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Are We Creating Mathematical Illiterates?

Mathematics is no more the manipulation of symbols than music is the manipulation of notes.

Adam Hrankowski, ADHD
Published in
4 min readJan 5, 2020

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You’ve likely seen the posts on Facebook or elsewhere. “Well, another day has passed and I still haven’t used Algebra once!” A Google search of this sentence turns up many images, including those of T-shirts and at least one tote bag. Go ahead. Copy and paste the image below. You’ll likely garner several LOL’s.

But is this a statement you really want to make? How would you feel about posting: “Well, another day has passed and I still haven’t read anything”? We frequently hear, “I’m not a math person.” Do we ever hear, “I’m not a language person.” We’re a culture that values literacy — at least being able to decode words from a page. However, mathematical inability seems to be something to be proud of, or at least to post to Facebook or on a tote bag.

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MathAdam
MathAdam

Published in MathAdam

Maths is like finger-painting. Messy and beautiful.

Adam Hrankowski, ADHD
Adam Hrankowski, ADHD

Written by Adam Hrankowski, ADHD

Canadian math guy, experimenting with fiction. Find my new scifi/fantasy serial here: https://unaccompaniedminor.substack.com/

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