I happened on this recent article about how Algebra for American students might need to be jettisoned. Here is the article:
Here is my response:
Very interesting article and discussion. The main problem in the article and in our discussion is a logic fallacy called an equivocation. Basically, people are using a word (in the case the word "education") to mean two different things. Without pulling them apart I do not think we can make much headway.
Here are the two meanings: "Education" can mean a foundation for independent thought in a free society. This is the old meaning, and the one that we use most often in the school I run (Veritas Academy). "Education" can also mean job training. This is the use that is getting more attention now. (Really, this word "education" is going to cause a lot of problems in the next few years because these two meanings are getting scrambled in discussions concerning college debt--terrifying segment on NPR this morning--and government funding of primary, secondary, and university level education.)
Let's start with what the article gets right. If you mean that there are many courses that we take in schools that do not end up being useful for our jobs, I would submit that this is correct...and always has been for people involved in schooling. This is because the old idea of education was that basic knowledge of many things was crucial if we were to have a functioning culture. This knowledge included common stories (like Beowulf and the Illiad and the Bible) and skills in math and science. It also included things like logic and rhetoric (or the skills of thinking and persuasion). In the past century, we have gotten rid of this old version of education and we have created schools that are really aiming at job readiness as an outcome. Sadly, we have left off the most crucial and necessary transferable skills (logic, analysis, and persuasion) to focus on content oriented fields that seem to imagine that all students are training to be people in fields of computation. We definitely need to unscramble our equivocation and give people a way to acquire job skills without paying (especially at the undergraduate level) for training that they do not need for a particular job (and accruing the debt associated with this).
Here is where the article is shortsighted. First, it imagines that specialization can occur at a level and age when it really should not. We should not be picking jobs and giving students functional and vocational education when they are in Middle School or even in their Freshman and Sophomore years. There are two reasons for this: students often change their minds and jobs are changing so quickly now that often the vocational training is obsolete when the student graduates. Second, it fails to recognize that plain historical and international data. Kids can learn Algebra. Poets can learn it. English majors They are in trouble if they do not learn Algebra and they are at the mercy of people who can do math like this:
$200 + x = $345 and
Your interest payment will be: $200,000 * 8.3% = monthly payment (or x)
Finally, this article whiffs on the importance of the keeping the old definition of education going in our society. I am not here arguing that all students need the old education (we call it a classical education). (In all fairness, I want more and more people to have it because dispersing the skills of logic and persuasion broadly keeps politicians honest or more honest). I am arguing that we are toast as a culture if some part of the culture does not receive and cherish these broad skills. Freedom and democracy have a history and to keep them healthy a certain level of education (in the old sense is mandatory!). The Federalist Papers were written for farmers in Upstate New York in the late 1700s. Today, most college students can't read them with profit. When this happens, tyranny is possible (and where it is possible it is inevitable).
Sorry for the length. Enjoyed the article.
