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Is Mathematics Useful?

Why did we teach mathematics in schools and forget it and did not use it?

By Eliza CastanedaPublished 2 years ago 8 min read
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Is Mathematics Useful?
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Mathematics was - and still is - the most difficult subject for students, compared to other subjects, and it's not just word of mouth. Surveys show that at least 89% of parents around the world say that math is the hardest subject they teach their children. Indeed, you rarely come across a student who loves mathematics. Today, a common question revolves in the minds of university graduates, after all the trouble of understanding and memorizing, the sequences and the laws of integration and differentiation, and the algorithms of division and equilateral triangles... What did we gain from studying mathematics? Why not stop at addition, subtraction, division and multiplication? The four basic operations .. Have our years of mathematics been wasted and we did not use them? So why are we taught all that math in schools?

Is mathematics useful or not?

Recent surveys have indicated that mathematics is used almost exclusively for simple arithmetic, and that very few people use the fractions, trigonometry, or multiple division algorithms we learned in school. Even more advanced arithmetic mechanisms, such as algebra and calculus, are the least used!

Before we forget, I want to point out to readers that we are not talking here about the impact of technology on people's minds, and that it made some calculate 2 + 2 on the calculator, no, we are talking about a point further than that. Maybe you can calculus a certain value on a calculator, but the main idea here is that no one in their life's work ever gets to think of a differential and integral process to enter into their calculator!

In a 2003 survey of nearly 18,000 randomly selected Americans, they were each given a set of questions that included mathematical problems in the situations they might encounter. Of course, the survey authors created a scale to rate Americans' abilities as follows: the index of skills below basic involved adding two numbers to complete a bank deposit number, and the average ability to calculate the cost of a sandwich and a salad from a price list placed in front of it. The professional was able to calculate an employee's share of health insurance costs for a year, using a table showing the difference in the employee's monthly cost according to income and family size.

Surprisingly, only 13% of the total number indicated that they were professional, while more than half of them were either mediocre or skilled below the basic level.

In order to judge something as useless, we must look at its merits, and compare what he gave us, and what he wasted our time with. Do we use mathematics effectively in our daily lives? How do we benefit from what we have learned? Unfortunately, real-world survey evidence indicates that most people do not use mathematics in everyday life, of course beyond those simple operations needed, addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.

Note with me, dear reader: I have said that the evidence shows that “people do not use mathematics,” not that mathematics is not usable. This indicates that the main problem does not lie in mathematics, but in its users!

Yes, this is true, and this is supported by anthropological studies conducted on people, and the observation that most of them fail to use the higher levels of mathematical operations, based on the survey conducted by anthropologist Jean Lave, which investigated the volume of mathematical operations that people use Daily, and as a result of her study, it was found that the problem does not lie in mathematics as much as it lies with its learners. She found that people often perform reasonable and good in the problems of real-life situations, while their performance decreases and their ability decreases when expressing the same problems in the form of a mathematical test.

And indeed, if I told you: Give me two-thirds (⅔) three-quarters (¾) of a cup of milk, most likely it would not occur to a large percentage of you to perform a simple arithmetic operation of multiplying those fractions, which will give the result that I want half a cup of milk (½) Rather, people will often add three-fourths of a glass of milk and cut two-thirds of the amount physically realistic, i.e. purely experimental.

So, mathematics is not useless, and it is not wasted, because some apply it in daily life, or in their profession that depends on mathematics, but apparently, most people do not make use of it, despite spending years learning it. What's the reason?

Why do people learn math and fail to remember it and use it in the future?

There are three main reasons why people neglect math:

Education failure: some people don't learn math enough to benefit from it

The reason is realistic, and there is plenty of evidence to support this argument. You will automatically turn to alternative easy solutions when you are faced with a math problem that needs arithmetic. If it is difficult for you to solve an arithmetic problem to solve a real problem, you will find another way to solve the problem is research that does not rely on mathematics, as in the process of two-thirds three-quarters of a cup of milk. Handling that by hand, it's easier mentally!

When the education process takes place in the right way, in the right quantity and in the right way, a person will automatically find himself using what he has learned in mathematics to solve problems, because he learned mathematics in a way in which he understood that it is a solution to many problems, and not just arithmetic operations that must be memorized in order to obtain a good exam mark and an acceptable grade!

Not many people know how to translate real-world, everyday situations into mathematical problems

Yes, we learn all math in school, but we can't translate real problems into word formats that lead us to apply what we've learned in math to find a scientific solution. Studies have found that what students suffer most about this problem is algebra, and how to convert the verbal formula into useful equations, especially since the single word in any problem takes its place in the formula of the arithmetic problem of the problem, and takes a form in the solution.

The teacher’s method of delivering algebra lessons in particular stands as an obstacle to expanding the student’s thinking, especially since he rarely presents his students with verbal mathematical problems that are impossible to solve, so you see the student being satisfied with his previous knowledge and information, to provide solutions, he will assume that what his teacher dictates to him is nothing but a question Passing, he must solve it in order to move to a higher educational level.

Not everyone knows how to translate everyday situations into mathematical problems, but is satisfied with the mental thinking that is supported by daily experiences. For example: my girlfriend and I bought vegetables for 5,000 liras, and I told the seller that I would pay 25% of the value, and he looked at me with astonishment, while he was waiting for us to pay. I gave him 1250 and waited for my girlfriend to pay, but he rushed by saying: The account is 5000! I told him again that we would pay together, and here he understood that he had to wait for the rest of the account from my girlfriend.

He didn't understand what I meant to start with 25%, because he didn't know that 25% of 5,000 means 5000 * 25/100 which equals 1250.

This is a very simple example of the inability to translate speech into a mathematical form.

Simply put, mathematics is not a magic solution to all everyday problems!

Let's not exaggerate too much, math can't be a solving strategy for all of life's problems. In our previous example, you could actually get three-fourths two-thirds of a glass of milk, not counting. On the other hand, some argue its importance, and here comes our role to clarify the reality of this confusion.

Simply put, people who are good at math, and who can solve most of their problems with it, will see it as the best way to get answers to everyday problems, and those who are bad at it will try to exclude math from most of their diaries. And each of these two sections has an interpretation of his personal opinion regarding the other section:

Proponents of using mathematics argue that math haters fail to see the importance of its application in life, because they are unable to use it, while its critics argue that there is a clear bias on the other side in the issue of understanding and applying mathematics, and there is an exaggeration, they solve everything through mathematics even If they had other options, solutions would be easier. The interpretation here for both parties is the instinct of the human being, who tends to beautify and appreciate his knowledge, and reject knowledge that is not valued.

In my personal opinion, matters should not be exaggerated or detracted to a large degree, so that whoever wants to learn mathematics and understand it, use it, and let others go to solve their problems in other ways. You can not forget about mathematics and go on trying to manage your life mathematically, and you can not do that.

If you don't want to forget the math you learned, here are some options to make it easier to integrate it into your life:

More practice and practice: It is known that spending more time on doing something, over time, will make you more skilled in that thing. Therefore, you should start with the constant practice of academic sports subjects, and try to apply them in real life.

Attempting to explain situations and problems mathematically: Do not adopt mathematics as a subject that plays with symbols only, but try to transform everyday situations into arithmetic problems and ask for help in solving them and thinking about their merits.

Give yourself daily real-world challenges that need to use math: If you don't have real, everyday problems that require thinking and skill, you'll soon begin to forget what you're learning. For this reason, people who specialize in science, technology, mathematics, etc., retain interesting arithmetic skills, because they really need them in their diaries.

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About the Creator

Eliza Castaneda

Eliza Castaneda

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