Algebra II Strikes Back
Washington Post reporter Michael Alison Chandler is doing something many of us would rather not: reliving high school math. Every other day at 7:20 a.m., she joins 27 other Fairfax High School students for Algebra II. Chandler shares the results in x=why?, a blog designed to "bridge the cultural divide" between those who get it and those who don't. With national test scores, global competition and high-tech jobs making news, it's a conversation about how math education might translate to "the real world."
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Posted by: whiteyward | October 28, 2008 4:54 PM
The need for higher-math is exaggerated in my opinion. We should hire math experts to help us out with such issues the same way we do with lawyers. It's not economical to try to absorb something at age 15 that we hope to remember by the time we are 30.
I'm a computer programmer, and use basic algebra only about twice a year. I suspect a Math Industrial Complex is hyping it to sell textbooks. Schools are less and less focused on what people actually do at work, instead trying to compete with Korea on test scores in a "fake test race".
Posted by: personFoo | October 29, 2008 3:00 AM
Well I use algebra everyday. Albiet simple algebra, but algebra none the less. Any time you write a formula in an excel spreadsheet that contains a variable...you're using algebra...
I'm also living the frustration at home with a 14 year old HS Freshmen struggling to understand and to see the logic. I try to explain and do examples, but the light is not going on.
Posted by: oldstyl | October 29, 2008 8:32 AM
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I had to take High School Algebra twice because I got such a bad grade the first time. Then right after two years of Algebra I took my enlistment test. They made me a Quartermaster in the Navy, as a Navigator I lived that math in real world every day. But I wanted to be a Cook.!