TOW #19- The Wrong Way to Teach Math

From the time we begin elementary school, we are taught about the importance of math. By the time we get to high school, we have mastered addition through division and are sent through geometry, algebra, and calculus. But what are we getting out of this? How does all this math help us in the real world? Through Andrew Hacker’s article, “The Wrong Way to Teach Math,” it is evident that there is minimal correlation between the rigorous content that we are taught in math class and its application in the real world.

For one thing, many students “can’t see how such formulas connect with the lives they’ll be leading.” As a high school student, I can understand this statement. It’s one thing to understand a concept in math class and it’s another to understand why you’re doing it. Teachers put so much emphasis on the rigor and range of the math we are taught. I can understand how math acts as a way of problem solving and exercising our brains, but for the amount of time and brain-power we put into something, as students, we deserve to know why we are doing what we are doing. As Hacker stresses, we need to raise the importance in the proficiency of “quantitative literacy.” We need to be comfortable reading graphs and charts and adept at calculating simple figures in our heads. As Hacker puts it, “Ours has become a quantitative century, and we must master its language.” The problem is, there is this assumption made that all kinds of math will make us more numerically adept. But this is flawed. Our society needs to put more emphasis on the idea of quantitative literacy than on our high advancements in math levels.