Saturday, January 19, 2013

Math Class

I believe people should learn critical thinking in a math class.  The best way to do this is with proofs.  Students need to understand why the math works.  Is this easy?  No.  Is that an excuse?  No.  Not even for the teachers.

Here is a quote from the 2012 NY Times article "Is Algebra Necessary?" by Andrew Hacker, "A TYPICAL American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail".  Hacker's idea is to scrap the study of Algebra altogether (to hack it). 

Hacker brings up several good points in his article that question the role mathematics should play in education.  I believe it is time for Math Educators to examine what the purpose of teaching mathematics is.

I argue that mathematics should be used to teach students critical reasoning.  A mathematician does not spend their day...

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