Should students be required to take Algebra?

Eugene

Read this article

I will be posting my opinion of it later, after I have had some time to think about it.[/quote]

Stealth · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:08 pm Post subject:

Yes, All students should be required to take it.

It's one of the few actual useful subjects in school even if you won't use it much. If I listened to what this article had to say, I don't need History, Music, Art, Chemistry, other sciences, and more.

When's the last time I need to know what happened in the war of 1812? In a trivia game? When did I need to know how to calculate moles or paint?

Math is isolated because it's "hard." And statistically, people give up and drop out.

It's needed as a barrier. If everyone could get a bachelor's then we'd all would need to get a master's.

I have more to type to cover everything, but I have to go back to work.
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Eugene · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:25 pm Post subject:

My opinion on this:

While I do agree that math should be tried to made more "friendly" the way the author suggested would not work. It it not until the later years that people have room to take these extra classes and by then it is too late.

Now, should Algebra be removed? No! The author makes the point of young talent being lost due to this barrier called Algebra. I thought about it for awhile. You do not lose the Math or Science folks, the history folks may struggle with it but their ability to memorize facts will help them so you lose and English and Art geniuses. However, all of those have other ways of getting successful just by publishing/internet/etc.

The other people who drop out, most likely struggled in other courses. The purpose of Algebra isn't just to teach Algebra to you. It lets you see how the world works with numbers and more importantly it tests your critical thinking skills. I took Calc 1-3 in college, along with differential equations. Honestly I could have gotten by taking Calc 1 and half a semester of calc 2 if I needed the information it taught. However the purpose of it is to illustrate how it builds up from itself and to test my ability to think my way around a tough problem. That is the purpose of Algebra in High School.

junkyard · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:16 pm Post subject:

Stealth wrote:

It's needed as a barrier. If everyone could get a bachelor's then we'd all would need to get a master's.

This is already true in many cases, simply having a bachelors 15 years ago actually meant something. Now its the obvious next step for most people out of highschool, and its value has dropped significantly.

Erwin Rommel · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 3:43 pm Post subject:

Stealth wrote:

It's one of the few actual useful subjects in school even if you won't use it much. If I listened to what this article had to say, I don't need History, Music, Art, Chemistry, other sciences, and more.

This. Why the heck did I learn about so many things I don't care about anymore? It's part of a full education.

Now, the way that courses are taught really needs some work...

As someone who teaches math in college, I have squashed so many dreams. It's what we do, apparently.

The business school needs to weed people out, so they require business calculus. There are some interesting applications in that class, but as a whole I think the only people that like business calculus are the people running the business school.

Last I checked, the Sociology major randomly required a Pre-Calc class (not as a prereq - they just flat out require it)

That needs to be dealt with. But that's college, where things are supposed to be specialized. In elementary school, you are supposed to be given a little bit of everything. That includes math.
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Messy Recipe · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:37 pm Post subject:

A friend posted this on FB on Sunday, so I'll just copy/paste my two comments from there--

I wrote:

"I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers."

xD

and

I wrote:

He does have *somewhat* of a point about how it's taught though, but this covers it much better, and has better solutions than having pointless classes on 'math in history/culture'--
http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
What he's missing is that really understanding anything requires you to be capable of comfortably using the more technical or rote aspects of it -- like algebra. And those aspects are learned pretty much through pure uncomfortable time investment, which is probably what the kids who fail out don't do enough of.

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xsupermage · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2025 2:42 pm Post subject: