Mathematics; “Who needs it?” Why and How.

By Nathaniel Levy

“Who needs it?” how many times have I heard that sentence murmured in frustration before, during and after maths lessons? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s been at least 2 in the power of 10 times starting at 1st grade all the way through my final year of my software engineering degree. Actually I still get to hear it sometimes when I am ambushed into giving private tutoring lessons to my wife’s niece or my next door neighbor’s 17 year old son. And you know what? It’s a very good question.

I’m sure you will agree that motivation is the key to all forms of success and that its absence is the mother of all failures. To do anything well or at all you should want to do it or at least understand the need behind it as there are always complications, hardships and many more excuses for throwing in the towel. Sadly I don’t seem to recall anyone ever giving me any reason (let alone a good one) for studying maths and I really don’t see why?!?

Why do I need it?

See there’s really very little need for even the most basic numeracy skills during early childhood. I had no idea how many friends or toys I had. I’d go to the playground lose some toys, get more friends that was it. I never weighed the chocolate pieces my mother offered me and my sister (usually after some serious collaborative nagging). I just picked the bigger one, unless sis managed to beat me to it. I had no concept of what it meant to be 4, 5 or 6 but today when I look back at 18 I am astounded at how far behind it really is. Numbers are for grown-ups and not for every one of them at that. Just ask my accountant he’ll tell you.

But how does that affect us later on in life? Well do you know of any bright intelligent people that never got to graduate from high-school just because they “couldn’t do the maths”, I do. Most of them have been carrying this ineptness from their early years with the education system. Some scraped by for a while doing the bare minimum or nothing at all. Some managed to get over it later in life while others never did and never will, too late for them, and with modern society valuing credentials above all else not getting maths, it’s not getting to become a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant or an engineer. Basically it means you can’t marry my sister (Same one with the chocolates, who is lovely and attractive but over 30 and single so we are practically giving her away at a bargain). But seriously, you can’t expect children to realize the practical implications of a misspent youth on adulthood. I’m not even sure I managed to get the consequences down by now. What you can expect is that teachers and parents will get creative and find effective ways to motivate children.

In “Sphere” by Michael Crichton http://www.amazon.com/Sphere-Michael-Crichton/dp/0345353145 the first contact team with extra terrestrial life forms includes a mathematician among others. Why? Communication purposes; the whole universe speaks maths, they might call it cake on mars but the relation between the circumference of a circle and its diameter is always the same. This of course surrenders the Crichton’s view on the age old question did we invent maths or did we discover it? But we won’t get into that now; let’s just say he won’t get an argument from me. Now if my 1st grade teacher were to tell me I had to learn addition and subtraction so that one day I’d get to be the first one to talk to an alien. I’d have a PhD. by the 6th grade.

My view is then clear; the first step to teaching mathematics to children is motivating them to learn in terms they can relate to, start with that and keep at it. I see it as giving kids the one thing you truly deserve and should have as a child; options. Not getting maths is an obstacle in the path of what children might want to be and never dare try.

How do I get it?

This is the point where I come clean, I was very good at maths, it was my favorite subject really. Even in my college years everybody else would get top grades in the straight programming classes and scrape through with calculus and algebra. I’d scrape through the programming and ace the maths. I had it in me for sure, but I didn’t always, I was mediocre at best all the way up to my 5th grade, when I got a new maths teacher.

It was a dark classroom that doubled as a science lab we were all sitting there waiting, just a bunch of 11 year olds with peanut butter and jelly smudges on our cheeks and shirts when a scrawny 4 foot 5” maths teacher walked in. demanded we all stand in complete silence until she saw fit to allow us to sit in her presence, (and it wasn’t the sort of school that had much emphasis on proper etiquette and ceremony, or so we thought.) After a good 5 minutes she commanded us to take a chair and we gladly obeyed. She then went on to giving us a speech of sheer terror which later in life made even my boot camp squad commander appear to be sweeter than the tooth fairy.

My name is Rose, they call me the witch. (We were fifth graders so I’m pretty sure that wasn’t exactly how they spelled it.) She went on to say “You will work harder than you ever have and I will never give you a grade higher than a B, never have and never will” She pointed to a box full of laminated cardboard sheets of various drills and exercises. “Every weekend you will take two cards and submit them on Sunday” I’m pretty sure there was crying in the back rows.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, if she didn’t go on to become our 6th grade maths teacher as well. She gave us all a nice going away present for the summer break; a 255 pages long book of maths drills and exercises to be completed by next year. I goofed off for 6 weeks doing nothing but watching TV and single handedly creating a world shortage of chocolate bars and strawberry popsicles. But all through that I kept thinking about the witch and her summer plans for me and my classmates. Then one night I had the worst nightmare of my life. In my dream I went to visit a friend, the door was opened by a famous TV host, I came in and it was my maths class, he sat me down and said “now that everyone is here, let us have your summer assignments”, he looked at me and said “why don’t we start with you?” I woke up covered in cold sweat and quickly did the maths; how many pages do I need to do a day to finish 255 by the end of the summer holiday. We moved after the 6th grade, I was top of my class and as promised I got nothing B’s for the trouble. But for the next two years I got A+ without having to study once.

So do I think that’s the way to go? Short answer no. It worked for me definitely and I’m grateful that it did. It taught me more than maths. It taught me there’s NOTHING I can’t do if I put my mind to it (or if I’m intimidated enough). But most of the kids in my class hated maths even more after being subjected to the witch’s “schooling methodologies”. These kids never got close to a B in maths ever again in their life. Grueling might work for some, (and I’d rather not think what that says about me) but what will work for everyone? Now that is the question!

I remember watching the movie “Stand and deliver” http://imdb.com/title/tt0094027/ about Jaime A Escalante; a dedicated maths teacher that got his students to excel in maths and these were students no one expected anything from, well maybe that they drop out. His students did so well they were all accused of cheating. So they all retook the test under the watchful eye of independent education officials and they did it, again. There was a piece on Escalante on 60 minutes years ago where they showed him teaching. Every so often he would take a little break and let them raise a little hell with a sing along or something like that, blowing some steam, clearing the mind. Later on they interviewed one of his former students now a NASA engineer no less, he cried when he spoke about Escalante. This NASA engineer had no prospects in life coming from where he did, if someone like Jaime Escalante didn’t come along. It takes more to teach than a black board and a piece of chalk.

I’m not a teacher, I gave it a shot my last year of college going around to schools with my resume. I could have made a lot more money as a software engineer but I still regret to this day that no one would take me a chance to teach. Tyler Mali explains my motivation for wanting to teach and make a difference better than I ever could. It’s right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU. Taylor can do that because he is a teacher and I ended up being just a marketing/sales exec but in my own little way I am making a difference.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” Seeing this is just an article I’ll try for two. Don’t tell kids they have to, make them want to. Anyone can teach, but you can only learn from a very select few.