The Damnable Lie of Learning Math

I wrote last month's essay on math literacy because I was killing two birds with one stone. It was part of a writing assignment I had for a class I was taking. I was hoping to open it for suggestions or possible definitions about what being literate in math means. Some took it the wrong way. They believe that because they did not know how to do everything I listed, that I was calling them "stupid".  If any one took offense, sorry. But, let us get one thing straight, stupidity and illiteracy are very different: Illiteracy can be fixed, stupidity cannot. I would never call anyone stupid.

At the core of people taking offense at the whole idea of math literacy is a false belief which is held by practically everyone who thinks of themselves as bad at math. "I am bad at math," they say, "because I am incapable of learning math, I have a math learning disability." This is a lie, a damnable lie.

The destruction of this lie is a central theme of this whole website. Besides the notion that many of societies problems and misunderstandings can be traced to math errors, the other central theme is that everybody can learn to be good at math. Unfortunately, until now, I do not think I have ever stated this theme explicitly, nor have I managed to explore this idea in depth. That will soon change.

Blame Your Teachers

People blame themselves for their lack of mathematical skills. While I generally dislike when people blame others for their own faults, I will make an exception here. If you are bad at math, do not blame your brain, blame your teachers.

No really, blame your teachers.

Now I am not saying all teachers are bad, there are some great ones out there, especially the one that throw out the latest trendy theories about how to teach math and instead just do what it takes to teach math correctly. They do not deserve any blame, and they will not get any because their students are usually good at math. I made the mistake of being a high school math teacher. By high school, it is almost too late. High school students that are not good at math have already got the "I am incapable of learning math" lie ingrained already, thanks to their grade school teachers, most of whom hate math or are not very good at math themselves. Disabusing students of these ideas takes time, time high school teachers do not have.

Yes, I am over generalizing a bit, a fallacy of composition error. Schools and teachers are not entirely to blame for their students bad attitude for math. But, there is more truth in the above paragraphs than overstatements. I have written about all this before in my Math Education essay, and my School Sucks series.

Here's my point: If you are one of those people who are convinced you can never learn math because your brain is defective, think again. Your brain is not defective! What you need is a change of attitude, and if blaming your old school teachers for your struggles with math can give you that change of attitude, then by all means do it. Your teachers won't mind.

P.S.: To all my former students who still struggle with math, blame me. Mea Culpa.

Shifting Gears

I am always trying to come up with new ideas for this column. I am starting to run out of topics that can be covered in one part. I have some ideas for some multiple part essays that I have been sitting on because I hate writing about the same things. I like variety.

But, with this essay I am going to have to shift gears for the next few months to focus on this theme that everyone can learn math. I am going to argue my thesis by writing those multipart essays I have been putting off, because they fit the theme well. They are:

• What Is Mathematics? - A series of book reviews that attempt to answer the philosophical poser. Some of the books to be reviewed are Pi in the Sky by John D. Barrow, which takes a purely philosophical approach to the nature of mathematics and concludes math may actually be religious in nature; What Counts by Brian Butterworth which looks at the creation and learning aspects of math from a psychological point of view and concludes our brains are hard wired for basic math skills; The Math Gene by Keith Devlin which is similarly themed to What Counts but explores more from a biological point of view and speculates on why we can't do math as well as we speak. The joint theme of all of these books is that math is not as difficult as we believe. It is actually simple, too simple. So simple we have a difficult time giving it meaning and thus understanding.
• The Mathematics of Games - As of April 2001, Scientific American has dropped its Mathematical Games column which was to me a monthly reminder of the joy that can be found in Math. I wanted to write a multipart essay on Game Theory. Games we love to play, from tic-tac-toe to baseball, have an amazing amount of mathematics behind them. If we all love to play games, and there is a direct correlation between playing games and doing math, then how come we hate doing math so much?
• Math Without Numbers - I also wanted to do a series on discrete math topics, topics that do not rely on numbers or arithmetic. In fact the vast majority of mathematics falls under this category. What is amazing is that people find discrete topics to be amazingly simple to learn and understand. Could it be that our difficulty with learning new topics in math has to do with an aversion to numbers? If handling numbers is something we do instinctively, as the previously mentioned authors conclude, where does this aversion to numbers come from? Could it be something we are taught at an early age? Hmmm...

Unless there is an outrageous math foible in the news, these are the topics I will be covering over the next few months. I hope to eventually conclude with some ideas for adults to overcome their fears and self doubts and become math literate, as well as some possible reforms for education. The latter I am wary about. Every good idea for math education reform gets horribly distorted when translated into education lingo and then the parts that are too boring (usually the important parts) get thrown out.

Yes, there are people out there with genuine learning disabilities incapable of learning math. But, if you can successfully read this article, you are almost certainly not one of them. Most people who are bad at math, no matter what the age, can become good at math with the right attitude and possibly the right teacher.

I'll stop here, because I have just assigned myself a lot of reading and writing to do.

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