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Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

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Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#71

Post by technothrasher »

rland wrote: post #8

Math is incredibly useful; probably everyone here knows that. But it's actually fine that most people don't use it. What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful -- so that if they want to, they can go learn it so that they can make some kind of technological contribution to the world. The fact is, you need to be good at math to make some new fundamental breakthroughs in technology. Those bre…

> What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful

We need to do this for science education as well. The foundation of science that we need the population at large to be educated in is not the steps of the scientific method, how to dissect a pig, or the difference between a covalent and an ionic bond. It is instead logic, critical thinking, rationalism and empiricism, and why science is superior to "common sense". Yet for some reason our primary educational systems tend to focus on the what way more than this why.

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#72

Post by ohiovr »

legitster wrote: post #55

The failure is with story problems. Story problems are perhaps the most important part of math education. A story problem requires using math to actually problem-solve. But they are often terribly written and introduced too little too late. In some of my classes, they were nearly ripped out of the curriculum entirely because students struggled so hard with them.

My mom was a special ed teacher and she would always teach math and arithmetic in whatever every day like problem may encounter for them. She covered making change, doing budgets, using multiplication for finding area, understanding recipes. Her students appreciated that.

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#73

Post by leetcrew »

alexashka wrote: post #37
rland wrote: post #8

Math is incredibly useful; probably everyone here knows that. But it's actually fine that most people don't use it. What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful -- so that if they want to, they can go learn it so that they can make some kind of technological contribution to the world. The fact is, you need to be good at math to make some new fundamental breakthroughs in technology. Those bre…

> Math is incredibly useful For what? It isn't useful for teenagers who are trying to get laid and be cool, at all . It also isn't useful for what 99% of humans end up doing, unless by math you mean basic arithmetic, enough to add and subtract on your 'smart' phone. Math isn't useful. People who are amazing at math and are interested in it - they can be useful, but mostly not. What they don't teach in school is how t…

highschool and to an extent middleschool math do spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't matter to the average person. but it covers some things that matter a lot.

what will the sales tax be on this item at the store?

can I afford the items in my grocery cart?

if I buy a TV on my credit card and pay it off in three months, how much extra am I paying?

if I keep doing what I'm doing, when will I be able to retire?

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#74

Post by parentheses »

education is not about implementing everything you learn. it’s about teaching you how to learn and giving you a basic shallow understanding of EVERYTHING. i use things i learned in school ALL THE TIME!

for math this is particularly true thanks to Richard Hamming

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#75

Post by mulmen »

eternityforest wrote: post #42

People don't use math because... it's only useful if you actually really know it. "Useful" to me means "Lets you do something you couldn't before with a phone". Aside from imperial inch fractions(Not a fan of those!), most things require fairly little understanding of fundamentals. Because most people aren't in tech jobs where they can use it. I don't have a checkbook or do my own investing. I'm single, and very litt…

When you say “imperial system” you almost certainly mean US Customary Units. These are not the same system. The United States has never used the Imperial System. Also, US Customary Units have been defined in terms of SI units since 1893.

Personally I don’t find multiplying by two any harder than multiplying by 10.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_unit...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Order

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#76

Post by inter_netuser »

technothrasher wrote: post #71
rland wrote: post #8

Math is incredibly useful; probably everyone here knows that. But it's actually fine that most people don't use it. What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful -- so that if they want to, they can go learn it so that they can make some kind of technological contribution to the world. The fact is, you need to be good at math to make some new fundamental breakthroughs in technology. Those bre…

> What we really need is for every student to realize why math is useful We need to do this for science education as well. The foundation of science that we need the population at large to be educated in is not the steps of the scientific method, how to dissect a pig, or the difference between a covalent and an ionic bond. It is instead logic, critical thinking, rationalism and empiricism, and why science is superior…

common sense is just a form of implicit learning. many do a great job at it.

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#77

Post by huffmsa »

yason wrote: post #66

The idea of taking 2/3 cups, spreading it out, and removing 1/4 to get 2/3 3/4 cups is pretty damn clever and totally street-smart about dividing a hard problem into smaller, more easily manageable problems on the fly. I'm not sure I could've come up with that method just like that. I would've been conditioned to look out if the fractions reveal an easy answer that I can deduce immediately without calculating anythin…

Yeah I immediately failed it and started thinking of physical ways to do it. Totally forgot I could just multiply the fractions.

Though my mind was also in reading mode and not math mode

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#78

Post by dekhn »

After doing linear algebra for many years in grad school, I had a weird situation of memory. I was working with inverting a matrix and reading up on gaussian elimination. I realized I had completely forgotten, or at least repressed, a high school class where we learned gaussian elimination. I had completely forgotten (or rather, removed from immediate memory and thus not a candidate for a solving technique) it because it was boring to me at the time!

On the other hand, my biggest memories of school math was factoring polynomials (which I have never ever done after) and determining if limits diverged (ditto).

The other thing I learned and repressed was constraint solving. We did any number of constraint problems using various techniques and then years later, when I learned about integeger and linear programming, felt a strange feeling of deja vu.

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#79

Post by inter_netuser »

unethical_ban wrote: post #56
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poorly. Many word problems I had were't actually reflective of real world, everyday living. You know, the sort of things folks working a minimum wage job might encounter. I find it absolutely amazing that we haven't done this better since it has been an issue for literally decades.

I had an eastern European physics teacher in the 2000s. Our classes had word problems about baseballs thrown from the top of buildings to calculate acceleration/speed. I remember him saying "back home all our kinetic physics problems like this were about artillery". Seemed like some good real world application. Heh.

It is.

MIT is the public research arm of the DoD.

Most of fundamental physics research is military connected apnea way or another.

Re: Why don't we use the math we learn in school?

#80

Post by Havoc »

Went through a similar thing with accounting. Huge amount of mechanical & detailed training...which I promptly forgot 99%.

It leaves a lasting imprint/instinct on you though that I've come to appreciate though.

Similarly you might train someone in stats, they forget it all but then subsequently are better at detecting fake news because they can see the claimed stats are bullshit.

So I don't think "we don't use it" is all that straightforward

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