to me than calculus.

That was my experience, as well. And, I only really needed trigonometry when I was developing an Excel worksheet to do aircraft navigation calculations.

Statistics became much more relevant to me later in my career, which required a lot of data analysis. I dusted off my college statistics book at first, and then set it aside as the 'Net became a more useful resource.

At Michigan State I was required to take, and pass, a statistics class that was aimed at broadcast majors (my major); I used it just enough in the following years to more than justify the time and modest cost. Even used it as a Navy public relations officer.

I think basic statistics is very useful, even if it only helps you understand that the lottery is not a valid retirement plan. :-)

[Lorianne]

That’s this guy’s basic thesis which I agree with.
We don’t all have to be the same.

[Reily]

The one thing math does do is enhance reasoning skills. This can be done through a good high school geometry class. Doing geometry proofs going from “knowns” or given axioms manipulating them logically to produce “fact” is simply something people need to do. In this process your feelings don't matter, weather doesn't matter, what you're wearing doesn't matter any of the distractions of every day life doesn't matter. All that matters is the axioms, correctly applying “the rules” and the result. People need to experience that at least once in their lives. There are way too many people out there who want facts & logical reasoning to change to fit their feelings and not suffer the consequences for it.

[Verginius Rufus]

Studying ancient Greek teaches perseverance too, and then you can read Homer, Plato, and the New Testament in the original language.

I was required to take one math class in college. The instructor decided to teach us logic instead. I still got about 740 on the math section of the GRE, based on my high school math courses (two years of algebra plus geometry).

[Verginius Rufus]

Studying ancient Greek teaches perseverance too, and then you can read Homer, Plato, and the New Testament in the original language.

I was required to take one math class in college. The instructor decided to teach us logic instead. I still got about 740 on the math section of the GRE, based on my high school math courses (two years of algebra plus geometry).

[jdege]

“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable sub-human who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”
- Lazarus Long

Though I do think, in this modern computer age, we should spend less time on calculus and make sure our kids learn some discrete math and linear algebra before they get out of high school.

[The Antiyuppie]

The lack of ARITHMETIC skills (never mind, math skills) led us to a generally stupid populace that makes poor choices, and nor just in politics.

[fuzzylogic]

Then you’re missing out on a lot of talent. You do not need extensive math skills to handle the overwhelming majority of software challenges.

[Lorianne]

Yes, there is math and then there is advanced math.
Everyone should know basic math, budgeting, basic home accounting, price comparisons, weights and measures, that sort of thing.

[cornfedcowboy]

I believe I am a fairly smart fella who did OK in Mathematics. I swear I would fail this Common Core crap they teach nowadays.

[nathanbedford]

A totalitarian society is indifferent to the opportunities for individual fulfillment but rather seeks to maximize collective performance.

If North Korea needs nuclear scientists and rocket scientists to pursue its aggressive international ambitions, it might well conclude that the best way to identify and nurture math capable students is to force all students to pursue mathematics. A free society society, in contrast, might well conclude that the liberty of the individual to refrain from exposure to higher mathematics is a higher value.

Assuming (a great unproven assumption) that requiring students to advance relatively high in the mathematics discipline actually produces more "useful" engineers and scientists or even actually produces more mathematicians with advanced skills, are we as a liberal (true use of the word) society at risk either militarily or economically if we fail to do the same as our potential military or economic rivals are doing? We ought not to forget that the original justification for taxing the whole of society to benefit somebody else's children with an education was the belief that educated children grow up to be productive adults who more than compensate society for the cost of their education. Is it "illiberal" to compel the students to endure the rigors of mathematics in order to identify the potential Einsteins in a given generation when when it is society who bears the cost of their education?

If we review the results of our existing educational establishment, leaving aside the atrocious failure rate and concentrating only on our need as a modern society in an increasingly technological world to produce technologically savvy graduates, are we going to be able to wage war in cyberspace, or outer space, or under the seas with our future crop of graduates? Are we now compensating for domestic failures to produce these kinds of people by importing foreign educated individuals? Has America not always done so to some degree?

America, following the model of great Britain, undertakes to provide a "liberal" education in an effort to produce a Renaissance Man in an increasingly technological world. I have three sons currently in college, two in Europe in one in America so I observe college-level education in Europe and conclude that the objective here is to produce a competent technician. Our American graduate level education is increasingly funded by the federal government or at least subsidized to a great degree by federal and state taxpayers. To a great degree, great universities are in the business of selling high level research to the federal government but a lot of money also goes to producing women's studies majors or graduates who are well-equipped to write eloquently about Emily Dickinson. The decision about the allocation of money is not debated in the general public but it is ad hoc and, in my judgment, too often left to the universities themselves. If the matter is determined in Congress, we have the people's representatives making these decisions but in the real world we know that politicians are motivated by self-interest as much as by the public need. Academicians are certainly no better.

The Libertarian might argue that the curriculum should be left to the individual who will choose his academic and therefore his likely career path free of interference from both the education establishment and the political class. In the end, the market will cause those choices to be in line with need and opportunity or, better put, supply and demand. We are only distorting the process with our subsidies in student loans.

The conservative might well argue that while it certainly matters that we are in an increasingly technological age, the overriding point is that we must have citizens and leaders of virtue and our education establishment has abandoned the 18th and 19th century notion that the point of education is to produce virtuous citizens. As the technological world turns over at an increasing rate, it is hopeless to train a student today in the technical skills he will need in 20 years. Rather, he should be exposed to internal verities, to classical renderings concerning ultimate values, to Christian and Jewish tradition because when the crunch comes it is not a mathematical formula but character which will save us. It will save us, for example, from becoming North Korea.

The academic tells us that you cannot have one without the other, that we must simply endure the waste and cost and silliness of our modern college-level education because a college with a laboratory only is not a college, the place needs the influence of Renaissance Man to become something more than the technical school.

Common sense tells me that we can do better.

[RFEngineer]

You’re an employee, aren’t you? Probably a government employee.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

If you do not challenge the human mind to its limit then you are doing yourself a disservice. Taking math curricula out of schools as a requirement is the ultimate capitulation.

Math is essential. The opportunity to experience advanced math is the highest calling for the human mind. Not everyone gets it, but everyone gets something out of it.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Basic algebra, geometry & trig should be required for all students. They are not difficult if properly taught - learn the proper calculations to get the right answers rather than let the students make up their own methods to get the wrong answers. I might also include a basic course of “statistical thinking” - learning to look at the world the way a statistician does.

I think it bugs libtards that there is one subject in school that has absolute right answers and absolute best ways to get them. Their attempt to mind rape the kids by making it all gray instead of black and white is crippling American kids in math achievement.

Funny that, because of this, we likely need those foreign STEM students to come here, because our own kids have been deliberately made mathematically illiterate. Those responsible should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

[Lorianne]

No one as far as I know is proposing taking math out of schools.

[justlurking]

You’re an employee, aren’t you? Probably a government employee.

And you are probably an ass, aren't you? You are certainly acting like one. But no, I wasn't a government employee.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I'll make a deal with you: I won't pretend I know anything about RF engineering, and you don't pretend you know anything about software engineering, OK?

(Although I actually do know a little about it, and hold an amateur radio license).

As I wrote in another response, my career spanned 40 years, I did everything from microcoding a processor of my own design, to assembly, C, C++, Java, and Python. I was also a consultant for companies in just about every business sector in the US.

The truth may hurt, but it's the truth: advanced math is not needed for 90-95% of software development. I never needed it, and neither did my peers. And even if you were to consider only jobs that are generally held by college graduates, that percentage is even higher among them.

If you do not challenge the human mind to its limit then you are doing yourself a disservice.

There are lots of ways to challenge someone. For many, advanced math isn't a challenge. For others, it's an unsurmountable one. There's absolutely no reason to flog the latter group, when they won't need it except for a handful of jobs.

Taking math curricula out of schools as a requirement is the ultimate capitulation.

Did I say that? What I said was that a requirement for advanced math is counter-productive. It's not "capitulation", it's reality. Instead, the schools should be focusing on teaching math (and statistics) that the vast majority of students will be using in their lifetimes, with concrete examples.

Math is essential. The opportunity to experience advanced math is the highest calling for the human mind. Not everyone gets it, but everyone gets something out of it.

Some math is essential. Most is not. There's no "higher calling", except in your elitist mind. Get down off your pedestal, and you might realize the rest of the world is laughing at you behind your back.

Goodbye, and good riddance.

[Crucial]

Math makes you more intelligent as it fotces you to solve problems in so many areas and in so many different ways. It challenges you to think in new ways and involves understanding conceptual relationships.

[RFEngineer]

“I’ll make a deal with you: I won’t pretend I know anything about RF engineering, and you don’t pretend you know anything about software engineering, OK?”

You don’t know much about software engineering either, apparrently. I do.

If you, as you suggest, simply rely on code others have written, rely on open source software libraries you are no more a software engineer than a child playing with Legos is an architect.

That’s not to say you can’t get paid to call yourself a software engineer, but you stood on the shoulders of innovators and don’t really know what your software truly does. It may not matter to many companies, but if they knew what they should be getting, they’d pay folks like you a lot less.

“There are lots of ways to challenge someone. For many, advanced math isn’t a challenge. For others, it’s an unsurmountable one. There’s absolutely no reason to flog the latter group, when they won’t need it except for a handful of jobs.”

Who is flogging? I say you don’t let kids give up on hard math classes. You help push them as far as they can go, whatever that is. You say “don’t bother you’ll never need it”

Who’s the ass?

You are simply wrong. You apparently have been your whole career as a Lego builder.

“Did I say that?”

Yes you did. Not only do you suck at math, software “engineering” you are further challenged by the English language. It’s a wonder you even bother to get out of bed every day!

Removing ANY math is “removing math curricula”. You give up. I want kids exposed to it and challenged by advanced math.

Indeed there is a higher calling of the human mind in higher math. You are simply too stupid to get it. You give up on kids because you will never get it. I want every kid to have the ability to experience it. You are the lazy, weak minded elitist, not me.

I don’t expect to achieve a room full of Einstein’s in every classroom. But by taking challenging math away from the curriculum you might miss a few. That would be bad.

Laugh it up pal. Chances are you are working for someone who understands advanced math to some degree. They are laughing at you.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A group of engineers was waiting for their order, when one of them, in true liberal fashion, said of the gorgeous waitress who was serving our table: “Nobody ever gave her a chance to be an engineer.”

I replied that I was going to teach her calculus - but first he had to convince her that she would not be able to find a husband unless she learned it. The subject immediately changed . . .