Math is memorizing and performing algorithms. So many adults looked at the common core math curriculum and said teachers aren’t teaching math anymore because they didn’t see their favorite long division algorithm taught, but memorizing and performing any particular algorithm is not what is important about learning math. Math is about taking axioms and seeing what you can build with them.
For me it was estimation that unlocked the magic of mathematics. What’s the fastest way you can get close enough to the correct answer that the innaccuracy doesn’t matter?
For example, in salary negotions if you need to convert between hourly and annual salary take the annual value, drop 3 zeros and divide in two and you have the hourly. Or in reverse, take the hourly, multiply by 2 and add 3 zeros for the annual. It gets you close enough that you can know you’re talking about for salary negotiations, budgeting, etc. and you can let the computer calculate out the exact conversion for payroll and tax withholding purposes
The word you’re missing is “arithmetic”. For most people “math(s)” and “arithmetic” are the same thing, when the latter is only the commonly encountered part of the former.
And for many of those people, algorithms are the only way they can use arithmetic to reach a goal because the intuition isn’t there otherwise.
I say this in full knowledge that even though I’m pretty good at arithmetic, much of the intuition I have now took me years after leaving school, and sometimes for more advanced things it’s still not there.
For example, on a good day I can complete the square, and I understand the geometric intuition, but most of the time I’m just going to plug and chug with the quadratic formula.
Math is memorizing and performing algorithms. So many adults looked at the common core math curriculum and said teachers aren’t teaching math anymore because they didn’t see their favorite long division algorithm taught, but memorizing and performing any particular algorithm is not what is important about learning math. Math is about taking axioms and seeing what you can build with them.
For me it was estimation that unlocked the magic of mathematics. What’s the fastest way you can get close enough to the correct answer that the innaccuracy doesn’t matter?
For example, in salary negotions if you need to convert between hourly and annual salary take the annual value, drop 3 zeros and divide in two and you have the hourly. Or in reverse, take the hourly, multiply by 2 and add 3 zeros for the annual. It gets you close enough that you can know you’re talking about for salary negotiations, budgeting, etc. and you can let the computer calculate out the exact conversion for payroll and tax withholding purposes
The word you’re missing is “arithmetic”. For most people “math(s)” and “arithmetic” are the same thing, when the latter is only the commonly encountered part of the former.
And for many of those people, algorithms are the only way they can use arithmetic to reach a goal because the intuition isn’t there otherwise.
I say this in full knowledge that even though I’m pretty good at arithmetic, much of the intuition I have now took me years after leaving school, and sometimes for more advanced things it’s still not there.
For example, on a good day I can complete the square, and I understand the geometric intuition, but most of the time I’m just going to plug and chug with the quadratic formula.
Common core got a really bad rap because of the poor implementations by companies like Pearson. But the actual curricula are very good.
Pure maths that was taught over 5 years in the 18th century in university is now taught in 3 years in high school with several other subjects.
So material is stripped down into small pieces and learnt by heart completely out of context- it is basically just learning algorithms.