Over at Scientific American's blog Gary Stix responds with
"Wrong Answer, noting:
Cohen is obviously not alone in thinking along these lines. A lot of Americans agree with him. As a fan of history, Cohen should be familiar with the Biblical phrase "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." A day after his column appeared, the National Academy of Sciences issued a survey of 200 multi-national corporations that indicated that 38 percent were planning to shift an increasing amount of their research to countries like India and China that maintain solid educational systems. Surprisingly, the report concluded, lower labor costs were not the major factor in making these decisions. Instead, their plans were triggered by the availability of high-quality educational institutions and the resulting pool of scientists and engineers.
No one in Hyderabad or Shenzen is calling for getting rid of secondary algebra requirements.
Why? The math is simple:
No algebra=No calculus=No science=No technology=We're totally *&$#FRTDG!!!!!
And, of course, that's absolutely true. But there's another reason, too. Commenting over at Political Animal, where Kevin Drum doesn't get it,
W. Kiernan writes:
A nation whose voting citizens were competent at algebra - competent at elementary-school arithmetic, in fact - would never have elected Reagan or GWB after hearing their preposterous fiscal proposals. The citizens of such a country would have reacted to that rubbish the way Professor Krugman did in 2000 - with astonishment at first, graduating into a sense of outrage, that these people must think we're all idiots who can't add.
But if that had happened, then Mr. Cohen would not have gotten his huge, repeated, upper-income tax cuts. Therefore, algebra is very, very bad.
And that's a sad, sad fact.
Now, I realize that lots of people are math phobic. And I have great sympathy--having been a math tutor as well as a TA at one time, working closely with some students who were almost petrified.
Still, this is a source of great puzzlement to me. Because I remember my earliest memories those kids when I was growing up. This included some of the same kids (especially girls) who played complicated pattern- and number-based games for sheer fun when they were out at recess, and then came indoors and suddenly it was something painful. Clearly, I thought then, the problem is in the teaching, not in the kids.
There are many, many things wrong with our country, that make it far less than it ought to be, than it promises to be. This is just one of them. But--as W. Kiernan points out, it's a crucial one. Because it's an awful lot easier to lie without algebra than it is to lie with it.
And how hard is it to learn algebra? Well, I'll tell you. I think it's simple enough that most of the basic foundations of algebra could be taught before or during the process of teaching basic arithmetic. Because, in fact, you are using algebraic concepts, whether you know it or not. And you might even have more fun and learn more deeply and more easily if you learned the concepts explicitly.
Just one example, from well before you start learning arithmetic: learning to put on your socks and shoes. Not even tying them, folks. Just putting them on.
What's that got to do with algebra? Simple: When you sit down to put on your socks and shoes, it doesn't make any difference which shoe or which sock you put on first. This sort of operation is what's called "commutative". As you'll learn when you start doing arithmetic, addition and multiplication are commutative, too: 1+2=2+1, and 2*3=3*2. But you can learn (if not pronounce) the algebraic concept of commutativity even before you learn to add.
In fact, you can learn it in the most basic way, in contrast to its opposite--a non-commutative operation. Such as: whether you put on your left shoe or you left sock first. That makes a big difference, because it's not a commutative operation. It matters what order you do it in. Just as you'll learn about subtraction and division: 2-1<>1-2 and 3/2<>2/3.
In fact, the world is chock full of operations that are obviously commutative or non-commutative--and some that you may have to think about, too. Once you learn these simple algebraic concepts, you can see them all around you in things that you and your family and friends do all the time, every day. And I think that if little kids learned just a few of these concepts when they are young, it would help prepare them for learning math from a position of familiarity, competence and confidence that will make it as much fun for them as skipping rope, playing hop-scotch, baseball or any of the other games kids play that have math woven through them.
And if we do that, we will never elect Republicans again.
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