Posted on 03/07/2006 10:12:59 AM PST by RBroadfoot
None, according to Richard Cohen of the Washington Post.
EXCERPT: I am haunted by Gabriela Ocampo. ... failing algebra six times in six semesters, trying it a seventh time and finally just despairing over ever getting it.
The L.A. school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra ...
Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. ...
Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers. Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence. ...
Algebra ruined many a day for me. Now it could ruin your life.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
"Very few people anymore realize the amount of info on a framing square."
Yup. You just don't see them in use as much anymore. Now, I'm not an old-fashioned guy, and I'm as likely to pick up a calculator to figure something out as I am to do anything else. But a framing square is worth learning. An amazing tool, developed to make life simpler for the guy with the hammer and saw.
I learned it just because I wondered what all that stuff was about on the square. They had this little book at the lumber yard, so I got a copy. Amazing!
Do apprentices still learn how to use it? I have no idea, since I've never worked in the trade.
Someone who comes from a civilization that produced Teotihuacan, Palenque, or Machu Picchu will never convince me that they are too dumb to learn algebra. They just don't want to work hard at it.
Cohen believes in the other people (aka "the government") doing things for you -- including all the math. You shouldn't have to do any algebra, it should be pre-done for you. Need to compare to prices for two products of different sizes to find the better buy? You could set up a proportion ... or you can check the unit price for each item on the shelf.
Need to know how many fat calories that snack has? You could look at the number of grains of fat and multiply by 9. Or you can read the Fat Calories number right below the total calories number.
Can't balance your checkbook? So what! The bank will tell you. And besides, you can get a program for your pocketPC that will do it for you. Probably get one for your phone, too.
Need to know how much your withholding should be? Why? Someone will just take it out for you, and it's probably right, so why should you worry?
How much is that sweater on sale? Hey, they have a price-check scanner that will tell me without waiting on line. Cool. (Except, you may have to wait on a little line to get to the price-check scanner.)
No one will accuse Mr. Cohen of being an illiterate. He is, however, an innumerate and that is a worse thing.
I've bought a new Swanson speed square just because I lost the book. At about $4 for the 6" plastic square (actually a triangle), the book is infinitely more valuable.
A state requirement that all persons 14-16 attend school, and that all such persons pass "algebra", is an absurdity, since 75% of them (at least) - don't or are not taught correctly.
Same people who go to H & R Block to get the simple 1040 done.
I wish I had written that.
Why go to H & R when TaxCut is available? See, even Im not that stupid.
The vast majority of what is taught in school is unnecessary for success in any particular profession.
Perhaps the most professionally worthless courses of study are history, government, and literature. Just how many jobs require more than a 4th grade education in either topic. Brain surgeon? No. Nuclear physicist? No. Politician? Obviously not, otherwise they'd demonstrate a better understanding of history.
But I don't think that a person is educated without a modicum of exposure to these subjects. Elementary algebra, the type taught in high school, has far more applications in real life, and it too is essential for one to be educated.
You got the right answer, the right way. People with more sophistication would tend to do some of the steps in their head, is all. Algegra is just a formal, systematic way of solving "word problems."I was different from my classmates in grammar school; if the homework assignment in arithmetic was a page of number crunching, we'd all groan together. But if it was a page of "word problems," the rest of the class would really groan but I would rejoice: "Hey, only six problems! And the interesting kind, at that!"
I became an engineer - and more mathematically inclined than many other engineers, at that. I would however be diffident about claiming that one cannot have a succesful life without algebra. After all, people were having successful lives before algegra was invented!
There are three methods of acquiring knowledge known to man. Philosophy, science, and math. There was much written philosophy for thousands of years but it produced little or no new knowledge. Most knowledge has been produced since the middle ages when Aristotelian was accepted. Without math and science we would still be riding a donkey or leading a goat.
I doubt many people learn it anymore. Nowadays "rafters" are seldom cut, having been replaced by stamped together trusses. My Dad could cut every hip, jack and common rafter for a house just by knowing its' dimensions. They would be stacked up and ready for the guys to nail on. Never a measurement taken up on the roof. Vanishing breed I'm afraid.
For me and my friends in high school it was university prep ("UP" or academic program).
Damn good post!
I love Calculus
8 x = 3.20
x = 3.20 / 8
x = 0.40
We really do learn a lot of stuff that we will never use. Actually, I got "A"s in algebra, and still love to teach it to neighbor kids. But I remember asking my math teacher when I would ever use "imaginary numbers." He said it would be helpful in engineering.
Geometry, higher algebra, trig, calculus. I did them all in high school. Actually. solving algebra word problems is very necessary in businesses like stockbroker. In fact, Dean Whitter's preliminary test for potential stockbrokers has about 50 questions of algebra word problems to be completed in an hour. I got a perfect score. Their scorer said that he had never seen that done before. But I didn't take the job because I'm just not good at sales.
Start with 2 gals but make sure there is more in stock, buy more if needed.
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