To begin with, I am not one of those people who will tell you that there is absolutely no use for algebra in the “real” world: in fact, I have had to “solve for x” often in my daily life, even for something as mundane as doubling a recipe. So yeah, I get that algebra is a valuable “real world” skill that should be taught in our schools. I don’t have a problem with algebra, per se. What I have a problem with, however, is four years of nothing else.
Oh sure, they toss in some geometry, and maybe even trigonometry and calculus, but really, those classes have more in common with algebra than arithmetic. In a sense you could argue that they are, in fact, just different branches of the algebra tree. The big, flowery, obnoxious, “thinks-it’s-better-than-you” algebra tree.
Meanwhile, the cheerful little “consumer math” bush is growing contentedly in the tree’s shadow, despite the neglect it currently suffers.
I’m sorry: was that confusing? Liberal Arts major here—I tend to devolve into metaphor. Which is kind of my point. Not everyone is going to pursue a career that involves four years (or more, if you count college algebra) of higher math. Not everyone needs to know how to graph a function. But everyone does need to know how compound interest works.
And that’s my problem with the four year math requirement. Not that it requires students to take four years of math, but that it requires them to take four years of progressively more “difficult” math, while ignoring the simple (but necessary) math skills.
This was brought home to me the other day as I watched my daughter struggle with her pre-calculus homework just hours after I had explained to her what an adjustable rate mortgage was. She is in her last year of high school. At this point, there is no chance that she will ever take a “consumer math” class. There is no chance that she will ever be lectured about compound interest, usury and “easy credit” scams designed to trick poor people out of what little money they have. At least, she won’t be lectured about this at school. Which is a shame.
We make kids take American Government class so that they will understand how the branches of our government work, but we don’t require them to take classes that would show the most gullible among them why a payday loan is always a bad idea. The very fact that there are still places where you can “rent to own” a microwave tells me that there are people out there who don’t have the foggiest clue as to how interest works. (The last time I looked closely at one of these offers the interest was such that in the end the microwave would end up costing the “buyer” over two thousand dollars. How did I figure that out? I used math).
Math also helps me to know (and explain to Clementine) that an adjustable rate mortgage is almost always a bad idea, as are loans on your car title, pawn shops, buying lunch on credit and not starting a retirement account until you’re fifty. There’s something simple that separates the sharks from the chum in the financial world, and that thing is math. The sharks understand it; the chum just floats through it, oblivious.
Although, conceivably, at some point in their life they were able to tell you how to solve a quadratic equation.
Look: I am not against math of any kind, and I am well aware that learning advanced math skills helps grow pathways in your brain that will help you in a multitude of ways for the rest of your life. I just wish that there was room enough for both.