OK no but I have OPINIONS on this and I am going to share them with y'all because this is one of my biggest complaints about math education in this country.
Because yeah, you know what? Everyone should be allowed to use Wolfram Alpha on their exams. Everyone should be allowed to type â12 lightyears in kilometersâ into Google during a test. Â
Because yes, this software exists, and this fake âwell you wonât have a calculator with you everywhere you go!â garbage is getting old, tbh.  This idea that you need to be able to do stuff the old-fashioned way or it âdoesnât countâ is⊠to what purpose, exactly?
But you know whatâs even more important than that????
A large number - an enormous numberâ of people cannot figure out what to plug into Excel in order to get the right answer.  And that is the most damning failure of our mathematics educational system.
Talk to me all you want about how students have to do the calculations by hand or they wonât understand the impact.  Sure, yes, youâre very clever â Iâve read Asimovâs The Feeling Of Power too, you know â but your argument is BULLSHIT unless you can demonstrate that students actually do understand the impact and import of the calculations as a result of them doing hundreds of calculations by hand.
Can you demonstrate that? Â Because I can bloody well demonstrate the opposite.
I donât care if you can do the calculations. No one does calculations by hand anymore, because humans suck at calculations. So let the robots do it. The robots do it well, and quickly. I care if you can tell the robot what to calculate. And most people canât.
I actually made this deal with one of my algebra students: I will tell you how to set up the problem, and then you can do it by hand. OR you can set up the problem, and then you can ask Siri to do it. Â I donât care; itâs up to you. Â But the student always chose to use Siri (because Siri is cool, and because he thought it was easier and he was âgetting awayâ with something), and that is fan-fucking-tastic because you know what? Knowing how to turn a word problem into something that Siri can solve is so much more useful than knowing how to multiply fractions.
Because word problems are what we face. Â Turning a project proposal into a set of numbers that Excel can calculate for you is an ACTUAL thing that you will ACTUALLY have to do in your ACTUAL life. Â And itâs all very well to know that subtracting a negative means you turn it into a positive and add it. But if my coworker doesnât understand why subtracting the loss from the project budget results in a number higher than the project budget, then you have failed. *
How much money do you need to have by May in order to get to Comic Con and cover food and shelter and entrance fees while youâre there? How much money do you need to save per month in order to get that total? Â How many commissions will you need in order to earn that much per month? Yes, software can help with the calculations, but you need to know what to ask the software to do. And if my coworker can never remember whether to add or subtract trading fees from the dollar amount traded, then you have failed.*
Algebra is fucking everywhere â every if-then scenario when you donât have all the information youâd like to â but no one will ever walk up to you and ask you to find x. Â You have to figure out what x is, and how to set up the equation around it, and then the software can help you. Â
So fuck calculations. Fuck subtracting fractions and memorizing the unit circle and the definition of derivative. What if we tried actually teaching some fucking mathematics?
(Also stats. Yes. So much stats. For everyone. Stop teaching calculus â hell, stop teaching trig â and teach statistics instead. So much better for everyone involved.  But weâd have to start teaching statistics in a not-stupid way, which is an entirely different rant.)
*All examples here taken from real life, and no, they are not all the same coworker. They are all different coworkers, because that is how widespread this problem is. Also, did I mention the part where Fuck The Mathematics Educational System That Exists In This Country Right Now?
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