It’s more than one line, I realize, but it makes a good point.
I took Algebra 2 twice in high school, first in my freshman year because I had taken Algebra 1 in grammar school, then again in my junior year because they had no idea what else to do with me: Math AB and BC were for seniors and I wasn’t a senior, they didn’t want me to just sit around all year without taking a math class because I would have “gone rusty,” and they didn’t have any other alternatives for me. Statistics would have been nice, but a course like the one described here would have been ideal. (We did get a quarter’s worth of Consumer Education: the teacher was a real joker, and I got an A in it despite not learning a damn thing.) I mean, it was fun learning all about logarithms, trigonometry, and matrices, but they aren’t things I’ve needed since 1976 (the last time I took a class that required any of these things). A class in résumé writing, on the other hand, would have really helped. Part of the reason I was hesitant to change jobs was because I hated writing one.
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Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I think we still need algebra 2. (I hate math, but still.) But I 100% think that we do need more ‘life skills’ education as the meme suggests.
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I think if kids are going on to college (especially if they plan on going into one of the STEM fields) they need to have Algebra II. It’s probably not a bad idea if they aren’t going on to college. If we had to drop something from the curriculum to teach life skills, Algebra II is a good candidate, although I would guess they could find somewhere to fit it into. There are so many things that no one teaches them (unless their parents are on the ball with it) and they have to learn on their own, things like reading contracts and end-user agreements, handling credit cards, picking a career, etc.
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I feel there should be a balance. Algebra, Trig and Calculus offer mind-solving challenges while subjects in necessary life skills are just as important.
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It would be nice if we could do both at once, wouldn’t it? I love that cartoon where Sally from “Peanuts” is looking at a page and says “only in math class can you buy 50 watermelons and no one asks what the hell is the matter with you.”
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🙂
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OMG this is my pet peeve! I have two kids who were not interested in college AT ALL and it would have been so helpful had they learned life skills instead of taking college prep courses. Such a waste of time and money in my opinion. Home Ec, woodshop, auto mechanics, etc. should all still be electives in high school!!
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I went to a public high school for 3 out of the 4 years, and in addition to the academic classes they offered shop (metal, wood etc.), auto mechanics, home ec, and mechanical drawing. Roughly 1/3 of my graduating class had no plans on further education after graduation; they were off to the working world.
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I am heavily influenced by my father in my thinking, but I think mathematics subjects are important for problem solving training useful in a vast variety of life’s challenges. My problem has always been with “dead” languages like Latin or Greek: take them if you want, but don’t be required to take them. I am all for more career training in school.
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Teaching practical life skills and also showing how subjects like English and Algebra ARE relevant to real life – definitely should be part of the school curriculum!
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That probably should be part of it as well, although I wonder why it isn’t part of those classes to begin with.
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John, this reminds me of the time our son-in-law purchased a contractor’s calculator at a local home improvement store. Our daughter is a chemical engineer and they were reading the instruction manual and playing with the calculator when she discovered one of the embedded formulas was wrong. Now see, had that been me, I would never have figured that out.
I do agree about the need for financial basics in high school. I watch my grandchildren put in long hours for after-school sports activities, weekend meets, etc. I am all for sports, but somehow we have become so focused on other things we cannot see what our kids are missing.
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Maybe the exorbitant cost of a bachelor’s degree and the massive debt a kid will have to deal with when it’s completed will bring us back to reality. A class in life basics, which would include a lot of financial education, could be a good start. Academics and sports are a big part of high school, but ultimately a high school diploma is some certification that the graduates are prepared to take their places in the adult world. That’s what we’ve lost sight of.
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I hope so, John. We have truly lost sight.
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I so agree with you and that quote! I am a Credit Counsellor and so many people have no clue about basic budgeting plus how banks work, interest rates and buying a house. Right now, houses here are skyrocketing and young people are buying them along with cars and using credit freely. All that has to happen is for one to get sick, lose a job or have a child! I think algebra, trigonometry etc…should still be offered because they are valuable for kids who continue on in a field where that is needed but it should be an elective
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Exactly. The vast majority of us will spend more of our lives dealing with banks and credit card companies than with sines and cosines. I never learned about mortgages or revolving credit until I actually dealt with them. Certainly there are some who need the advanced math concepts, particularly those who want to become engineers or to concentrate in the “hard” sciences (biology, chemistry, physics etc.), but that’s maybe 10-20% of the high school population. A certain percentage of high school students will never go to college, going on to trade school, into certification programs, or get jobs and work for a living (I knew a guy who started working on a beer truck the day after graduation, and as far as I know is still working on a beer truck). They get forgotten as more attention is paid to preparing kids for college. There used to be different tracks in high school (college prep, general, etc), and I think we need to get back to that.
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At some point, John, I have to explain how logarithms saved my college career. I have a draft of that post, but it still has too much math in it to post.
I do think that we should teach kids necessary life skills, especially when spending money has become so easy, and making money remains a challenge. However, I disagree with the quote (I saw it when it was posted earlier). Those math classes teach us that complex problems can be solved. What people do least well, is solving problems. Just my opinion…
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