The X-Squared Files: The Truth About Math

Math is everywhere. You have been told that. Engineering, economics, medicine and technology. We could stop right there and that would be ample proof for the importance of math. But, “everywhere” means seeping into all aspects of our lives — from the macro essential to the micro whimsical. Just recently there was news that mathematicians in England and Ireland had come up with the mathematics of the perfect cup of coffee.

During an episode of the show NUMB3RS, which ran for six seasons from 2005 to 2010, David Krumholtz’s character Charlie explained the mathematics of…baking the perfect cookie. The crux of the mathematical argument is a branch of mathematics called differential geometry. You can see that his left sleeve is nicely covering up 50% of the word “cookie”.

So far this all sounds like singing to the choir. Yeah, yeah…who doesn’t know that Math is Everywhere. Even if you hated or were not that spectacular at math, society has constantly reminded you through lecturing and innovation about its central importance in our world…

The problem is that the official guardian of mathematics for society — education — is far from being an illuminating tour guide. If anything, they are those cruel zoo keepers you hear about from time to time. Now before I get a tsunami of comments about all the wonderful teachers and classrooms out there, let us understand that I am talking about the general historical narrative of failing math education for the last 50 years. I mean you can stop reading this story right now and simply Google “math sucks”, “hate math”, “kill math”, etc. You get the picture. There is a whole cottage industry of people making a living off this anger in the form of t-shirts, mugs and buttons.

So yes, mathematics in school is locked up in cages, often emaciated. Rules, procedures, formulas, algorithms, assessment like its cocaine, and following strict curriculum guidelines with all the fun of an orthodox church is the gruel that is fed as mathematics. It’s not even math anymore. It’s like some some unrecognizable synthetic polymer.

Math sure is everywhere — except the place where you are supposed to find it…in the classroom.

If school mathematics was a food item, it would have to be a soda cracker. Bland and low in nutritional value. I mean, as much as I would like to say its like junk food, that would be wholly incorrect — kids love junk food!

If school mathematics was a car, it would be bicycle, from the 19th century, with a flat tire. I wish I was being funny, but when the bulk of the mathematics that kids learn in classrooms hasn’t been updated in 1000 years, the time lines of the car revolution leave you getting a bike. I was going to say skateboards, but skateboards are cool and involve some amount of risk. Sorry, math, but I am going to put training wheels on your bike, a basket in the front with a novelty horn.

I could play this analogy game for a while, but I would rather not go on anti-depressants. Suffice it to say, the truth about mathematics — where it glistens and where it dulls — has been around for a long time. We see the pink elephant in schools. We just feed it peanuts. We see the Emperor’s New Clothes in buildings of education. We just shrug our collective shoulders at the nakedness.

Everything that could possibly be done wrong in teaching mathematics is done extraordinarily fantastico — yes, grammatically wrong but it felt fantastico writing it. It’s like there was this evil checklist to make mathematics the most hated entity in the learning universe. Boring topics. Check. Teach success not failure(the true narrative of math). Check. Give students and teachers little time for depth and exploration. Check. Give buckets of needless quizzes and tests. Check. Give homework to cement the hatred. Check. Reduce fractions. Check. Long division. Check. SOCHATOA. Check. Cross-Multiplication. Make math as boring as humanely possible. Check.

Prozac. Check.

I have a lot of math textbooks. If you want to examine the decline of the Western Civilization with regards to math, just start skimming through books from each decade and see the the quality of mathematical writing and questioning decreases markedly. I have a book that has a page where the factoring of polynomials with a coefficient that is not “1” is discussed. So? Well, they don’t use any algorithm like “decomposition” — which sounds like decomposing, which sounds like you know what. They simply encourage students to use their intuition about numbers and multiplication. This book was written in 1954. It is also a Grade 9 book. Just read the forewords of textbooks from the 50’s to now. That will give you a glimpse into the decline of mathematics. I have textbooks from the late 60’s that wax poetic about the beauty and symmetry of math. Textbooks today sing praises about practicality and efficiency of math. Joy. Love. Happiness. Beauty. These either died long time ago in math classrooms or never existed in the first place.

Math’s Area 51 is only the size of our planet and our imagination. Higher mathematical intelligence and design is everywhere. The irony is that Hangar that lies in desolation and isolation symbolizes exactly where math education exists right now — in desolation and isolation.

Paul Lockhart tore math education a new one over a decade ago in his blistering essay, A Mathematician’s Lament. Dan Meyer, math’s rock star and champion for its freedom, did a seminal TED Talk called “Math Class Needs A Makeover” back in 2010. Just this past year, Jason Wilkes released a book called Burn Math Class: Reinvent Mathematics For Yourself.

The truth about math? It’s not where most children are supposed to find it — in the classroom. My own kids would probably have developed math anxiety by now if they didn’t have me as their father. I just gave them a huge dose of number theory and puzzles to insulate them as best as possible from the numbing insanity of school math.

Trust No One. Keep looking for Cigarette Smoking Man. He will also have a coffee and a cookie for you.