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Re: rant about maths teaching
Posted:
Dec 6, 2010 10:12 AM
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On Dec 4, 3:34 pm, david <sfiosdfpoaj...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Even if some take it up, they lose motivation soon after. This is
> because they cannot see how maths could be useful in real life.
Ask instead: Why do people insist that something be useful in real
life before they are willing to study it??? The world would be a much
poorer place if we only studied subjects that helped us put a roof
over
our heads, feed our family, get us to the neighborhood drugstore, or
provided electricity so we could be a couch potato in front of the
boob-tube.
What use is mastery of the balance beam? What use is a forward pass?
What use is Shakespeare? etc. etc.
Most people do not bother to use the things that they learned EVEN
when
what was learned is useful in everyday life. Most people are just
academically
LAZY.
Allow me to point out as a practical matter that failure to learn
mathematics
makes on susceptible to (say) con men in our financial dealings. Not
learning
biology makes one susceptible to misleading ads about (say) dietary
supplements.
Not learning physics makes one susceptible to something that will be
very important
to our children: Global Warming Deniers.
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