
Who Says Math Has to Be Boring? - danso
http://nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/who-says-math-has-to-be-boring.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
======
chasing
One major problem, which the article touches on, is the media. Seems like
normal people are usually presented as being completely baffled by the
simplest bits of math and science. And those who understand math or science
are presented as otherwise broken human beings: as people with egos out of
control, people incapable of understanding other people, people who are
irrationally evil, etc.

Let's act as if a solid understanding of math and science is the norm. Let's
see more shows where being smart about math and science isn't some Lisa
Simpson or Sheldon Cooper-like deviation from the norm, something that only
comes along with social ostracism and other anti-normal traits. Let's see more
news programs that regularly discuss scientific topics more deeply than
"Stars. Sure they're beautiful to see at night, but are they causing your kids
to get CANCER?"

Kids need role models. Basketball is no more inherently interesting than math
and science. It's just putting an orange ball through a hoop. Over and over.
And over. And over. But Lebron James is on my TV every other night, being
celebrated on the court, in Samsung ads, on the news, etc. And if you say,
well, that's because watching someone poke at a calculator isn't as exciting
as watching slam dunks, well, you're buying into that shitty media
representation of mathematicians and scientists as being exclusively pocket-
protector-wearing geeks who never leave their windowless broom-closet
offices...

Anyway. This is one reason I think Neil Degrasse Tyson is so important right
now. He's an awesome role model. I'm 36 and _I_ want to be him when I grow up.

~~~
daned
>watching someone poke at a calculator isn't as exciting as watching slam
dunks

Well, that's true. I get really excited by both math/science and basketball so
I feel I'm coming from an unbiased position here: Unless you have a
spectacular color man commentating on the guy using his calculator, displays
of physical prowess are going to win every time in terms of 'fun to watch'.
The difference is the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from learning
something. This sort of positive result from an insight can continue for a
lifetime, whereas, for me at least, 'my' team winning a sporting contest makes
me feel good for a few fleeting moments.

edit: missing words.

------
wallflower
It is not Math, Science that is Boring that is the problem. It's the level of
effort required to be good and to become better. More than almost any other
industry or skill, if you get easily frustrated or you can't focus (well) -
you won't get enough experience (read: doing stuff the wrong way or failing)
to get better.

It is the frustration and ambiguity that one has to deal with when solving
technical problems. Remember, most technical problems aren't cut and dried -
sometimes the problem is correctly _finding_ what the problem is.

To be good in this industry - you have to want to go down the rabbit hole and
spelunk. To get your hands and mind dirty.

~~~
sophacles
Maybe tangential to the point of the article, but I find that one of the most
frustrating things about working with recent college grads is that they don't
understand the ambiguity. It's not thier fault - they have spent the last 16+
years being told[1] there is a _right_ answer. It is ingrained in them, and a
lot of effort must be put forth to teach them that most of the work worth
doing in our field is by definition not "solved". If there was a right answer
or known best solution, we'd just be using that library and focusing on the
ambiguous bits instead.

Yes there is a lot of boilerplate and plugging existing components together,
but that stuff isn't the work that really brings in the bucks - it's the part
where you are solving something previously unsolved, and making headway
against ambiguous problem spaces that really differentiates
companies/products/teams etc.

[1] It's more than being taught, it is being rewarded and punished on the
notion of "one right answer" that happens in huge amounts of education. It
gets mixed up with the limbic system and becomes a default assumption for
everything. It has to be un-taught in a lot of contexts. Sure, there is a best
or right answer for many things, and we need to show that too, but more
education on how to deal with the ambiguous stuff is much needed.

------
g9yuayon
This is sad. Very sad. The only explanation is that so many Americans are so
spoiled by the nation's past success that they became so vain. I mean, kids
are naturally inquisitive. Given the right nurturing, kids should love STEM.
Heck, they should be obsessed with STEM because STEM subjects are full of
wonders. Yet, what do kids nowadays think cool? Having access to alcohol and
drugs is cool. Bullying people who take studying seriously is cool. Sports
jockeys who think nothing is important other than their games with another
high school are cool. When hearing people enthusiastically talk about
technology, making a face as if he just ate s*&^t is cool (just like the
stupid and weak Jesse did in the finale of Breaking Bad when Walt explained
what "exothermal" meant). Whining about STEM are being too "hard", too
"boring", too "irrelevant", too "nerdy" is cool... And tell me the parents
didn't have very bad influence to the kids.

I find this phenomenon puzzling. STEM is foundation of the modern
civilization. And it is Europeans and Americans, after all, who have largely
advanced modern science, technology, engineering, and math in the past
hundreds of years. I can tell fascinating stories about the great minds and
great achievements for weeks. Yet, the great history, the great subjects, and
the people who love STEM are being looked down upon by American kids?
What.The.Fuck.

It was not like this in the country where I grew up, though. In our country,
STEM are cool in school. Seriously cool. Teachers, kids, and especially
parents take studying of STEM seriously (though to be fair, the parents took
every subject seriously as they cared about grades too). Biographies of famous
scientists are popular readings. Names like Archimedes, Newton, Curie, Paulin,
Ernest Lawrence, and so on are household names. No one in my school got
despised because he or she studied hard. That would be absurd to even think
about. That's why I was initially bewildered by Paul Graham's Why Nerds Are
Unpopular.

And what's the result of all these? Straight-A students couldn't pass a
community college's placement math test, as reported by NYT a couple of years
ago. I don't what could be worse than such drama.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_Yet, what do kids nowadays think cool? Having access to alcohol and drugs is
cool. Bullying people who take studying seriously is cool. Sports jockeys who
think nothing is important other than their games with another high school are
cool. When hearing people enthusiastically talk about technology, making a
face as if he just ate s_ &^t is cool (just like the stupid and weak Jesse did
in the finale of Breaking Bad when Walt explained what "exothermal" meant).
Whining about STEM are being too "hard", too "boring", too "irrelevant", too
"nerdy" is cool... And tell me the parents didn't have very bad influence to
the kids.*

Please don't act like this is some isolated problem with today's generation.
Drugs, vices, jocks and willful ignorance have _always_ been the rage. You're
having delusions of grandeur that your generation was somehow one of superior
calibre, and you're regressing into idealized memories of the past as part of
a reactionary mental process to the perceived decadence of today.

But it has always been decadent. In fact, if the Flynn effect and other
factors are anything to show, you were probably worse.

I see you don't live in the USA, though. I come from a European country
myself, and I have no idea what school you went to, but the way you describe
it is rather... unrealistic? Names of famous scientists are household names?
In a school environment? They always have been, honestly. Biographies of
famous scientists as popular reading? They're part of the curriculum.

The way you treat your school as some sort of a society in its own right leads
me to believe you went to a boarding school or something similar. Perhaps just
a higher class private school, because really, yours isn't the norm.

~~~
g9yuayon
Not really. I grew up in a developing country, where there were only public
schools. And my school was by no means elite. Biographies of scientists were
not part of curriculum either. It's really the culture. Parents did care about
kids' academic performance, a lot. The whole society advocated studying hard
with the right approach (whether it's really right is debatable). Even state
media devote significant time to STEM related news and documentaries. Drug was
never the problem because even carrying drug is capital crime. I'm not saying
every every in every city was like that as our country had tons of social and
economical problems. However, kids' education especially STEM education is THE
focus of parenting.

~~~
g9yuayon
Well, I think you're into another extreme. Developing, yes. Poor? Maybe.
Desperate? I'm not sure. At least our school days are full of fond memories.
And my classmates seemed happy, and I was definitely happy. More importantly,
we did enjoy learning.

------
spodek
I love math and science.

Nature is the most beautiful thing around and they help me appreciate that
beauty more deeply.

------
yetanotherphd
I think there are some easy gains to be made by removing most Euclidean
geometry (including trigonometry) and adding probability and statistics.

While historically there is a close connection between Euclidean geometry and
calculus, I think people can grok ideas like a tangent line without having
done any Euclidean geometry before.

And probability and statistics are essential so people can properly
participate the civic process. E.g. I used to see the following statistic a
lot: "Women who are murdered are ~100 times as likely to have been murdered by
their spouse, as Men who are murdered". I think a rudimentary knowledge of
probability would allow people to realize this is a meaningless statistic (the
meaningful version is "Women are 1.5 times as likely to be murdered by their
spouse as Men".

------
Derbasti
> Nearly 90 percent of high school graduates say they’re not interested in a
> career or a college major involving science, technology, engineering or math

I see a great problem in a society that shifts its focus from value-adding
activities like research and development towards zero-sum activities like law
and management. We clearly need both, but in the long run, innovation is what
ensures future.

I read somewhere that this is accompanied by a demographics shift, where
middle class, white Americans are shifting even more strongly away from
science, technology and math and towards business and law. As a culture, this
is troubling.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I can see a fairly intuitive argument for calling the practice of law zero-sum
("gain for one side is nothing but an equal loss to the other"). It isn't
right, but I can see how people would come up with it. You might have
something else in mind; do you think that the lawyers working for the ACLU are
engaged in a zero-sum activity?

I don't understand applying the term "zero-sum" to management at all.

~~~
Derbasti
A craftsman takes wood and creates a bench. The bench is worth more than the
wood. Thus, he created value.

A manager does not do anything like that. He does indeed do valuable work, by
enabling others to create value, but he does not create value himself.

But you are correct, zero-sum is a bad name for this. Do you know a better
name? I was thinking about stock trading, where the money one wins, another
loses, thus zero-sum.

------
eliteraspberrie
I was lucky enough to be taught mathematics by teachers who were actually
mathematicians. There ought to be incentives for qualified professionals to go
teach for a semester, perhaps a student debt forgiveness program.

------
thetwiceler
For those who aren't aware of it, I think Lockhart's Lament [1] is definitely
worth a read. Here's an excerpt:

 _" How many people actually use any of this “practical math” they supposedly
learn in school? Do you think carpenters are out there using trigonometry? How
many adults remember how to divide fractions, or solve a quadratic equation?
Obviously the current practical training program isn’t working, and for good
reason: it is excruciatingly boring, and nobody ever uses it anyway. So why do
people think it’s so important? I don’t see how it’s doing society any good to
have its members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and
geometric diagrams, and clear memories of hating them. It might do some good,
though, to show them something beautiful and give them an opportunity to enjoy
being creative, flexible, open-minded thinkers— the kind of thing a real
mathematical education might provide."_

For some reason, the math curriculum is completely about learning _techniques_
, which roughly correspond to formulaic manipulation of symbols. We basically
learn to apply algorithms for manipulating symbols, and we do it over and over
again. And of course, this is easy to test.

But it's also the absolute least important aspect we need to know! It's the
part that _doesn 't_ involve thinking. And so we end up with some farce of an
education where we learn the procedures without the context why people created
them in the first place!

Take the quadratic formula: something wholly useless in real life, but taught
to every middle-schooler in the US. Somehow, even though the name has "quad"
in it, we learn it without learning the context of the ancient Greek concept
of _quadrature_ , and problems relating to whether it is possible to find a
rectangle with a certain area and perimeter. In the derivation, we "complete
the square", but nobody draws the said square!

And then we do a hundred problems involving applying the quadratic formula,
which is neither enlightening nor useful.

[1]
[http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsL...](http://www.maa.org/sites/default/files/pdf/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf)

------
monochr
"Engineers and physicists are often portrayed as clueless geeks on television,
and despite the high pay and the importance of such jobs to the country’s
future"

I must have missed this part when I was a post graduate. The only thing I saw
physicists getting paid was peanuts you had to move three states over to get.

In 2006, when I left things looked largely like this[1]:

age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college

age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend
of $1800 per month

age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year

age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year

age 44: with (if lucky) young children at home, fired by the university
("denied tenure" is the more polite term for the folks that universities
discard), begins searching for a job in a market where employers primarily
wish to hire folks in their early 30s

Sadly from what I hear of people from my class who stayed on things are worse
now. So why doesn't the article talk about the elephant in the room? That when
you add student debt to the picture you need to work until you're 40 to beat
someone who has worked at McDonald's that whole time. And just at that point
you enter the most uncertain part of your career which will make or break the
rest of your life.

Students aren't leaving the STEM fields in droves because they are stupid and
unmotivated, they are leaving because the prospects for a career are terrible.

[1] [http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-
science](http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science)

------
malkia
Pokemon and arithmetic - why not?

------
vezzy-fnord
_One of the biggest reasons for that lack of interest is that students have
been turned off to the subjects as they move from kindergarten to high school.
Many are being taught by teachers who have no particular expertise in the
subjects. They are following outdated curriculums and textbooks. They become
convinced they’re “no good at math,” that math and science are only for nerds,
and fall behind.

That’s because the American system of teaching these subjects is broken. For
all the reform campaigns over the years, most schools continue to teach math
and science in an off-putting way that appeals only to the most fervent
students. The mathematical sequence has changed little since the Sputnik era:
arithmetic, pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and, for only 17
percent of students, calculus. Science is generally limited to the familiar
trinity of biology, chemistry, physics and, occasionally, earth science._

These two paragraphs capture the essence of the issue.

In fact, forgive me for bringing up the topic of compulsory schooling and
deliberately defective education again, but I think I might have an
interesting tidbit to share on this, which paints a rather ugly picture of the
whole situation.

An excerpt from Charlotte Iserbyt's _the deliberate dumbing down of america_
(Revised and Abridged Edition [2011], Ch 2: The Turning of the Tides, p. 31,
c. 1928):

\-------------------

"1928: A deliberate math "dumb down" was seriously discussed in 1928. A
teacher named O.A. Nelson, John Dewey, Edward Thorndike (who conducted early
behavioral psychology experiments on chickens), and other Council on Foreign
Relations members attended a Progressive Education Association meeting in 1928
at which O. A. Nelson was informed that the purpose of "new math" was to dumb
down students. Nelson revealed in a later interview with Young Parents Alert
that the Progressive Education Association was a communist front. According to
the National Educator (July 1979):

Mr. O. A. Nelson, retired educator, has supplied the vitally important
documentation needed to support the link-up between the textbooks and the
Council on Foreign Relations. His letter was first printed in "Young Parents
Alert" (Lake Elmo, Minnesota). His story is self-explanatory.

I know from personal experience what I am talking about. In December 1928, I
was asked to talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
On December 27th, naïve and inexperienced, I agreed. I had done some special
work in teaching functional physics in high school. That was to be my topic.
The next day, the 28th, a Dr. Ziegler asked me if I would attend a special
educational meeting in his room after the AAAS meeting. We met from 10 o'clock
[p.m.] until after 2:30 a.m.

We were 13 at the meeting. Two things caused Dr. Ziegler, who was chairman of
the Educational Committee of the Council of Foreign Relations, to ask me to
attend… my talk on the teaching of functional physics in high school, and the
fact that I was a member of a group known as the Progressive Educators of
America, which was nothing but a Communist front. I thought the word
"progressive" meant progress for better schools.

Eleven of those attending the meeting were leaders in education. Drs. John
Dewey and Edward Thorndike, from Columbia University, were there, and the
others were of equal rank. I checked later and found that ALL were paid
members of the Communist Party of Russia. I was classified as a member of the
Party, but I did not know it at the time.

The sole work of the group was to destroy our schools! We spent one hour and
forty-five minutes discussing the so-called "Modern Math." At one point I
objected because there was too much memory work, and math is reasoning; not
memory. Dr. Ziegler turned to me and said,

"Nelson, wake up! That is what we want… a math that the pupils cannot apply to
life situations when they get out of school!"

That math was not introduced until much later, as those present thought it was
too radical a change. A milder course by Dr. Beckner was substituted but it
was also worthless, as far as understanding math was concerned. The radical
change was introduced in 1952. It was the one we are using now. So, if pupils
come out of high school now, not knowing any math, don't blame them. The
results are supposed to be worthless."

\------------------

~~~
mostlyalive
I think it should be noted that Charlotte Iserbyt's views tend to be towards
the Alex Jones/New World Order spectrum, although that obviously doesn't mean
she's wrong or that the educational system isn't seriously fucked up. I only
point this out because those views can be a bit extreme, and sometimes flat-
out wrong.

More info:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charlotte_Thomson_Iserbyt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charlotte_Thomson_Iserbyt)

[http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-charlotte-iserbyt-
reveals-...](http://www.infowars.com/exclusive-charlotte-iserbyt-reveals-
skull-bones-and-the-destruction-of-america/)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p94_Cfo7XD0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p94_Cfo7XD0)

[http://www.prisonplanet.com/america-on-the-road-to-total-
des...](http://www.prisonplanet.com/america-on-the-road-to-total-destruction-
with-author-charlotte-iserbyt.html)

[http://www.infowars.com/charlotte-iserbyt-the-
miseducation-o...](http://www.infowars.com/charlotte-iserbyt-the-miseducation-
of-america/)

[http://www.newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt114.htm](http://www.newswithviews.com/iserbyt/iserbyt114.htm)

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Oh yes, there is an inherent bias to the conservative spectrum in Iserbyt's
writings, but for the most part her compilation of documents is sound. This
one, in particular, is fine.

For what it's worth, the Alex Jones media cult, despite its populistic
pandering to the conservative Christian demographic, can be quite a breath of
fresh air, and they do routinely talk about government, military and
intelligence operations no one else will.

