How to solve the British maths problem?

[Notebook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7435023.stm

Is this unique to the UK or a global attitude?

N.

 

[Whatu]

Well, at least here on Spain, IMHO you can also say you dont know a thing about maths, without a hint of embarrassment.

 

[Woo482]

To fix the problem over hear in the UK you just need to give every one a calculator For Christmas

 

[Notebook]

I find that sad, that an interest in maths is looked upon as peculiar? As the article implies, most folk are competent at maths, but don't wan't to admit it.

N.

 

[Piper]

Ya, even on this side of the pond people seem to be quite shy about math. While I was standing around at work (I do that a lot as a security guard), I decided to figure out an equation to find the radius of two circles when you just know the ratio between the circles, and the radius of a circle that's an average of the other two (ie the size of two lines, when you know their ratio, and their average). The math itself is fairly easy, and just involves combining two equations (one of averages ( A=(D1+D2)/2 ), and the other for ratio ( R=D1/D2 )), and then re-arranging to find either D1 or D2. The results by the way was D1=2AR/(R+1) and D2=2A/(R+1). Despite the fact that all I was doing was fairly basic high-school stuff (I think I first learned how to re-arrange equations was back in grade 9 or 10) the people at my work didn't have a clue what I was doing or how I knew how do to it.

 

[Notebook]

That is the basic problem, most people lose the atttitude towards maths, but seem happy to keep up with spelling and grammar.
Its as if there is a completely different mindset between the two disciplines.

Just off to investigate your equations!

N.

 

[David]

Dyscalculia?

 

[Piper]

lol. We wouldn't be the first society with wide-spread Dyscalculia. There's a few tribes in the Amazon that completely lack the ability to count or recognize numbers. You could dump just three fish into a boat of their's, and even if they spoke perfect english, and could tell you every number between 1 and 10, they wouldn't have a clue how many fish there were, he would only know that there is more then one. Otherwise, they have perfectly normal intelligence. In fact, quite a few tribes don't even have numbers past 2, they literally count 1, 2 (or a few), and many, yet seem to be able to able to recognize amounts like the rest of us (whereas the first tribe can't).

Most toddlers are like this (that is not to say these people have the same intelligence as a toddler, far from it), they can "count" from 1 to 10 on their fingers (how many times have you heard? "Look! My baby can count all on his/her own!"), but if you showed them 4 fingers, and asked them what number, they would say random numbers. Same thing with the alphabet, many parents think their toddlers know the alphabet (and think their kid is the next Einstein), but all they know is the song or the order the letters go in, when you show them a letter from the alphabet (even one they just used while singing the alphabet song) they will say random letters.

Wow, I think my Anthropology class left an impression on me? lol

 

[Eagle]

I think the "ain't no good with the numbers," culture is pretty widespread. Aside from finances there is little need for anything besides basic arithmetic. (And as far as finances go high interest rates on investments, and low ones on loans are good)

I think a big problem (from what I've seen) is that math is usually taught abstractly. Only the very best teachers will show why that mathematical method is important and how everything fits together.

Math is awesome, but the knowledge of how to use it is rather important.

 

[Andy44]

I think the "ain't no good with the numbers," culture is pretty widespread. Aside from finances there is little need for anything besides basic arithmetic. (And as far as finances go high interest rates on investments, and low ones on loans are good)

I think it's not just math; in general education of the basics is lacking. Too much PC nonsense, lack of discipline, etc.

I think a big problem (from what I've seen) is that math is usually taught abstractly. Only the very best teachers will show why that mathematical method is important and how everything fits together.

Math is awesome, but the knowledge of how to use it is rather important.

Indeed. My favorite calculus professor in college was really good at teaching people his subject, and he was really friendly and helpful, plus he was a Philadelphia Eagles fan, which is a bonus, but when I came to him with a question from the physics course I was taking at the same time, he had problems relating the practicle problem to the mathematics behind it, even though it was his subject. Once I figured out how to apply the math, he was able to help me solve it.

But we are dealing, in this thread, with the opposite problem: people who don't understand, or care, about math at all. I was in the photo lab the other day talking to a friend. She's a 40-something woman who works in retail, and she was talking about art in photography and what she finds beautiful. She was puzzled when I told I found calculus beautiful, one of the most beautiful things in the universe, because it's the study of the infinitely small, it's the brainchild of the one of the most powerful minds in history, Newton, who invented it to describe the behavior of the physical universe around him. It is used to model the behavior of all that you see in the sky above and in nature around you.

I could see in her eyes that I wasn't getting through. To most non-engineers math is just numbers and eye-glazing.

 

[tblaxland]

I think a big problem (from what I've seen) is that math is usually taught abstractly. Only the very best teachers will show why that mathematical method is important and how everything fits together.

Math is awesome, but the knowledge of how to use it is rather important.

I agree too. As parents of two toddlers, my wife and I try to do our bit by making maths (and education generally) part of our everyday lives. If kids understand the application that they are learning something for then they will be quite enthusiastic about it. I remember many when learning calculus in school, many kids would say "What are we learning st this for?" and they would not bother to put any effort into it. As they say in marketing "Context is King".

Echoing Andy's post, I believe that a good understanding of maths leads to a much greater appreciation of the world (and universe) around us, mainly through enhancing your grasp of scale and causality. Similarly for language, the world would also be pretty boring if you did not know how to describe it.

 

[Andy44]

Similarly for language, the world would also be pretty boring if you did not know how to describe it.

Which is why I tell people that even if the USA ever adopts the metric system, we should never forget the old system, because you cannot read about Mark Twain steaming down the Mississipi River 5 km instead of 3 miles. Language is not only a protocol for communication, it's a part of culture, it even effects the way you think. Read the appendix to George Orwell's 1984 which describes the purpose of NewSpeak: to reduce the ability of people to convey ideas of freedom, or to even think about freedom, by altering the English language.

 

[tblaxland]

...you cannot read about Mark Twain steaming down the Mississipi River 5 km instead of 3 miles.

I often use imperial measurements in speech, generally when I don't need to be so objective. And this is despite being born and raised in a fully metricated country. I probably spent too much time hanging out with my grandfather

 

[MajorTom]

I often use imperial measurements in speech, generally when I don't need to be so objective. And this is despite being born and raised in a fully metricated country. I probably spent too much time hanging out with my grandfather

That settles it then...imperial for literature, SI for solving engineering problems.

 

[Belisarius]

My old maths teachers (in the UK) were the worst of the worst. However, some of the kids managed to master some of it and did A level. I failed A level Physics because my maths was so stinky. (Passed English and Biology though)

 

[Andy44]

That settles it then...imperial for literature, SI for solving engineering problems.

I agree. I prefer to work with metric when doing problems because it's so much more intuitive, but I could never imagine saying that "you missed by a country kilometer". Also, if you want to get into NASA history you have to understand imperial, including nautical miles, etc. Apollo used it, and the space shuttle program still does, too. Inertia is a tough thing to overcome.

 

[TheMinister]

Maths here is somewhat boring- it's just not useful, at the levels this report is talking about.

The curriculum spends a long time building core skills, before getting onto applied stuff.

I think the maths A level in england is a lot better- it's split into modules, each with a very tight and specific syllabus, so you know exactly what you're doing and what its for.
The core modules teach things like algebraic manipulation, differentiation and integration, ie very useful things if you are doing physics, chemistry etc...
The applied modules are mechanics (constant accelleration, harmonic motions etc) and statistics (standard deviations, probability distributions).

The applied modules are nice in that they can make a difference to everyday life, (stats moreso) in that whenever I see a statistic, figure etc given, it makes me scream 'whattaloadacrap' at the screen....

*whoops, so it was talking about a level. My point stands- the GCSE sucks...*

So the A level is pretty nice. But then this me saying it, ie ubergeek kid. Infact, that report pretty much describes me..... back to online game land....