Math: More Than Calculations

By Kelly DeRees, Midland, MI, 9th Grade

Most of us aren’t huge fans of our math classes, or at least several aspects of the way math is taught. Sure, several of us like math itself. I enjoy many concepts of math, especially in geometry. The detail of geometry makes it specific, but the nearly endless list of perspectives available to be taken in a situation provides multiple paths to the final answer. Too bad everyone could see math as many of us STEM-centered dorks do.

But maybe they could. After all, a whole lot of what we do in math is calculation, which, undoubtedly, is the prime suspect of missed points on quizzes and tests. In long strings of complex calculations, we make simple, stupid, human mistakes. In easy, 2+2=4 type calculations, we are still prone to making stupid mistakes. I have a friend who is two years ahead in math who had to write on an error analysis sheet that ‘2x2=4, not 2.’ She knows this, of course, but it was a stupid mistake. Not thinking, not recognizing the mistakes in simple miscalculations is easy to do.

There is more to math than calculating. There is much more. But, unfortunately, as students, we are not exposed to those other applications. It’s drilled into our heads that we must get the calculations right, or else. The books like to call their few completely un-relatable examples about spokes on bicycle wheels, angles in picture frames, and staircase repairs ‘real-world examples.’ How many of us are really going to be heading into a step repair position? Or building bikes? They’re not exactly careers that are very widespread or are in high demand. We might construct a picture frame as a project for a hobby someday, but that’s about it if we don’t plan on going into some form of woodworking. There’s more to the ‘real world’ than little odd jobs. A better real world example might be about a turbine engine or about insurance policies.

“Computation is the only thing that a computer can do better than a human who’s had years of training,” says Conrad Wolfram, British technologist and brother of Stephen Wolfram. He says that there are four main elements of math: ‘posing questions, translating real-world problems into mathematical language, performing computation, and translating mathematical answers into real-world solutions.’(www.goodeducation.com) “So why,” says Wolfram, “is computation all we teach?”

I think a majority of us can admit that our math classes to date have been calculation-based, supposedly training our brains, creating pathways for more difficult problems. While it is true that after a certain amount of practice on a specific type of calculation, it becomes second nature. But we then spend so much time on that that we forget (or never get exposed to) the other three essential parts of math. Wolfram argues that the computers should be doing a majority of the calculations; students and teachers should focus more on the process of solving actual problems in the actual world with useful math, as opposed to scribbling out the quadratic formula over and over again with different values, converting the equations to abstract parabolas.

Mathematics is growing increasingly important in this world of advancing technology, so, as students, we should be focusing on and practicing current, real applications of math. The calculation is important, but a computer can do that. A computer cannot do the thinking involving the translation of a problem to mathematical language, and vice versa. Only humans can do that. This world is in an unsettling amount of unrest, and it is up to humans to keep it intact and steer it in the right direction. It’s up to humans that know how to apply what they know to what they do, not just be able to rewrite an equation in standard form. It only makes sense that we should know more of math than the deadly calculations if we want to get anywhere in this modern, competitive, international society.

Here is a video that I found on the very idea of the essential parts of mathematics. The speaker, Dr. Conrad Wolfram, offers up a wake-up call to mathematics education that fits exactly what students complain about. Math is more than migraine-causing computation. It’s a whole world of problem-solving, application, and idea incorporation that is essential to creating and repairing economies, drawing up ideas for new technology, etc. It isn’t such the axe murderer we make it out to be. Math can be a superhero, if we learn the applications that make it one.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1007