Refusing to reinvigorate our one size fits all, “assembly line” approach to American education, we are stuck using a model that does not prepare our students for an ever evolving and better educated “real world”. In specific reference to the courses that I teach, it is becoming evident that an increasing number of our graduating students are not adequately prepared for the rigor of college mathematics. Courses that would allow them to be pioneers of innovation in STEM fields, are out of reach. Instead they take remedial courses and come back to us demanding to know why high school did not prepare them as it was supposed to. Worse, the majority of our students, those who have no interest in pursuing STEM careers, are stuck in irrelevant courses that are not equipping them with any viable skills for the job markets they will enter.
The intense focus our American schools place on Mathematics for engineering, the all too common sequence of Algebra, Geometry, Pre-Calc and Calculus – however it may be named, packaged or integrated into itself, creates a divide between students who are thriving in math and students surviving through it. Other nations put a focus into critical thinking and practical applications of mathematics – France, for instance, heavily focuses on organization and management of data, aiming to develop a student’s ability to solve problems. This problem solving focus develops transfer knowledge that will be useful in any field a student enters. In contrast, our students are taught procedurally how to solve a multitude of specific problems, using often disparate skills. We place our students into situations where the vast majority of them will never use the math they learn because we are preparing them for courses that they will never take and jobs they do not want. We ultimately create a resentment for mathematics that develops from our student’s inability to see its usefulness in their daily lives. By embracing new techniques and updating our understanding of what mathematics education can look like in this country, will we be able to save the next generation of students from the pit of math-phobia that many find themselves in? By expanding our world view instead of flattening it, can we provide our students with a broad understanding and appreciation of mathematics as a tool for solving problems, wherever we may find them?
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Brandon DeJesusMath Archives
July 2019
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