»The Importance of Math and Science in General Education«
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Hey all. I'm a math and science tutor, and frequently students that are more interested in art and literature complain about having to take math and science. The usual argument I get goes something like this: "This is so stupid. I hate this stuff and I"m never going to use it ever again. I'm going to be writer, and never solve another physics problem in my life! Why do I have to learn this stuff?" I try to explain that the logic learned through mathmatics and the problem solving skills obtained through science are invaluble tools for the rest of life. Sometimes they buy it, most times they do not. I use the analogy of an athlete lifting weights. The athelete doesn't really use the specific exercise, like a lung or squat, while playing his sport, but the strength and flexibility in his muscles as a result of having done the exercise makes him a better athelete. Any thoughts or ideas on the subject of math and science as a part of general education? Also, if you do agree, and feel that it is important, any ideas on how to explain to discruntal students why it is that they have to learn these things? posted by Laraimaem |
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| in-my-opinion.orgMiscAnything that doesn't fit in any other categoryThe Importance of Math and Science in General Education |
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 YAY! a teacher question! hopefully i can help, im probably not as experienced as you are yet but from what i know im hoping to give you an opinion... i get this all the time and you can spend at most 10 minutes in a class to figure out which kids are more interested in the arts (language, writing, reading, visual arts, social sciences, religion etc) and which kids are into the sciences (math, chem, bio, physics, all other maths and sciences etc) right off the bat. I myself was (and still am) more attuned to the arts and i hated math when i was a kid -- i just didn't get it, i didn't get the formulas, i didn't know how to apply them, i still cant do some simple math (calculating percentages etc) in my head! ITS HARD! and a lot of that has to do with the hemispheres of the brain one being art the other being science that whole theory... lara i completely agree with you and i have totally been in the same boat as you and i sometimes do agree with them because its true, im in uni and i have yet to use any of the mathematical formulas i learned back in the day and i doubt i ever will. its true you don't use it when youre older! but its not like we can say you know what youre right, this is a waste of time im not gunna teach it cause youre never gunna use it so lets draw instead. that would be cheating them out of a lot... i think it also depends on their age...if they're younger you can show them how math and physics, geometry, chemistry blah blah blah are ALL AROUND US all the time (patterns, symmetry, shapes, numbers, codes, going to the grocery store checkout, counting up the scores in a bowling game, calculating the average scores at the olympics for figure skating or whatever, even measuring when baking or buying something by the pound etc) and if they learn how its applied in everyday life they might appreciate it more because they know they can actually use it. what level do you tutor at? take into account that ok if a kid says i want to be a photographer: well theres math in being a photographer, talk about angles, perspective, depth and background, sizing/resizing of pics, distance between subject and photographer (feet,height all that stuff), that's just an example...you know what i mean? its just that a lot of the time we separate the disciplines so that they do seem so distinct and unrelated to one another so they figure that they can never be intertwined and you can never see the relation that the two (arts and science) have. but this isnt the case obviously you cant have one without the other...sure it might be to a lesser degree but, a lot of the things we do involve math, physics whatever you know? if you can somehow show them or let them explore and figure out for themselves that hey, they do share things in common or, oh wow, you know...i didn't know that being a chef involved chemistry and estimation and measuring, or being an architect or designer or visual arts major involved geometry and all that stuff. it seems far fetched but, if you look around you can see how they come into play with one another... hope this makes sense! its hard i know and a lot of times they don't beleive you but if you truly beleive it yourself then it'll be easier to get the message across. posted by gkiss |
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 i love people that don't like math...they are easy to confuse out of money, mwahahaha posted by allone |
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 hahahah SO TRUE! i must have got ripped off so many times and im like...LA LA LAAAA! clueless...yeah imma make a great teach 
*edit* PS: perfect example of why you need to know math so you don't get cheated out of your money posted by gkiss |
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 Laraimaem: Any thoughts or ideas on the subject of math and science as a part of general education? Also, if you do agree, and feel that it is important, any ideas on how to explain to discruntal students why it is that they have to learn these things? My mother, who now now works in standardized testing for the state of Florida, started her career as a math teacher and later became a computer teacher. She started teaching my brother and I some BASIC programming, multiplication tables, and math games when we were very young, long before we got to these things in school. Because of this, I ended up testing into an accelerated math course in the sixth grade and got all but one of my high school math credits before ninth grade (four credits were needed in total.) Also, my father is a university professor in biology, so I had a lot of early science experience, including collecting animals for research and carrying out science experiments he designed for me. My brother is now a computer programmer, while I am an editor. Editing, was of course, not my ambition, but neither was most English majors' ambition of being a bestselling novelist or whatever. I really liked literature, to the point where I would read a book every night until I knew more about the course curriculum than some of my literature professors. But that is offtopic. I am an editor because, by the time I got to high school, I hated math and science! Why? I hated science because, when I was assigned to do a project, I would spend all my time researching background information, recording data, and drawing conclusions, and then I would get a low grade because my bibliography was not formatted correctly or because my handwriting was poor (we often weren't allowed to use word processors because this was in the eighties and not everyone had access to them.) So the science teachers were so ignorant about science that they were emphasizing trivial things just to assert their authority instead of teaching science. I hated math because, after I got to the ninth grade, it was taught in such a boring and unimaginative fashion that I could barely sit through a class, much less study at home. Thus I got into literature, and to a lesser extent, art, and this was what I majored in when I got to college as well because literature and art are things that you can learn on your own if you are good at them, even if your teacher or professor sucks. The truth is, though, if I had paid more attention to math and science studies in high school, I could have taken AP courses out my high school and/or gotten into a better college with better professors. And, of course, math and science are much more useful in the real world, especially in higher-paying jobs in the new economy, but this really doesn't matter when you are fourteen. My advice would be to appeal to your pupils' self-interest when they say they want to be writers (or whatever kind of artist) instead of studying math and science. This is a common tactic in child-rearing, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in tutoring as well. Tell them that the number of people in the world who make a living as writers is extremely small compared to the number of people who make a living using math and science. Wanting to be a published writer is like wanting to be a movie star: there are plenty of people out there who fancy themselves creative writers, but most of them either make no money off of it or actually lose money by self-publishing their works. And if your pupils don't care about money, which writers almost never make by writing, tell them that writing is totally solitary and, unlike another art like, say, painting, you can't just show someone a novel on your wall and say, "What do you think?" They have to sit down for a while and read it, which most people won't bother to do. So even if you do it just for the love of writing, you might as well put it in a time capsule and bury it, because your best hope for getting people to read it will be after you are dead anyway. So, that's my advice, take it or leave it. posted by MindSlave |
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MindSlave: I hated math because, after I got to the ninth grade, it was taught in such a boring and unimaginative fashion that I could barely sit through a class, much less study at home. MindSlave: My advice would be to appeal to your pupils' self-interest when they say they want to be writers (or whatever kind of artist) instead of studying math and science. This is a common tactic in child-rearing, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in tutoring as well. this is exactly what im talking about...its all about the presentation of it. i used to sit there and copy down the formula and then just put in the numerical values...i didn't know why the f u c k i was doing or more importantly WHY i was doing it...and of course if i didn't get it id just check the back of the book and figure out the answer that way! my teachers used to just write it out and then we'd follow it step by step and ya it works sometimes but, if you asked me why, i wouldnt be able to tell you, or if you asked me how that formula applied to anything outside of that then i wouldnt be able to tell you: you need to show why it is the way it is, why we do it this way and what other ways we can come to the same answer. theres not one strict way to get to the end. you also have to present the problem in a context they are familiar with and they can RELATE to...so simple! try to incorporate their interests with the prob to be solved and that way they can link up the two. that's really important. it'll make it more interesting to them and they'll be able to see how math is important no matter what you want to do... posted by gkiss |
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gkiss: PS: perfect example of why you need to know math so you don't get cheated out of your money Hahah, I'm going to use that one! To answer your question, kgiss, I tutor on the high school level, and college freshman. My subjects are basic chemistry, physicis, algebra, and calc. I do point out all the stuff around us, and how science/math is used, but I think what is more important to them is how they are going to use it personally. For example, my physics students don't have to understand how the scanner at the grocery store works, just so long as it does! When my aspiring writter says, "I"m never going to do another physics problem," she is probably right. I don't try to fool her either (she is too bright for that!) but I do try to persuade her that her brain will be able to better organize her ideas after having learned the logic of solving a phycis problem. As a writer, she will have to be able to organize her thoughts on paper. I also try to explain that she will be able to better solve other types of problems in her life, because the problem solving tactics applied to physics problems apply to all sorts of real life issues. Obviously for acedemic purposes my brain is wired well for math and science, but that does not mean that I do not see the importantce of art. I try to explain this to them, too. I learned about art history in college, took ballet, played a viola, and had to take English even though I majored in chemistry. I also feel that my brain works all the better for having learned to read and count music, and put my thoughts down on paper in an organized manner. In my every day life I rarely write anything, and sadly, I never play my viola anymore, but I do not feel that the time spent doing these things was a waste. posted by Laraimaem |
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Absolutely gkiss, and now I read about mathematics and great mathematicians like Pythagoras and Descartes, and I totally get into the fact that I learned their ideas when I was a kid. So maybe also throw in a little history of math to give them a sense of how important math is. posted by MindSlave |
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I had one student that was a Le Cross (sp?) player. I saw a rotational motion problem that had to do with a le cross player throwing a ball from his stick. So I used this problem as a model, and re-wrote several rotational motion problems from my book to be about le cross instead of what ever they were about. He seemed to appreciate this more. With my writer, who is very concerened with her appearence, I was thinking of having her calculate the spring constant in her eyelash curler. However, I have a feeling the response I will get will be something along the lines of, "Well that was stupid. I didn't need to know the spring constant to make the eyelash curler work." The math and science is part of the general education they are required to get, but this just seems like a bad answer to give. You have to learn math and science because the state says so. 
I guess I was just trying go find more eloquent ways to put it posted by Laraimaem |
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Laraimaem: The math and science is part of the general education they are required to get, but this just seems like a bad answer to give. You have to learn math and science because the state says so. Your cat peed on my carpet well you know what that's very true and they should know that and theyre not going to like it at all and still be resistant to it. doesnt change the fact that in order to pass highschool and go onto college or university you need to do it. SO! let's figure out the least painful way of getting through this because it has to be done and if we can do it together and we can do it in a fun and creative way that youll understand and relate to and who knows maybe youll really learn something and benefit instead of knowing it for the sake of passing the exam (which works too but, we can go furthur than that). i think you bring up really good methods lara... posted by gkiss |
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 Laraimaem: I try to explain that the logic learned through mathmatics and the problem solving skills obtained through science are invaluble tools for the rest of life. Sometimes they buy it, most times they do not. THEY ARE RIGHT. Although my school performance in math could be said to be pretty good (and actually I like math), I have to agree that math (and literature) is the one of the things where there is a big discrepancy about "the real value in life" and "the importance that school makers try to put into it". Although math is fun, I can hardly see a case where one would need more than the four fundamental operations of arithmetics. On the other side THERE ARE subjects which would have a far greater value in life but are hardly touched:
"Needing higher math to understand logic better" is a similar statement like
So, yes, there is some value in it, although very little. Now, don't get me wrong. If you plan to study Japanese culture, then, of course, studying Japanese Pantomime has a greater value. And if you want to study physics, then math has a greater value. But for for everyone who doesn't want to study math-related subjects higher math is not needed. There is hardly any value to higher math in a person's everyday's life. Math is taught because it's a western tradition from times where Latin was the language of the world and there were no cars, hormes were unknown and stock markets non-existent. posted by knn |
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Moreover the truth of the matter is: Nothing teaches you better logic stuff than programming. posted by knn |
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definitely... its like we prepare them for things they will never encounter in daily life and then we expect them to know the logical ways of doing things without having to show them or let them experience it in the class...what im learning as a teacher candidate now is that we need to break down the boundary that lies btwn the classroom and the outside world -- bring reality into the room, into the explorations, activities, subjects etc we talk about in school. posted by gkiss |
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Let me also add that even the math they teach in school is only half useful. They should definitely teach multiplication, not only until 10*10 but until 20*20, so that you can multiply 7*17 and 15*19 very fast. posted by knn |
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yeah exactly! i never understood why the multiplication table only went up to 12...and that's it. so you can only multiply something a max of 12 times no more than that. and when the time comes to multiply a larger digit you don't know your head from your ass. multiplication is related to addition and subtraction and division. but i didn't know that at the time i only knew to memorize the multiplication table anything else was irrelevant posted by gkiss |
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