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Comment by ary | Hacker News Reader

The author seems to be completely blind to the underlying issue. Lack of numeracy, much less advanced numeracy, in the general population makes it difficult to communicate about complex topics.

Communication with the general population is key.

You don't "use" it because there isn't demand for its use. The advances we dream about in the sciences are retarded by a widespread lack of understanding regarding how those advances are made, how long they might take, what they cost, and what costs would be offset by their achievement.

If anything needs to change it's the teaching of mathematics primarily as a language to describe everyday life more accurately. The question every grade school child asks, "why do I need this", requires an irrefutable answer that doesn't need several years worth of prerequisite knowledge. Then we need to get on with improving our civilization.

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> If anything needs to change it's the teaching of mathematics primarily as a language to describe everyday life more accurately. The question every grade school child asks, "why do I need this", requires an irrefutable answer that doesn't need several years worth of prerequisite knowledge. Then we need to get on with improving our civilization.

This. This right here.

You can tell kids that math is super-important but they're just going to look at all the barely-numerate adults in their lives who seem to be doing just fine without it, and at all the nothing they encounter in their own lives that seems to call for much more than basic arithmetic, and decide you're a liar or some kind of weirdo, like the dude who's super into model trains and keeps telling them how fun it is (yeah, sure buddy, I bet it is)

Reading doesn't need to be sold. It's useful everywhere, constantly, and you don't need to look for uses. It's even very useful for stuff that kids really want to do, like playing video games. You don't do 13 years of it and then find that almost the only part you ever use is the alphabet, and wonder why all those reading nuts wasted so much of your time with it and why some other lunatics are telling you that now you still have to do even more to get a college degree.

For most kids, math needs to be sold to them. And that's not happening.

Part of the reason for this is that we are a people of stories, and math doesn't tell a very compelling story, at least not right away.

That could perhaps be changed though.

Reading gives us compelling stories right away.

I will argue that you don't even need real world application. What I do find really important is motivation of a problem.

Before even talking about math, teachers just need to explain where the problem came from, who was thinking about it and why (if it's known specifically, like cardano's 3rd degree polynomials, even better).

If there's one thing that gets me (and by my own observation, the high school students I tutored) motivated, it's this by far.

Agreed, the motivation doesn't necessarily have to be an application, though that's probably one area worth emphasizing way more than it currently is, especially in secondary education—lower elementary, in particular, doesn't really have to struggle to communicate applications because counting and basic arithmetic are easy to find uses for.

Mathematics is the language in which Nature writes it autobiography.

Then maybe, past the very basics, it should mostly be taught alongside science, at least for the vast majority of students.

Not a flippant suggestion—I actually think that might improve the value most students get out of their later math classes. Might even make "I hate math" a less common sentiment.

> the teaching of mathematics primarily as a language to describe everyday life more accurately

What does this refer to? And how would it affect physical sciences and biology?

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