And why does our common culture perpetuate the illiteracy? As a math teacher, it makes me crazy to see our common culture supporting bizarre impressions of numbers and shapes and to see how students, made victims of these notions, can sometimes struggle with what used to be the most basic mathematical ideas.
Take, for example, the ice "cube." A cube is a regular hexahedron: a polyhedron that has six congruent faces, each of which is a square (think dice). I don't know about you all, but the freezer of my youth held rectangular plastic pieces that froze water in the shape of roughly hexahedrons, with all edges that are line segments that are either parallel, perpendicular , or skew at right angles to each other. Now, mind you, my own freezer mocks me in my passion for mathematics by producing a solid with two edges that are arcs and two pairs of edges that are parallel line segments; these solids are definitely not cubes. Therefore it is no wonder that current students are confused by the word "cube."
Also take the coach, well meaning that she or he is, encouraging players to give 120% (or even a larger percentage) effort. How does that happen? When I fill my glass to the brim, it is 100% full. When I try to pour more water (or orange juice) into the glass, it overflows. I cannot add more than 100%. Thus it is with athletics. How can you possibly give more than all you have? No wonder students struggle with the concept of percentages in elementary school or middle school or in high school with the idea of probabilities summing to 1 or 100%.
My son, as a young child, participated in many sports, but particularly loved basketball. He played in a pee-wee kind of league in Colorado Springs that played wonderful games, but clearly someone in the program wasn't a math teacher. The teams played 3 quarters in a game. Yes, instead of playing 4 quarters to make a whole game, they played 3 twenty minute sessions that they called "quarters" and the game was meant to be over. When I asked the ref when we'd finish the game as we had only finished 3/4 of the game, he looked at ME as if I was the crazy one. If they played 5 twenty minute sessions, I don't think they would have liked to play fifths. That word has other implications.
Now ok, I'm contemplating these kind of challenges I face each day in the classroom as I walk my dog, Karma (as in "good Karma") around my neighborhood in Albuquerque and I start noticing the numbers on mailboxes. I live at 1198. To our left as we face the street live our wonderful neighbors at 1196. Across the street from them is 1197; order is maintained with the folks across the street from us: 1199. But much to my consternation, the wonderful folks to our right live at not 1200; they live at 11100. Is this a problem unique to Albuquerque?
Seems no one in the US is immune to the "I can't do math," syndrome. Check out this ad, then do the math. Is $19.99 the value you'd get if you take 85% off of the original price of $169.99?
I enjoy a good math joke as well as any other football player; people recognize this as they link comics, cartoons, and what-not to me on facebook; I do delight in the humorous additions to my day. But I squirm at the one that had one triangle talking to another triangle: "You are so obtuse, you wouldn't know an isosceles triangle if it bit you in the hypotenuse." Now stop right there. The cartoon has a cute one-liner and anthropomorphizes triangles, but only a right triangle (and not an obtuse triangle) has a hypotenuse.
My hairs stand up when I see a joke that implies that there are no points contained in a circle:
And no wonder people have trouble telling the difference between an isosceles right triangle and an equilateral triangle when this image is used to help people, "Maintain social distancing":
Take, for example, the ice "cube." A cube is a regular hexahedron: a polyhedron that has six congruent faces, each of which is a square (think dice). I don't know about you all, but the freezer of my youth held rectangular plastic pieces that froze water in the shape of roughly hexahedrons, with all edges that are line segments that are either parallel, perpendicular , or skew at right angles to each other. Now, mind you, my own freezer mocks me in my passion for mathematics by producing a solid with two edges that are arcs and two pairs of edges that are parallel line segments; these solids are definitely not cubes. Therefore it is no wonder that current students are confused by the word "cube."
Also take the coach, well meaning that she or he is, encouraging players to give 120% (or even a larger percentage) effort. How does that happen? When I fill my glass to the brim, it is 100% full. When I try to pour more water (or orange juice) into the glass, it overflows. I cannot add more than 100%. Thus it is with athletics. How can you possibly give more than all you have? No wonder students struggle with the concept of percentages in elementary school or middle school or in high school with the idea of probabilities summing to 1 or 100%.
Willy Wonka played with the idea of more than 100% in the following scene. It's worth a look -- at least one of the characters says, "Hey, that's more than 100%"
Now ok, I'm contemplating these kind of challenges I face each day in the classroom as I walk my dog, Karma (as in "good Karma") around my neighborhood in Albuquerque and I start noticing the numbers on mailboxes. I live at 1198. To our left as we face the street live our wonderful neighbors at 1196. Across the street from them is 1197; order is maintained with the folks across the street from us: 1199. But much to my consternation, the wonderful folks to our right live at not 1200; they live at 11100. Is this a problem unique to Albuquerque?
Seems no one in the US is immune to the "I can't do math," syndrome. Check out this ad, then do the math. Is $19.99 the value you'd get if you take 85% off of the original price of $169.99?
I enjoy a good math joke as well as any other football player; people recognize this as they link comics, cartoons, and what-not to me on facebook; I do delight in the humorous additions to my day. But I squirm at the one that had one triangle talking to another triangle: "You are so obtuse, you wouldn't know an isosceles triangle if it bit you in the hypotenuse." Now stop right there. The cartoon has a cute one-liner and anthropomorphizes triangles, but only a right triangle (and not an obtuse triangle) has a hypotenuse.
My hairs stand up when I see a joke that implies that there are no points contained in a circle:
And of course, there's always arithmetic:
I'll let you do the correction. I'm not sure that each person would even get enough for a Big Mac. How much would each person get? And a serious question: why is this so difficult for people?
November 29, 2020, during a year that is going down in infamy, the front page of the Sunday New York Times covered the return to school (really the start of school) for a set of kindergarteners. The article says, "Ms. Hellman, 26, dodged the triangular desks, spaced 6 feet apart..." The following photo accompanied the text. The desks are clearly not triangular, as any kindergartener would know. I don't know of any classroom desks that are triangular. These are in the shape of isosceles trapezoids.
And while we are on the topic of the global pandemic and '6 feet apart,' let's return to the image about maintaining social distancing.
If it's been a while since you've been in 10th grade geometry: if you have a quadrilateral with sides of equal length 6 feet, the diagonals are 6 times root 2 feet, or approximately 8.5 feet.
While we may find this funny, there's a bigger concern. It gets expensive to not know or understand mathematics. Staying alert and savvy can help in a variety of places, but specifically while calculating tip. A restaurant, which shall remain nameless, provided the following inaccurate guide to calculating tips. It seems they are vigorously and inaccurately encouraging you to be extra-generous to the servers (to the tune of 47% instead of 22%, for example). I do support encouragement of generous tipping, but I also support awareness of your personal tipping practices. I also support ethically providing accurate information. When called out for the error, the staff said, "It's up the the customer to make their own choices about tipping," failing to recognize responsibility for grossly inaccurate information. I'll leave it to the reader to calculate what the receipt should report as a "tip guide."
Here's something interesting. In India, where many young people have arranged marriages and meet their betrothed on their wedding day, parents gather information about the partner they are choosing for their son/daughter. Sometimes they receive erroneous information. In Spring of 2015, one young woman was given information about her husband's education which made her skeptical. On her wedding day, she asked him a question about math: What is 15+6? When he couldn't answer it correctly, she walked out. Math literacy is a predictor of future success; she knew it.
So perhaps I need more to do with my life so I'm not so concerned with such trivia, but I already fill 100% of my time between the triangle of 1198, math classes, and a tonic with ice cubes. Real ones, mind you.
In this New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof quotes several eighth-grade math problems on which U.S. students did worse than those in other countries:
For your own blogs, dear students, you have a choice. 1. you write on your theory about why U.S. Citizens aren't very savvy mathematically or 2. you find some mathy idea to write about that interests you. or 3. Find something in the paper, a publication, an ad, social media, anything, that includes a gross mathematical error. Point out the error and explain how it's wrong or how it could be considered correctly. Remember to submit it appropriately. Remember to make this blog your own, yet cite sources.
Your bit about the numbers on mailboxes resonates well with me. I just don’t understand why they do that. No one in my street has numbers that are even close to each other.
ReplyDeleteNow onto why I believe the United States has so many problems with mathematics. When I was in elementary school, the teachers would always tell us the same thing when we would complain about doing our math problems. They would always say that when we were older, we wouldn’t be carrying a calculator with us everywhere and that we needed to know how to do this equation or problem. Little did they know, that is exactly the case now. Nowadays, almost every person you see walking down the street has the ability to do mathematical equations on their phone, with minimal thinking involved. I think that since it is so convenient to use your smartphone to do almost all your mathematical operations that you need to do in your everyday life, we have become less dependent on our minds for to solve them. I think that this is the root of our lack of mathematical savvy. Our minds aren’t being as engaged as much as they used to before everyone had a calculator in their pocket.
Another interesting tool I have found that I believe contributes to this is a site called Wolfram Alpha. Their site describes their goal as to “make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.” Basically this site does problems for you. You heard that right. And its free. Its incredible the kind of knowledge that we have literally at our fingertips 24/7.
If you selected any of the multitudes of math problems in the Geometry textbook and typed it in the Google entry box online, you could instantly receive the answer to the problem. Although you may appear intelligent as you present the answer to the challenging problem in class, you know that your own mind did not figure it out. It only makes it harder in the long run. However, you are so concerned with the present and all the things you have to finish that the “long run” is not considered.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Americans in particular are always rushing. Take New York City for example. It’s dubbed the “city that never sleeps.” Or how about the strip mall after strip mall that lines the streets of Albuquerque, providing Americans the easy access to fast food of which they gobble down, putting an end to the family dinners and slower eating habits. And what about the colleges, especially the Ivy Leagues, which make it clear to all of the aspiring young students hoping for an acceptance letter that they have no chance of getting in unless they play an instrument, run a club, save lives, and excel in sports while maintain a high G.P.A. We are taught early on to do as much as possible, often more than we are capable. And so when it comes time to sit down and focus on math problems, we are unable to do so. We can’t focus, we don’t have time, and a pink calculator or a buzzing phone sits right in front of us, calling our names. With growing technology, access to the already solved math problems as well as calculators are fantastic ways to complete homework as quickly as possible. And as these programs become a part of our daily lives, I find myself typing in 102 + 13 onto the calculator because it’s natural to do so.
The society we live in is dependent on technology so we believe that it is fine to have something else do it for us. We are obsessed with the newest technology that when we see an easier way to finish and move on, we do so. Why waste your time trying to solve the problem when you can type it in and have an app tell you how much money you should tip the waitress? It’s disturbing when you stop to think about how much less we use our brains. Then again, we don’t have much space left in our schedules to think. And whatever happened to the “times table” dinner placemat or the non-digital clock? We can’t even seem to tell time anymore.
I think that there are two main reasons that Americans aren't that good with math:
ReplyDeleteThe first is because in general we haven't been taught to love math. In elementary school, we have one teacher for every subject, and in my experience, the teachers weren't very enthusiastic about math. They were more interested in writing and creativity. Their disinterest in math rubbed off on us, and made a lot of us dislike math. In addition to that, the textbooks we were working in tended to only teach us the very basics, and not have any problems that required us to think hard. To me, something is more fun if I actually have to use my brain to do it. I think that if there were more teachers that were enthusiastic about math, like at the Academy, American kids would be taught to love math, and by extension, become better at it.
My other idea is that technology allows us to become more lazy. We no longer have to think to find the answer to 12 times 11, we can just punch it into our calculator. In addition to using technology as tools, we have access to information instantaneously, which could make it very easy to cheat. And if you cheat, you're not really learning. A common stereotype is that Americans are lazy, and I think that if we have access to these tools, we will use them. We will begin to think less and less and understand less and less math.
I think that America definitely lacks math skills. But I sometimes find myself wondering if they really need to. With our growing technology, it is becoming acceptable to not need to know math, but still succeed in life. I will always believe that we should all have basic understandings of all subjects, especially math. My dad always tells me "Math is money", and I've learned that in most instances, it's true. In our world, we apply our basic math skills when we use money all the time. But in our current world, money isn't as important as it once was. Now, if you are unemployed, you get money for free, so knowing basic math skills is pointless. If you get it for free, why bother to know how to add money, or subtract, or manage your money at all? It's like when you're a kid and you ask your parents for a $200 Lego set. As a kid, you don't care how much money it is. As a parent, you have to manage your money. And as they say, "I'm not wasting $200 for a useless piece of plastic!"
ReplyDeleteSo even though technology has made us lazy in math, you do still need to know how to add, otherwise you wouldn't be able to operate a calculator. I think that the real reason why society isn't very good at math, is because society has allowed us to succeed and not know math. If you understand math and the value of money, then you will be successful in life. And if you don't understand math, people who do understand it will get you successfully though life. the way we fix this, is to allow people to fail and learn from their mistakes, or at least to teach them math, or instead of letting them be successful for being math illiterate, only help them enough so they can struggle and work to become successful. If the world can become convinced that knowing math is key to success, then perhaps, they would care to learn math.
GA2
ReplyDeleteGrowing up teachers would always say that we would use this math in the long run. As math class got harder technology advanced. As we grew up time became much more limited, we don't have as much time to do harder problems as we did for easier problems. With limited time we can't write down every step and that's when we turn to technology or take shortcuts. The more shortcuts we take the easier it is to forget the knowledge we learned in class. Using technology helps but it doesn't help your learning, when you mess up there is no way of knowing where you messed up and how to fix the problem. If you can't fix a problem you won't be able to learn from what you did wrong causing you to forget a lot of what you learned. The lazier we get the easier it is to not care, like in sports everyone knows what the coach means when they say to give more than 100% percent, we all know it's wrong but we simply don't care because it's very common to say that and not just in sports. The more we stop caring the more illiterate we become in math. Technology has dramatically changed our society, with all this technology the use of math seems irrelevant, why do a math problem on paper when you can type it in to your computer or calculator and get the right answer. The advance of technology has people questioning why we need math, and the answer is without math you wouldn't know how to find the answer to a problem. Sure you can type it into a computer but how do you know what to type if you're illiterate in math, if people realized this they would see how important it is to be literate in math.
I definitely think that U.S. citizens are not the best at math. I think this because the technology we have been greeted with makes us start to become lazy. We have become too dependent on the technology and use the calculator on our smartphone for simple addition and subtraction problem. This makes our minds start to become less engaged in math because we think "why do something that takes energy and more time when something else can do it for you in a lesser amount of time". This is how most of America is starting to think with the higher technology we are being introduced to so we have become lesser found of math.
ReplyDeleteIn the street numbers I also don't understand how they work. I get confused and it makes me scared that if I want to drive to a friend's house I've never been to how will I find it without using a gps or maps on a smartphone? This also shows how technology just makes math more confusing and people start to lack on the ability. We depend on the smartphone to do things for us again.
I also find it strange that the "quarters" of the basketball game was in the reality of math thirds. I think the word "quarters" has adapted to being just "parts" of the game because that is usually how a sport game is timed. Quarter was just used to make it sound "official" because who would want to call it thirds? This shows how some Americans just aren't that into the real math of things. It makes us become less aware of the math of what is happening around us.
In high school, the question often comes up, “when are we ever going to use this?” We can argue whether any of the classes we take in school are important to our imminent professional lives, but agree or disagree it is a fact that lawyers and doctors don’t prove two triangles similar on a daily basis. In twenty years I doubt I will remember much about quadrilaterals, or the causes of the Hundred Years War. Everything I pick up in school is important to me now, but it is hard to believe that much would ever apply to my professional career. That is not to say that what we learn in class is not important. When we have math class, not only are we learning geometry, but we are learning life skills. We learn problem-solving, hard work and perseverance. These skills do stick with us for the rest of our lives, and they are something that doctors and lawyers use daily. U.S. citizens aren't mathematically savvy because for the average citizens math hardly applies in their lives. They may have to do simple arithmetic on a daily basis, but besides that, math isn't part of their daily routine. I, (among others I’m sure), wish this not to be the case. This math illiteracy makes for what appears to be a country full of ignoramuses, and is a cause of many stereotypes about our country. While we can hope that lessons from the high school classrooms stick with us throughout our lives, we can revel in the fact that important skills like hard work do stick with us. So while the average U.S. citizen may not be able to prove the Pythagorean Theorem, skills that applied to this proof (like problem-solving) will have stuck with them and become visceral.
ReplyDeleteGA2:
ReplyDelete"Oh you must be really smart then." This is the response I usually get when someone asks me where I go to school.These people think I am some genius, when really I am not that different from them, aside from the fact that I actually try. I am not one of those people who can get away with never taking notes, not paying attention in class, and still get just as good of grades as me. I have to do everything the teacher asks, and sometimes even go to my teacher when I don't understand something. I am not naturally gifted at math, but I do well in math class because I TRY!
It seems that ever since I was little, I have been surrounded by this idea that math is some foreign language. Math is popularized as being something that normal people shouldn't be good at. It always seems as if there is something about math that is hidden, that we cant see. When we type an equation into a calculator, and it spits out the answer for us, the majority of the time we have no idea how it happened. It seems like some magic trick that can read our minds. We rarely have to think for ourselves anymore. Between calculators, smart phones, and computers, we can search for anything we don't know the answer to and find it within a matter of seconds. Math is presented to us by the media as something that goes on behind the scenes, yet can be found in every aspect of our lives. Whether it is the simplest forms of math such as seeing that everything has a shape, or the most complex forms of math such as the technology behind the newest iPhone.
It seems to me that U.S. citizens aren't good at math, because we choose not to be. We choose to think that math is hard, and something that we are incapable of, when quite frankly if we were raised in a society that didn't present math as being impossible, maybe we would think that it was something more commonly achievable. The United States and the media need to stop complaining about how we are so bad at math compared to other countries, and instead maybe present math, and even school in general, as something that can be achieved if we set our minds to it.
Like many issues within the U.S, I believe that the social media has influenced this illiteracy in mathematics. In many movies and TV shows the "cool" character is the one who does not excel at school or math. If children are brought up in such a way that applying yourself and succeeding in school is frowned upon in a social setting, then they will not try for the sake of being cool.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with many of the previous comments about how now that the emergence of calculators, Smartphone, and other advances in technology are a double-edged sword. For those who are very well versed in mathematics, a calculator is a tool but not a necessity. But for those who are not as well versed a calculator or website becomes a necessity, and if relied on to much can keep a person from really working.
An indispensable part of math is that you must try and I don’t believe that many U.S. citizens try to succeed at math. Many people think that math is too hard and completely unapproachable, but that's just because they haven’t tried. To be literate and be able to succeed in math you have to give it your all and you can't give up, and I believe many U.S. citizens do just that, give up.
Hello! After reading the Jamm'n peaches blog, I agree that our society has become much less mathematically savvy as the days have increased. I agree that it is very silly to see a set of three quarters in a basketball game and find it useless to count street addresses by what seem to be completely random values. I believe there is a main cause to all of this.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, most people now have a smartphone, laptop, ipad, or computer at their disposal nearly every minute of the day. As time has continued on, a need for understanding simple mathematics has quickly decreased. Our brains seem to turn to goo and we decide that it is much easier to use a calculator to do all of our work for us instead of exercising our brains. Also, I feel like most people just go along with what others tell them. There is no need to give any effort to thinking about what they might actually be saying, such as thinking about 3 quarters for a full game. So, most people just go with everything due to their laziness.this just seems to be the logical reason as to why our mathematical incorporation into everyday life has steadily decreased.
Due to our laziness, there seems to be no end to our increasing loss of intelligence.
With the advancement of technology, it is now possible to find the answer to your question in seconds, albeit through calculator, smart phone, or computer. Because of this, I feel as though people have stopped relying so much on how to solve a problem and have started to instead go look for an answer to that problem. Before the advancement of technology, in order to solve something, you had to figure it out yourself, which in turn would would help you learn. Therefore, I believe citizens have become less math savvy due to technology. Take for example, if the average citizen were to be asked the question why addresses jump around in a given neighborhood. Instead of thinking about the question and coming up with their own answer, they would look it up online and have an answer in seconds, thus not growing as a thinker. As another example, when a coach says to give 120%, the average citizen wouldn't think, how does that work? There can only be 100%? Instead, they would take this to mean go as hard as you can. Neither the coach nor the person would think anything of it, and no learning would occurred.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, as technology increases and our will to solve problems through our own means and thoughts decreases, so does our intelligence and we become less mathematically savvy
The reason that Americans aren't so math savvy, has been said over and over again in the comments above. It's because of the technology and resources we have at our fingertips today. As soon as we encounter a problem that actually makes us think we resort to looking for some calculator program that will solve it for us or some iphone app that give us a short cut. We are so lazy and our lives are so busy that we can't stop and think about what 7*8 is, we just type it into our phones and out pops the answer.
ReplyDeleteI can't say that all of us aren't mathematically savvy though because some Americans have to work with numbers every day. They were probably thinking that inventing these apps and gadgets would help them be able to crunch the bigger numbers much faster and lead to more breakthroughs in the math world. They don't have time for all the simple stuff and needed a way to work past it. They weren't trying to give everybody else a way out of learning, they were simply working on such advanced theories that they needed those tools.
Sadly, this technology will only continue to "aid" us in our everyday lives until only the machines are doing all of the work, not us.
I'd like to say that this kind of stuff bothers me so much. Whenever I makes dessert, Ill say to my friends or family, get out a 9x12 pan. I'm always so surprised at the types of pans people pull out of the cabinet. Some pull out a square 9x9 pan, and don't even think twice! How could they not know that 9 inches by 12 inches would make a rectangle?
ReplyDeleteI think that Americans don't use raw numbers enough. I didn't know how to read a nondigital clock until I was probably 8 or 9, and still have difficult with it. We need to stop being so lazy and taking shortcuts, like reading a digital clock and opting for a calculator at even given chance. Once we become too lazy to do math ourselves, we'll have to rely on a machine. But what if our calculator or digital watch run out of batteries? Then what?
Americans must encourage kids not to use a calculator for simple math problems like 2 x 10 and 4 x 4 and we must learn what a 9in x 12in pan looks like in real life! If we learn and USE basic math skills and concepts in life, it will help us immensely in the classroom.
We live in the modern day and age of that's right, "lazy". The advances in technology have made us less and less mathematically savvy over the years by large margins. If you can't solve a math problem you can simply type the problem into a search toolbar and it will spit out an answer, simple as that. Now if your'e really lazy, you could just write that answer down, but if your'e the "savvy" type of lazy, you might search "How to find the area of a sector". Then came along calculators ruining the times-tables we practiced ever so long in elementary school. I remember last year, sitting in my math class, we had to take a pop-quiz without a calculator. When students hear this, they dread the thought of not being able to mindlessly punch numbers into an electronic device and come up with answers to some of the longest math problems in seconds. Anyways, I was sitting there with no calculator, and faced down with a large long division problem, and for some reason I could not remember how to long divide, something I learned in the third grade. My reasoning for this was that ever since the sixth grade, I had been using calculators for long division and since not needing the skill to long divide by hand, I forgot it. Our brains are amazing in so many ways and our memory is the most impressive, but the brains logic is that if it doesn't need to remember something, it won't remember it. So instead of remembering the skill of long division by hand, my brain remembered how to punch 2568 divided by 36 into my calculator. Modern technology is so beautiful in some ways, yet disastrous in others. Amazing.
ReplyDelete50 years ago, the United States was the most educated country in the world, but as everyone else has said, this has clearly changed. So much has happened in this time span, that the fundamentals that are ironically behind everything new happening, are being neglected for other advances - the main perception of this issue a cop out "It's good enough" kind of attitude. Because of this, (like many others have said,) I feel that for many people, it is easier to do or say something that "sounds" right, instead of actually knowing what they are talking about.
ReplyDeleteOne another front, people are completely capable of being knowledgeable about a topic, but instead say something to the extent of "Oh, I don't need to know that, that's someone else's job." (There is actually a psychological effect, SEP, where individuals/populations of individuals choose to dissociate themselves from an issue that may be in critical need of recognition) I actually don't believe that technology is to blame in this discussion - many aspects of it are very useful. In my opinion, when people use technology and become too dependent on it, when they choose to not use the ideas that they were taught for the very purpose, it is their fault, not the computer's or phone's.
The main point here is that too many people are still caught in the state of mind that someone else will do the work for them. They're being lazy. Everyone in this category has to wake up - see what is happening.
There are many reasons that America has lost its mathematical savvy. Education has changed over the years from moving slowly to moving quickly. Sometimes it is better to move slowly, understand a concept, and be able to use what you learned in your everyday life. I feel like math has particularly changed over the decades. With new technology such as the calculator and computer, our society no longer feels the need to teach basic skills. Kids know now-a-days that they can just punch a button on a calculator and get any answer they desire. Kids no longer have to remember their times tables. The problem with our society today is we have an attitude of "do as little work as possible without failing." Kids haven't forgotten the basic fundamentals of math because they don't care; they have forgotten them because there is no longer any need to learn them.
ReplyDeleteWe need to revive the basic fundamentals in kids. If this doesn't happen, we could all become brain dead and just know how to punch a button into a machine. Peace
I think that nobody actually takes the 120 percent thing literally. I also was unaware that anyone was confused about what a cube looks like. It would bother me that there are three quarters in a game, because that's stupid, and I do understand how that could confuse small children. I think that there is probably a system we don't know about for numbering houses, although I think they would be easier to find if they were numbered numerically.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think little things like this are the reason Americans are so mathematically illiterate. I think it is because, in their careers, most people don't need math more advanced than things like calculating how much each person should pay at dinner. Most people never use things liek trigonometry, simply because they don't need to.
I agree that Americans are very illiterate in mathematics. For the longest time I used to think that a square was the same as a cube, it took me a while to realize the three dimensional nature of a cube compared to a two dimensional square. It may be that we Americans are so illiterate in math because of technology. Most people are used to being given an equation, simplifying the equation a bit, then plugging it into a calculator, pushing enter, and circling their answer with absolutely no idea how they got it and where it came from. Because of this, we don't know the specifics and definitions of some aspects of mathematics; when given a problem involving a percent, people blindly follow the formula to solve it and plug it into the calculator, never really knowing that there can't be more than 100%. If a problem was written incorrectly and it involved 120%, people would accept it with no question. Overall, I think that technology simplifies math for us maybe too much, therefore we do not know facts such as it is impossible to have more than 100% of something, and what the difference between a square and a cube is. We need to start learning the reasons and processes behind the answer we circle on our papers, and I believe if this starts to happen, we will greatly improve America's illiteracy in mathematics.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason we seem to be illiterate in math is partially because we are lazy. When we are lazy we seem to copy something or someone, it just makes it easier. For example the 120%, someday someone said it and even though it was impossible, it stuck, and people just kept saying it. It is easy to say 120% just because it comes to your head right away and you don’t really have to think. Another example like this is in math class I use my calculator for everything, and I see most students do the same thing. Even with simple math, like addition or division, easy stuff that with a little effort I could do in my head, I still use the calculator, because it is easy. The same thing can be said about the ice cube whenever they changed the ice cube to not actually being a cube; it was easy to say cube and everyone understood it so it became the norm. it was easy to just say cube, instead of really try and decide on what shape it really was. For me sometimes I don’t even say cube, its just simply ice.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason why we may be so illiterate in math is that well it’s become the norm. I think that it is very normal for people to say that math is the hardest subject. People have this mentality that math is very hard and that they cant do it. It’s much easier to say that than actually try and succeed in math. So people don’t try, don’t put effort into it and therefore they are illiterate. And just like 120% and cube it stuck, and people continued to think this way, and they just take the easy way, the way that requires the least effort or brainpower. It seems that the norm is to do it the easiest way possible.
Along with it being normal to think math is hard and to not try, which leads to illiteracy I think that a lot of people think that more advanced math really isn’t that important in every day life. And people are always thinking I am never going to use this. So illiteracy in math has seemed to evolve out of laziness, people copying other people just cause they don’t want to use any effort, and because most people don’t have the will to make something up for themselves. Like the 3-quarter game, any person can easily see that its wrong and strange, but they don’t care, or they just are too lazy to speak up.
While plenty of the reason listed for Americans being less mathematically savvy are fine and dandy, and may in fact have something to do with it, I believe they are most likely not the main cause of mathematical illiteracy in American citizens.
ReplyDeleteMy reason for this is simple. I, of course this only applies to me as an individual, have never paid any attention to any of the reasons listed. Even though I played sports, I never associated anything to do with them into any other aspect of my life, especially not in school. While incorrect naming of divisions of games may be influential, I would say that it is minor if it happens at all. I also feel that many children have been taught in sports that there are no limits. This is to encourage players to give it even more than they thought they could. If they are trying to express the limitlessness of sports, it only makes sense that they would break logical and mathematical limits to separate the two.
For me, I would say the problem lies within the way math is often taught. In public education systems, math is relaxed and less stressed in elementary schools, then suddenly slammed on in middle and high school. Because of children not gaining a good logical sense in early life, it can cause mathematical illiteracy.
Another reason I say this is because of the house numbers. Since I have always observed that house numbers follow seemingly no pattern and seem to be nonsensical, I have simply disregarded them as false and, since they were quite obviously wrong, have never associated them with logic and truth.
Of course this is all from my personal experience and opinion, but i believe the way math is taught is more influential than trivial details I never paid any mind to until now.
As for the joke, it was most likely meant to appeal to younger kids in the pop culture scene. This pop culture scene, in all aspects, appeals more toward catchy lines and cute retorts (along with scandals and entertainment) more than truth. This is why I also believe that the priorities that are displayed in the media and inflicted upon kids is an essential part of the math illiteracy mindset and interest in logic.
I see that a lot of people have responded to the first question about modern math savyiness, so that makes me nervous about responding to the second question about what mathy idea interests me.
ReplyDeleteI think fractals are super cool, as well as repeating, never ending patterns like that. I know that fractals aren't super mathy, but technically they are. Fractals are pretty, and it's difficult to imagine that they go on forever and ever! It reminds me of trying to find the smallest/biggest number. If you take one, and divide it by two, it is one half. If you half a half, it's one fourth. If you half one fourth, it's one eighth. If you half one eighth, you get one sixteenth. And it continues to become a smaller and smaller number, just like a fractal. Cool stuff :)
I think that Americans aren't savvy at math because they don't have enough desire to keep the material in their knowledge for a long period of time. In math class, for example, students are primarily focused on getting a good grade. This means that the students will do everything in their power to learn the material up until the test or quiz, and then once they will not be tested on that information anymore, they will forget it. This maybe helps “make space” for other material that students will need to know for the quiz or exam. Also, most occupations only use 1 or 2 specific types of math if any. That way, people who work in these specific fields will forget the other types and just know what they use for their job.
ReplyDeleteAlso, a lot of people have been losing their knowledge of arithmetic because it is a lot faster and easier to do that type of work on a calculator. I especially, have been relying on my calculator ever since I bought one. I learned how to do long division early in my elementary school career, and I was pretty good at those problems. I tried to do a long division problem last year, and it was not a successful attempt. There is now a lot simpler and faster way to do algebra as well. People can and have made programs on their calculators so that they do not have to do all of that hard work on paper. For example, I have seen and used numerous factoring and quadratic formula programs. I believe that if Americans want to be knowledgeable in math, teachers may need to require a few times a year not to allow students to use these programs.
A possible reason to the lack of knowledge in math in most U.S. citizens is a general disinterest in most subjects. A reason for this dislike is a necessity to fit in, as pictured by most movies in which the protagonist is in school. If it is a movie where the "nerdy" kid is trying to win over the girl of his dreams, he generally does this by becoming more of a jock, and ignoring school (also applies to a female role, such as in "Greece"). The viewer sees this and starts thinking to fit in, they need to worry about their social life, and school/math would only get in the way, so the average U.S. citizen stops worrying about academics in general.
ReplyDeleteAt the very beginning, we're taught that 1 plus 1 equals 2. Then, it's taken a step further, with 2 plus 2 equals 4. After that comes subtraction, 1 minus 1 equals 0. And much later, multiplication and division. Seems easy, right? Despite this, the United States ranks 32nd in math proficiency. Why is this? Why is something as simple and straightforward as math being treated like an alien language?
ReplyDeleteIt's become quite commonplace for adults to say "Oh, I was never good at math," or "Math was always hard for me." Often, teachers (aside from those that teach math) will say "Now you know why I'm not a math teacher." At least for today's generation, this may be the root of the problem. If even our teachers, the people who mentor us in our academic life, don't take math seriously, why should we? Just like our teachers, we figure, "Well I'm just better at this subject." Sometimes, it's even taken as far as, "Well I'm good at this sport, why should I be concerned about school?" While it's great to have one talent, it is important to be well rounded. But being well-rounded isn't often encouraged. Rather, parents will push their children with whatever their talent is, and give little attention to other aspects of their being.
In short, math illiteracy stems from a lack of value on the part of society. Math needs to be seen as a basic way to understand our world, rather than a confusing jumble of numbers.
I find this blog very interesting. Mostly because ive never thought of any of that in such detail and its funny how stupid some of the things we do are, but we do them anyway. Im going to talk about a mathy idea that i find interesting.
ReplyDeleteBasically the collest thing about math is when you can apply it to the real world. Whenever i find a problem in the real world (i work construction on weekends) that i can solve using cosine, sine, the pythagorean theory, or any other part of math, i get happy. It makes me feel like ive accomplished things and it answers the question that students ask all of the time "Why do we have to learn this? when will i ever use this in real life?". I find that awesome that ive been able to see how much math is in our lives. We cant escape it. Thats why math is near the top of my favorite subjects list. Love it!
Math has been introduced to us since a very young age. Often times the teachers would slap down a math book with basic steps in it and teach them to us, only for us to go home and repeat similar steps in our homework. Now I see why this would be the way to teach kids the mindset of learning methods and combining them with other methods to find a solution that works, and when it does, it's great! But often times, we are stuck with only "regurgitating" the information that was given to us a few classes ago and then forgetting about it.
ReplyDeleteIn a class like history where repetition is key to learning the facts, we constantly piece together the bits of history to create a broad view of the events that happened. In math, this is not what happens and shouldn't happen either (since it is math after all); but the idea that we simply take in the methods we learned to solve problems, do homework, then forget about it is what I believe causes people to lose their connection to math and learning it.
Another reason why I believe Americans aren't very math savvy is the mindset of being lazy and getting through with the most minimal amount of effort. This is simply learned through the way technology is advancing, letting us find answers to questions and having much more at the touch of our fingertips. While this does not relate directly to math, the idea of "oh I'll just look it up" continues on in our life to the point that it applies to math as well.
We live in a society where progress means making things “easier”. A prime example of this is the smartphone. We love smartphones so much because they make things easier. With one device not much larger than a pack of cards, we can connect to a vast amount of information and entertainment, communicate with our friends using a variety of methods, calculate advanced math in seconds, listen to a randomized playlist of our favorite songs, and find a path if we get lost in an unfamiliar area.
ReplyDeleteAs many other people have said, the new prevalence of calculators makes math easier. In a few seconds (at most!), a person can usually find the answer to almost any math issue. Even if they know how to do it in their head or on paper, it’s simply easier to use the calculator, because it’s faster. That’s another thing about our society. Each person has so many jobs to do that we’re in a constant state of “faster is better”. And the easier solution is faster most of the time.
This mindset of things needing to be easy leads to the calculator issue, and subsequently a sort of complacency when it comes to math. Of course, we still have math in the school curriculum because we need to know what to do with the calculator, and because as humans, we have a natural curiosity as to how things work. It’s just that when the explanation is complicated, we lose interest because we see it as too hard and not worth our time.
My theory for why the US isn't very savvy mathematically is because of a general disinterest in the subject. A lot of people make fun of math for being an extremely boring and hard subject so they enjoy making jokes that mock math. Most of these jokes make no literal sense to us savvy mathematicians for the most part. That's because when people are uninterested in a subject they make it more entertaining for themselves by making jokes are by mocking it. Phrases like giving 120% effort can be used to push players almost as a challenge to give them absolutely everything. Sure the cup is filled at 100% but why stop there when you can keep pouring. Not a whole lot of people enjoy spewing out literal mathematical phrases so to keep it interesting for themselves and everyone around them, they mock it and make jokes out of it.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading the part about the ice cubes. Come to think of it, I’ve never taken it into consideration that most ice cubes are actually not cube shaped. Like yours, the ones in my house are rounded on one end. However, I have seen ice cube trays that are actually cube shaped. Actually, I noticed they were harder to fill up because of the size.
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason we still refer to them as ice CUBES and not ice RECTANGLES is the same reason why people still use old sayings. They are commonly used, even if they are outdated and don’t make sense. I’m sure at one point in time ice cubes were in cube form, and the name stuck as the shape changed.
It also made me think of the fact that people don’t seem to be bothered at all by the difference. I mean, I wasn’t until I read your blog, but it made me think of soda, and how most people just say “I’d like a coke” when describing them. I personally don’t like soda, but I’ve noticed that people overall just say “coke,” they usually don’t think they’re specifying the type. The person at the register might say: “we only have Pepsi,” and the other person would say “oh, that’s fine.” I’ll be standing there thinking “isn’t there a difference? Wouldn’t you care if you got Pepsi instead of Coke?” But I suppose they seem the same in a person’s mind. Just like ice cubes, it doesn’t matter the shape if it serves the same purpose.
I think that the United States in general is so social and media oriented that school and math take a buck burner to it. This is why there are so many uneducated people in the U.S. that make these simply rather funny basic mathematical mistakes. The Public school system in the U.S. is below any major countries. This is because we pour all our money into the media and sports. People don't really care about being smart in the U.S. They only care about having the latest smartphone. It kills me when I see a person who is struggling financial, buying the newest iphone. I don't just think it is just math i think it has to do with the whole academic world and ideas.
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