Days of remembering Algebra are numbered
Published: 9/28/2012 3:38 PM
Last Modified: 9/28/2012 3:38 PM
Helping with homework used to be so easy.
Back in the day, little ones sidled up to mom or dad and asked, “How do I do this?” It was all about spelling “sky” or telling them, “Well, sweetie, if you add one more to six what do you have? Seven! That’s right, you’re so smart!”
Suddenly those tykes grow into teens and their teachers are talking Algebraic equations and not about plain old reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. The great divide for parents is a polynomial, which hails from the south Pacific, I now believe.
I first wrote about this several years ago while our nephew lived with us. He struggled with quadratics and such, so I pulled out my copy of “Algebra for Dummies” and did the best I could. It was actually kind of fun, in its time.
Six years have passed and, oh, my weary eyes and mind grow wearier and weaker for trying to remember just what FOIL means and why I should care. Wife and I do the best we can but frankly that’s not very good in the algebraic world.
And, boy, do our children, collectively speaking, need the help. Most comparative measures indicate that U.S. teens lag behind many other nations in math scores. In the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment, American 15-year-olds ranked 25th among 34 nations on a math test, according to reports.
More recently, a 2011 study from journal Education Next showed that only one-third of Class of 2011 high school graduates in the U.S. achieved a math proficiency that matched a majority of students in China, South Korea and Finland.
These lower competitive scores worry many educators, of course, but also employers and economists. Some of them wonder whether the U.S. can ever supply the works needed for high-tech jobs least likely to be exported overseas.
A 2010 headline in a Washington Post blog asked, “Are math scores lagging because U.S. parents are clueless?” Well, duh!
The danger, of course, is over-reaction. We need to push our best and brightest to maintain a shining standard of U.S. math and science achievement, but many students are not up to those levels.
Frustration and failure ensues when students are pushed too far beyond their core interests and competencies. Maybe I’m being an Eeyore, but I don’t supposed I’d be excited about a dunce tail being nailed onto my backside.
My self-valued opinion is that the world is divided into math people and not-math people. Brilliant, I know.
Math people become engineers and builders. Not-math people become journalists, janitors or something like that. I’m just speaking from experience here.
I want the best for mine just as you do for yours, whether they become marine biologists or petroleum engineers or teachers or NFL general managers. I pray for them the courage to ask questions, challenge erroneous notions and have a lot of fun while learning about this big, bad world.
But it’s best if they don’t go to this particular mom or dad for the algebra questions. That’s all I’m saying.
Written by
Rod Walton
Staff Writer
