
There is nothing cute about innumeracy - peterkshultz
https://www.ft.com/content/3174d5ce-30e7-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a
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sevensor
I recently discovered that Big State U, located in the town where I live,
offers a major program specifically to handle people who signed up for
engineering or CS but who are "bad at math." I use scare quotes because,
except in rare circumstances, "bad at math" means "utterly failed by the
education system." Instead of expending financial and organizational resources
to remediate their innumeracy, the university permits them to pay a shocking
amount of money and waste four years of their lives learning no useful skills.

I had interviewed a recent graduate of the program, who was basically unable
to do math beyond the middle-school level, for a programming job. I was
perplexed by the lack of skills and we did not extend an offer. I didn't put
two and two together (so to speak) until I was chatting with a laborer who was
helping move furniture around a few weekends ago. It turns out he was
currently enrolled in this program, and he explained that he'd switched over
from Real Engineering because he couldn't handle the math. And he wasn't the
only one -- it became clear that the department offering this program has
expansionist tendencies and markets it as an alternative to engineering. I
didn't know how to tell him his future was being stolen, or if he would have
believed me if I had.

I'm still a bit furious about this. It's one thing to allow a student to
enroll in English Literature. Everybody knows that doesn't pay, but at least
you're well-read. The program I'm talking about leaves no discernable mark on
the student -- no attainment in literature, the arts, music, or philosophy,
but no scientific or technical skills either. All you get is an expensive
piece of paper and a few decades of indentured servitude as you pay down your
useless education. I wonder about the people running this program. How do they
sleep at night?

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_nalply
tl&dr. Innumeracy is the incapability to handle numbers. People should
minimally be able to do basic math. However many companies never test for
this.

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Nadya
Not just companies - but the "educated/ruling class" has an overwhelming
number of people who are incapable of basic maths and aren't bothered by it.
They think it's "cute" or "funny" to be bad at maths. This attitude is also
pretty unique to mathematics. Nobody would have the same attitude about being
illiterate.

I share the same opinions as the author so have little to add on the article
itself.

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_nalply
And what about people who really are bad at math like dyslexia?

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AndrewDucker
People with dyscalculia are, obviously, exempt. In the saem way that you would
give dyslexic people a pass on spelling.

But everyone else should make a reasonable attempt to grasp the basics.

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Neliquat
Paywalled, is there a workaround?

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pwinnski
I clicked the 'web' link for google results and then opened the article link
in a "private" window with no history or cookies, and that worked for me.

