I have no problem with the viewpoint that math instruction needs to improve, and that covering a lot of ground but only superficially is a bad idea. Plus all the standardized testing idiocy.
But I disagree with the “math should be an elective after grade 8” proposal. The point is not, as is suggested, to churn out a bunch of math majors. Math is the language of science, and people need to be math and scientifically literate — that’s why they should be taught math and science. If you don’t teach math, not teaching science necessarily follows. And there is no way to teach some science any way but superficially without math.
One could easily replace the math examples in that section with English and Shakespeare (or fill in your favorite novels), and much of it would read pretty much the same, and I don’t think that’s a selling point of the argument. The point of teaching English and Shakespeare is not because we expect all of our students to become literature majors in college. They take English because they have to be able to communicate effectively, and they study Shakespeare because culture is important, too. If people understood that math is a language, I think it would blunt some of these arguments. You don’t hear people arguing that little Timmy/Sally “isn’t wired for English” as an excuse for trying to get it out of the curriculum. Understanding math and science adds value to how one gives context to information and how one interacts with the world. It’s a necessary part of education.
1) Department of Education schooling is useless, kills inspiration and curiosity, is mind-numbingly tedious, makes no connections to anything, and is forgotten immediately after the test.
2) Diversity! Compulsory degradative egalitarianism demands pluralistic ignorance enforced by administrative soft despotism.
3) An advocate makes virtue of failure. The worse the cure the better the treatment – and the more that is required. Government subsidies issue from funding cultures of failure.
4) Those who can must never do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers. Those who can’t teach teachers manage teachers. Those who can’t manage teachers manage programs. Those who can’t manage programs dictate policy. Those who cannot dictate policy carry guns.
Social policy worships the lame, halt, dim-witted, and proven unable. Elitism insists the better is preferable to the worse. Uncle Al is an elitist.
‘And there is no way to teach some science any way but superficially without math.’
You might be surprised to realise how far it is possible to progress in the biological sciences with only a rudimentary understanding of Mathematics. For example, most molecular biologists are able to get by so long as they are sufficiently numerate to be able to calculate molar concentrations and to perform statistics. Granted, it is not possible to progress to research level in Chemistry or Physics without a more advanced understanding of Mathematics. I would support your overall message that Mathematics ought to be a major compulsory part of the curriculum at least until pupils leave High School. Personally I performed well at GCSE (A) but did not pursue Mathematics further. My relative ignorance is not something that I am proud of, although it does not seem to have held me back professionally. Just sometimes I wish that I could appreciate the workings of the cosmos or quantum Physics, but I am just not that bright. Mind you, the latter is a lot to ask of anyone 😉
Biology was what I had in mind when I qualified the statement. For physics, you are force to be superficial if you eschew the math.
I would argue that math illiteracy is one of the reason why progress in quantitative biology is slow and riddled with flawed papers. There is software that helps you by giving you values at the push of a button, but troubleshooting is often becoming an issue. If one conducts well-established experiments using tried and true methodologies, one can get away in bio with little math.
However, once you get to cutting-edge research, it is quickly apparent that either one has to find collaborators, or invest a lot of time in catching up on basic maths skills (well, at minimum calculus and stochastic). I regularly wish for a better foundation in my field of work.
I am a public school teacher. My view of the goal of a science class is to study and come to know the universe in which we live. Math is the language of science. Math uses symbols to communicate/describe our knowledge of science. Example: “One and one is two” in science translates to 1 1 = 2.
Einstein was almost a math dropout. He used the idea that “Mass is Energy and Energy is Mass, neither can be created nor destroyed only changed in form to develop his Theory of Relativity. He did this as a mind experiment. To translate it into Math language he quantified E=M by multiplying it by the speed of light squared. Thus giving us E=MC^2.