I've been meaning to mention the article "What Is Mathematics For?" by Underwood Dudley. The title should be "What Is Mathematics Education For?" www.ams.org/notices/201005/rtx100500608p.pdf A short version of his case is "Is Mathematics Necessary?" at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~aleand/dudley.html Dudley refutes the claim 'Mathematics is Necessary for Work'. He aims a little higher than Algebra, but presents a good set of examples. The finale is a plea for 'Math as Art', asking readers to look beyond the pedestrian goal of preparing students for a job. (A tough sell during the Great Recession.) He does mention the justifications 'Math teaches logical thinking', and the general 'we want smart people here, and math is a good filter'. The issue came up in the Arizona CS department c. 1995, when the curriculum committee was debating whether to keep the Calculus requirement for the CS degree. (CS is a curious meld: programming skill and algorithm analysis, blended with the advanced math of Relative Computability.) Rather than reprise the arguments pro & con, I'd like to pose a puzzle: Why do so many people find math too hard? I think the toughest memorization task is learning the multiplication table, and the most complex widely taught algorithm is long division. Both of these are now 'calculator' jobs, which ought to make easier the problem of solving 2x = 5. Somehow, it hasn't. What's the difficulty? Rich ----- Quoting Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com>:
FYI -- I'm not fond of the way algebra is taught in schools, but I think it would be insane not to teach it at all. The comments on this article are interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html
Opinion
Is Algebra Necessary?
Adam Hayes By ANDREW HACKER Published: July 28, 2012
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. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? Ive found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldnt.