Problems With Math
Curriculum night is a chance for parents to sit in extremely undersized chairs and listen to the kindergarten teacher talk about what she plans on teaching the children and how she plans to do it during the course of the school year.
She talks about "pictionaries," "key words," "conflict resolution."
And she talks about working through "math problems."
Somehow, sitting in that little chair with my knees up to my chest, looking around at little apples and story-time mats, my work I.D. badge hanging from my neck and tangled with my tie, the words stick with me.
"Math problems."
And that's the way it is, isn't it?
They are problems. Problems to be solved.
Numbers that don't make sense must be made to make sense.
We humans have to figure it all out. If Pi is an infinite number, we still must measure out as far into infinity as we can go to describe the perfectness of a circle.
And we never succeed.
Look into the sky. The sun, the moon. Both appear to be perfect circles to the naked eye. Look closer -- as we will invariably do -- and we find that they aren't.
Mountains and craters, solar flares and elliptical orbits.
It's always more complicated than it looks. We must understand it. It is a problem.
I'm told kindergartners have a difficult time grasping the concept of zero. It takes a while.
1 - 1 = 0.
Perhaps the easiest equation to remember, yet their minds can't understand why it's necessary to describe nothing.
Still, they must solve the problem.
And as they try, and try,and try, the chairs become too small. And they wonder why they even bothered.
18 comments:
My fathers a real history and English buff - hundreds of books - I'm an apple from the same tree - and never had any ability in Maths or science.
Wth the inventions of spreadsheets and calculators - never needed it in a practical sense, although I appreciate the point is that your brain does the mental gymnastics to overcome the maths problem and therefore gets better at solving problems of all kinds in general.
but still - maths sucks giant ass.
I never figured it our even when my chair got too small.
and Haloscan Eric - it's the way forward past spammers
Dan can help with how to keep your old blogger comments
i really respect people who understand math, probably like they respect people who are proficient with verbal and written communication.
i guess it just strikes me that math is so finite. it's our way of explaining the universe without faith. and that's a problem.
as for math proficiency ... i remember my freshman semester, failing freaking college algebra. i go to my friend's dorm, tell her i can't handle this math and calculus is in the future.
she tokes her joint, and tells me in that choked up voice that stoners do, "dude, get into journalism. no math."
next day i did. made a career out of it. :)
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That's so strange because when I tried business studies at university and came back from first lecutre, i found my friend gavin in the basement lounge:
"I can't handle this quantative methods shit" I said
"that's ok - smoke this and have a cup of tea" he replied
"Somehow, sitting in that little chair with my knees up to my chest, looking around at little apples and story-time mats, my work I.D. badge hanging from my neck and tangled with my tie, the words stick with me." - what a great picture.
Pi always struck me as odd too. In fact, all of maths.
Like Spo, I'm a reject of University of Plymouth (the world is a small place). I hated statistics classes. In fact, I had to resit the first year exams twice. Finally, I dropped out halfway through the second year.
The only maths you need to know is so you can work out how much beer you can buy with your wages, and to make sure the bartender gives you the corect change. At least that's what I used to believe.
Hey E. I finally picked up that book you suggested long ago. I'm using it since it was a choice in my literature curriculum.
As I looked through the list of many choices, that was the only one that brought a smile to my face as I remembered your suggestion. Thanks.
And math is a bitch. I've been doing self-directed algebra courses at my college and I'm working on my third extension. The grades are good though, as they should be with that much time. It gives me anxieties at night when I rest, because I hate the small chance that I may be too dull to understand the next chapter.
But how courageous are we to use inane symbols to warn us of the vacuum of space, and that we better wear a suit?
Thanks again, reading Millers work I'm averaging about every twentieth word before looking one up in the dictionary. Oh, and you were right. I enjoyably relate to his feelings so far, and even remember some I've forgotten.
dan and simon, you guys sound like me. i will say i know how to make change. i worked a newsstand for this old timer who refused to let us use the "cash tendered" key.
beo, it's true i love "tropic of cancer." can you refresh my memory of when i suggested it to you? it's a little vague at the moment, but there.
i think what you said about an inane number to signify nothingness captures the point i'm trying to make.
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That's why I don't look too closely. I like to labor under the illusion that the sun and the moon are perfect circles. I'm just happier believing it.
I wonder why I bother every day. It's very de-motivating. And sadly, I never outgrew the chairs.
cindy, that's what i'm talking about, in a way. there's a balance between accepting and investigating. i mean, i look out the window, the moon is full, and it looks like a perfect circle.
but it's not. but it looks that way if i'm just some dude in the woods. what does it mean? i don't know. i just know that they're teaching my son that before an equation is figured out, it's a math "problem."
is it really a problem? maybe, maybe not.
i'm not trying to say we shouldn't learn math, and i'm not trying to say the teacher is wrong ... it's just interesting the way we think of it.
jay, it's de-motivating? the "why bother" means why extend into infinity describing something perfect. we can't understand it, so ... why bother? something about that is comforting to me.
not outgrowing the chairs, at least metaphorically, is a good thing, as far as i'm concerned. :)
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oddly, this bloke called archie that taught me how to calcuate VAT years ago would never let me use the cash tendered key.
he made my brain hurt for many months...and i felt a dork in front of customers.
glad you put the henry rollins link up. hadn't checked his stuff out in a few years and had forgotten what he was about.
Errr, math. Enough to make ya change majors. Or most people. Or me.
In this day and age of correctness, perhaps "math solution" would be a better phrase. After all, that is what we are ultimately after, right?
And, really, statistics and calculus are all about faith. Both made me question atheism. In collaboration with other sciences, it succeeded. Statistics (or sadistics, as we called it in undergrad) proves nothing, it just suggests things. Calculus is all about finding the finite solution but never getting there - like trying to reach the wall with steps exactly one-half length from the previous. To accept the solution to the "problem" requires faith in Newton. And your calculator. Reaching for the elusive Hand of God to find the solution for life, the universe, and everything.
Maybe Douglas Adams had it right. Maybe The Answer really is 42.
I was not good at math then,now nor do I ever plan on it. Little chairs or big chairs.
I've grown too large for all the chairs I come across.
rusty, maybe you'll end up doing what i do, then. ;)
kz, it's interesting that you mention faith. is it faith in newton or in what he sought, which is something still elusive?
i ask because why would we have faith in newton when newton is more about building bridges and einstein and relativity is about discovering the mysteries of the universe and, possibly, god. science, math ... serve a purpose of explaining how but never, i've found, the why.
cori, i look at my son's homework assignments and i can honestly say sometimes he understands what he's supposed to do than i do. that'll crush your ego. ;)
jake, good to see you alive, brother.
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I brought up faith in response to your own introduction of it in your comments here. Hope you don't mind ;). I find it interesting in how science is often considered anti-theistic, so ran with the idea.
Newton himself found a Divinity in what he studied, saying the natural could only come from "the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." He sought to define in order to allow discovery, as you really have to when dealing with science. Still, even with Laws of Nature to reign Chaos, we can still appreciate Nature herself and all her mysteries. From quarks to Kreb's cycle - it's all so complex and wonderful... can it all be by chance? For me, it is faith in Nature and all it entails that I have, not Newton's (and much the Western world) monotheistic conclusion.
The question of "Why?" is not for scientists to answer, just "How." I don't see how math, even with zeros and imaginary numbers, can answer a question that has always stumped the most devout and the most cynical alike. As for statistics, well, to find that there is a 95% certainty that we were put on this Earth to farm worms (as I'm sure could be proven, given the right population and statistical tests), still leaves a 5% grain of doubt, which would certainly spawn various factions of the "Worms are for Weasels" 'cult', leading to certain manifestos, Lists, conflicts, wars, and televangelists. Yah, leave math out of it.
As for faith in Newton, it's not a theological faith, LOL. I also have faith the electrician in my house wired things right. My chair is too small, to follow your post, for me to prove Newton's works, so I simply accept them, and the other scientists who did bother to review it.
That said, I have to sheepishly admit I remember very little from my calculus classes.
it is indeed unfortunate that science is often seen as mutally exclusive of theology. they aren't.
when we think of the tiniest aspects of matter, it's commonly accepted that this is something we see. it isn't possible to see, or at least not yet. we rely on faith in the science of it.
math isn't futile. it serves a purpose. but there is an element of faith even in that, in believing that pi never finds closure.
a math problem. we teach our children that if they can't figure something out finitely, it's a problem. if we're counting change or building bridges, i suppose it is. it's a lack of faith in what can't be known.
it's unfortunate that the science people and the theology people can't find common ground. there's too much arrogance and bull-headedness on both sides.
by the way, i don't mind using my comments to talk about just about anything. i'm always surprised that people don't use them more extensively.
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Deep...we grow up figuring out why we were trying to figure it out. Who fickin' cares? Life is so much more simple than we try to teach. I was thinking tonight- I wonder how much time I would have without a TV, computer or cell phone. What would I do with that time? What should I do with that time?
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