Thousands of American high-school students on Tuesday will take the Advanced Placement calculus exam. Many are probably dreading it, perhaps seeing the test as an attempt to show off skills they will never use. What if they’re right?There's nothing new in these articles. It's always "most people don't need calculus, statistics would be better." Sigh. Can't they even be original?
I started thinking about this recently when my 14-year-old daughter was doing her pre-calculus homework. I couldn’t help wondering: Is this the best direction for children her age? Students need skills to thrive in the 21st-century workplace, and I’m not convinced calculus is high on that list. Sure, calculus is essential for some careers, particularly in physics and engineering. But few eighth-graders are set on those fields.
It’s clear, on the other hand, that the American economy has entered a new age of data. Workers increasingly must analyze reams of numbers to improve products, increase sales or cut costs. Maybe high schools should spend more time on subjects like statistics and probability.
I love statistics. I teach statistics. I'd love to have even more students learning statistics. But I'm not going to denigrate the study of calculus just to inflate statistics enrollment. They're both important courses, and they teach different skills and different ways of thinking. One isn't "better" than the other. One is more practical, at least for the "common person", but that isn't enough of a reason to diminish the study of calculus.
6 comments:
Apparently, California has decided that no one needs calc. From 59% taking Algebra in 8th grade--with the opportunity of high school calc--to 19% in just 3 years. From blacks accelerating gains rapidly, to a complete crash and burn in 3 years
Nothing in this article will surprise a math teacher in CA, but it is still extremely depressing to see the numbers:
California’s Common Core Mistake by Williamson M. Evers, Ze’ev Wurman
>> But with the Common Core standards, this progress began to stall. Common Core expects Algebra I in the ninth grade. That threw a monkey wrench in California’s longstanding effort introducing the math class to students earlier. As seen in the chart below, in the four years under Common Core, the number of eighth graders taking Algebra I in California dropped precipitously to 19 percent in 2017, taking California back to where it was around 1999, when early algebra taking was the privilege of the elite. And while all demographic groups lost ground, the loss for Latino and African American students was much deeper than for white and Asian Americans. <<
"One is more practical, at least for the "common person", but that isn't enough of a reason to diminish the study of calculus."
Yes it is, in a resource-limited world. You are confusing "better/worse" with "good/bad."
Calculus is great and was always my favorite subject. I got a 5 on the BC exam, way back when. But if you are not going to proceed in advanced math (and let's face it, most folks are not) then you generally would be BETTER off taking statistics. Calculus, on average, should be diminished in RELATIVE stature.
I'm an engineer; I almost had enough math in college to get a minor in math. One semester of analytical geometry; three semesters of calculus; three semesters of differential equations (half ordinary, half partial); one semester of numerical methods that was about 90% linear algebra; one semester advanced analysis (tensor calculus and calculus of variations). All but two semesters were required for my degree.
But I didn't have one second of calc (of physics, for that matter) in high school - my mid-south-central-west state was mostly rural, and it was common for high schools to not have calc. The highest math mine had was trig. The only downside I can think of is that people like me, who wanted to go into engineering or the hard sciences, would have to take one more semester of math in college because we hadn't had the equivalent of Calc 1 in high school.
I really enjoyed all the math classes I took, but I still think that calc in high school is a waste for the vast majority of students. Of course, I'm not convinced that Algebra 2 and trig are useful for most high school students either; I suspect that most would be better off taking Alg1, Geometry, and then some practical Prob&Stats and what they used to call Consumer Math. I agree with the poster that high school student seat time is a limited resource and calc isn't the top priority.
It may not be the top priority, but I can't understand why anyone would denigrate its teaching. As I said, calc and stats require two very different ways of thinking, both good. Stats might be more practical than calculus for most, but that's only a good argument if you have a very narrow belief in the purpose of education.
BTW, my high school didn't offer calculus, either. But as seniors, 6 of us had outgrown our school's math offerings and had to attend the nearby community college in order to take calculus.
No one is forced to take calculus in high school. The issue is what to do with compelled students who are too young to go away to college, don't live near a college that has appropriate academics, find high school academics lite, and don't have any interest in taking art, child care, or nutrition courses to fill their schedules.
Stats didn't fly here - families who aren't interested in academics aren't interested in any nonrequired math class. Families who are interested in college prep have no interest in a stats course that is stretched out over a year and only offers what used to be offered in Algebra 2 -- they can do that over the summer, quite cheaply. Calc is offered here..and yes, because Calc threatens the gpa, few take it....fleeing to art instead.
I didn’t read the linked article, but the excerpt doesn’t come across to me as denigrating the teaching of calculus; I read it as more along the lines of, in the author’s opinion, calculus being much less useful to many (if not most) high schoolers than probability and statistics would be. I guess I don’t think that qualifies as trying to “denigrate the study of calculus just to inflate statistics enrollment”.
That said, in my previous comment, I didn’t call out the excerpt’s author for the ridiculous “Workers increasingly must analyze reams of numbers to improve products, increase sales or cut costs” comment. I seriously doubt that a high school stats class is going to prepare anybody for a major multivariate regression analysis. A decent Econ class is what the excerpt’s author is calling for.
I guess my poorly-articulated point is that IMO, high schools should offer calculus (and stats!) if feasible, because the number of students who will benefit is significant, and I’m in general a fan of the California 1997 standards that you discussed a week or two ago, and wish that my home state in the ‘70s had implemented such standards; however, I also think that a majority of high schoolers would benefit more from a year of critical thinking and logic class than either calculus or stats. And I do think that life skills like critical thinking are things that high schools should be teaching as part of the required curriculum.
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