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Showing posts from September, 2014

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Mathematical Thinking

It seems to be socially acceptable, even among educators, to admit that we don’t like math or are not good at it.  I know that none of us would say publicly that we are not good at reading.  We may say we don’t like reading but that does not mean that we can’t read or comprehend a text if it were part of our job.  So why is it all right to say “I hate math!” or “I am not a math person”? If math is problem solving, logical thinking, drawing conclusions, providing proofs, checking for reasonableness and justifying an answer, shouldn’t all of us learn to be good at it?   Can anyone go through life not needing these skills?   Can we afford to treat mathematical thinking as the domain of only a few, if we aim to have a democratic society where every member is contributing his or her share? We are lucky enough to live in an age where the computational part of math can be done using machines, much faster and more accurate.   Machines can also remember ...