Say Goodbye To X+Y: Should Community Colleges Abolish Algebra? - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=wauterboi;52497004]For me, math in school has always been the worst. And I'm not convinced I hate math itself, because I use it all the time with programming in private. The difference is the excessive and arbitrary need to memorize. In one semester of college-level trigonometry, I recall having to memorize the cross product, the dot product, other functions pertaining to vectors, the unit circle, the names of shapes of polar graphs, formulas for converting from rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates and back... why? Personally, I think a mind on mathematics is understanding how to use these functions, why these functions work, and what to expect from them. Instead, much of math all throughout high-school and towards the beginning of college was memorizing formulas. This is in contrast to programming, which I find to be incredibly similar. For programming, I generally have references open and build up my knowledge of what I can do and why it works as opposed to maintaining a hellish focus on specific ordering of parameters. I know I can replace a string in JavaScript and I know what it's doing internally, and I don't see harm in checking out the [url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/replace]API[/url] if I don't remember. Often times, memorization ends up happening as a result of routine, which makes me feel like memorization isn't important. So, when it comes to math, why do I need to memorize the formula for a parabola? If I know how to use it, I know the relationships between the variables, and I know the necessary variables, why is it important for me to know y = (x - h)^2 + k and why is it a mortal error to ever refer to a textbook or notes during a test? If the fear is that people can just going without knowing anything that has to do with math, I guarantee that someone who hasn't worked with complex formulas enough to even approach some of the complicated calculus questions I've come across will run out of time before achieving an acceptable score. It just doesn't happen. Calculus is where math has been far more focused on why formulas work as opposed to simply plugging stuff in, and that's what math should be like from the very beginning, or at least the start of high school![/QUOTE] my teachers always emphasized that understanding where formulas come from and being able to derive them and use them effectively was much more important than memorizing. sucks that that's not the case for everyone. memorizing, however, is still super duper handy when you're under time pressure and need to recall something quick. re-deriving things on exams is usually slower than being able to recall it instantly. this is also important if you're working in a field where math is used daily, i'd think. recalling simple things from memory is much faster than having to look at references every 10 minutes.

"Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads." Im surprised how no one has pointed the obvious racism here. Or am I misintrepreting this? Besides, asian kids destroyed us in math every time.

If so many people in community colleges are failing algebra then that is a deeper-running problem with the education system, not algebra.

Never was good at math, I'm still horrible at it, and trying to learn it gives me something akin to anxiety. It just legitimately does not make any sense to me, I honestly can't wrap my head around it very well past like, basic geometry. Having to know all the secret rules and formulas, going through all the time to solve the problem and looking down at the choices and not seeing what you got for an answer there, or having the calculator vomit some random numbers with a decimal point in the middle when all of your answers are whole numbers, turning setences into numbers that are in the right order and going all about it the exact right way.... Christ, makes me nervous just thinking about it again, honestly. :v: Could never get it, mostly still can't. I was put in a bunch of classes for kids who were shit at math, never helped. It was just an extra period of staring at questions I couldn't even begin to solve. It's like the numbers just get jumbled up and crash together in my head until its one giant mess that's giving me a headache. Still, that's not a reason to get rid of it. I've ran into situations where I can use a little of what I remember.

[QUOTE=spazthemax;52497083]"Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads." Im surprised how no one has pointed the obvious racism here. Or am I misintrepreting this? Besides, asian kids destroyed us in math every time.[/QUOTE] i don't believe they're saying that students of color are inherently worse at algebra than white kids man. i think they're implying that most students who struggle with algebra happen to be non-white and that can be explained by a variety of reasons other than race but it's not expanded upon in this article.

So they've acknowledge a flaw in the system, but rather than seeking how to repair said flaw they're going to throw it out because they can't accept that they've failed/will lose funding because they suck at their jobs. Seems legit. [QUOTE=wauterboi;52497004]For me, math in school has always been the worst. And I'm not convinced I hate math itself, because I use it all the time with programming in private. The difference is the excessive and arbitrary need to memorize. In one semester of college-level trigonometry, I recall having to memorize the cross product, the dot product, other functions pertaining to vectors, the unit circle, the names of shapes of polar graphs, formulas for converting from rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates and back... why? Personally, I think a mind on mathematics is understanding how to use these functions, why these functions work, and what to expect from them. Instead, much of math all throughout high-school and towards the beginning of college was memorizing formulas.[/quote] Because memorization is essential for tests, which they grade everyone on as though it were some infallible metric, and those whose students don't do well on tests don't get funding because they're not performing according to their limited metrics. Public school anymore (hell, even when I was still in school during the 90's) is a place where they teach you trivia instead of ideas. Hell, I graduated high school with a <2.5 GPA, but I got $10,000 in scholarships anyway purely due to my high SAT/ACT scores, because damned if the public education system didn't teach me how to fill in the right bubble! And as such, I utterly failed in college, where I tried to pursue electronics engineering, because my brain was still trained on how to memorize trivia instead of conceptualizing ideas, which crippled the fuck out of me and resulted in me flunking out after only a year. I could memorize formulas all day long, sure, but I lacked the comprehension of said formulas to such a degree that I could apply them to any problems other than the ones that explicitly matched the formatting of the examples they showed us. I don't know what they changed about the system, either, because I used to be really fucking good at math when I was younger. I was solving calculus problems that I was never exposed to before when I was only 8 or 9 years old. They had me take a placement test for the extended learning program and threw in things like calculus and trig just for shits and giggles, and couldn't believe that I figured out how to solve them because I couldn't explain to them how I did it ("I don't know" seemed a more preferable answer to their inquiries than "I did the things with numbers and stuff" I guess). As a result, they claimed that I somehow cheated, despite being in a room with no text books, no calculators, no mobile phones (not only were they enormous at the time but they were literally just phones back then, plus we were poor and couldn't afford that sort of shit anyway), nobody to talk to other than the supervisors. :downs: [quote]This is in contrast to programming, which I find to be incredibly similar. For programming, I generally have references open and build up my knowledge of what I can do and why it works as opposed to maintaining a hellish focus on specific ordering of parameters. I know I can replace a string in JavaScript and I know what it's doing internally, and I don't see harm in checking out the API if I don't remember. Often times, memorization ends up happening as a result of routine, which makes me feel like memorization isn't important. So, when it comes to math, why do I need to memorize the formula for a parabola? If I know how to use it, I know the relationships between the variables, and I know the necessary variables, why is it important for me to know y = (x - h)^2 + k and why is it a mortal error to ever refer to a textbook or notes during a test? If the fear is that people can just going without knowing anything that has to do with math, I guarantee that someone who hasn't worked with complex formulas enough to even approach some of the complicated calculus questions I've come across will run out of time before achieving an acceptable score. It just doesn't happen. Calculus is where math has been far more focused on why formulas work as opposed to simply plugging stuff in, and that's what math should be like from the very beginning, or at least the start of high school![/quote] As someone who is trying to learn programming in his own time, I feel partially that public education's regiment of "memorizing stuff" rather than "learning ideas/concepts" has greatly handicapped me. As bizarre as it sounds, it wasn't until I first tried marijuana that things that stumped me suddenly started to make sense enough that I could start conceptualizing how the various elements of C++ worked together.

wait, what?! What in the fuck? Algebra is the building block for all the math courses that collegiates will be taking! They [b]need[/b] that shit. [editline]22nd July 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=evilweazel;52497092]Never was good at math, I'm still horrible at it, and trying to learn it gives me something akin to anxiety. It just legitimately does not make any sense to me, I honestly can't wrap my head around it very well past like, basic geometry. Having to know all the secret rules and formulas, going through all the time to solve the problem and looking down at the choices and not seeing what you got for an answer there, or having the calculator vomit some random numbers with a decimal point in the middle when all of your answers are whole numbers, turning setences into numbers that are in the right order and going all about it the exact right way.... Christ, makes me nervous just thinking about it again, honestly. :v: Could never get it, mostly still can't. I was put in a bunch of classes for kids who were shit at math, never helped. It was just an extra period of staring at questions I couldn't even begin to solve. It's like the numbers just get jumbled up and crash together in my head until its one giant mess that's giving me a headache. Still, that's not a reason to get rid of it. I've ran into situations where I can use a little of what I remember.[/QUOTE] I'm much the same way, only replace the anxiety with frustration and boredom. It's still vital, hell, as a gearhead I'll need a few algebraic formulas. Example the first, if I want to fit an aftermarket carburetor to a modified engine, the ideal CFM rating isn't something I can look up in a table. I need to calculate the approximate gas flow the engine will want at peak output given the cam profile, valve area, displacement, et-al, and size the carburetor to be a few percent above that. A lot of hot rodders don't bother, buy the biggest Edelbrock they can afford, and wonder why their muscle car runs like shit all the time. Do the maths, get the right carb, the thing'll be reliable as anything sold new today. Or, hell, another example I might need would be figuring out what changes I would need to make to the engine's bore and stroke to arrive at a given displacement, should I decide to increase the displacement for one reason or another. There's also the matter of calculating changes in compression ratio that may arise from such operations, whether they be simply to recondition the cylinders(Generally they're bored out to remove the wear from normal age, which will effect a miniscule but noteworthy change in some engine stats) or for the afore-mentioned displacement increase, and then calculating the right adjustments to make to head gasket thickness and combustion chamber volume to ensure the CR stays within specification. If you're messing with fuel injection you need to be able to calculate the proper fuel flow rates to match the increased air and exhaust flows, so you can buy the correct injectors, so you can program the ECU properly. Boosting an engine is a whole 'nother can of math worms, too, as you've got on-boost and off-boost situations to account for while doing all of that. And that's a field people generally assume to be relatively free of advanced math. Holy fuck there's a lot of numbers in things like programming and scientific fields. It's no wonder my mathematically retarded self can't write an Expression 2 more advanced than basic arithmetic and if/then/else statements.

[QUOTE=djjkxbox;52496956]"I'm good at mathematics and I don't understand why everyone else isn't" [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_anxiety"]Maybe you should do some reading.[/url][/QUOTE] Wow, some people get nervous taking tests? Incredible, thank god I stumbled across your enlightening post, otherwise I never would have realized! If you can't pass a college algebra class you shouldn't be in college, you shouldn't even be graduating high school. It's basic baby-poo math and I'd say is arguably the most applicable field beyond basic arithmetic in the real world. Just because you get nervous and can't be bothered to study doesn't mean we need to change the curriculum to suit poor students. [editline]22nd July 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=spazthemax;52497083]"Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads." Im surprised how no one has pointed the obvious racism here. Or am I misintrepreting this? Besides, asian kids destroyed us in math every time.[/QUOTE] Eh, it's not really racism. I haven't looked at stats myself but I'm sure it is a fact that students of color probably do worse in algebra -- not because they're genetically worse at it but because statistically they're more likely to grow up in an area with shitty education which means when they make it to college they're going to do worse.

[QUOTE=Mr Kotov;52497090]If so many people in community colleges are failing algebra then that is a deeper-running problem with the education system, not algebra.[/QUOTE] Yeah but what do you do with the people that it has already failed? Force a square peg through a round hole, or tell them to go flip burgers at McDonalds because they can't get a degree for a career which uses no higher math? Which then feeds back and creates more destitution and more of the same shit.

[QUOTE=srobins;52497138]Wow, some people get nervous taking tests? Incredible, thank god I stumbled across your enlightening post, otherwise I never would have realized! If you can't pass a college algebra class you shouldn't be in college, you shouldn't even be graduating high school. It's basic baby-poo math and I'd say is arguably the most applicable field beyond basic arithmetic in the real world. Just because you get nervous and can't be bothered to study doesn't mean we need to change the curriculum to suit poor students.[/QUOTE] I don't think that djjkxbox was arguing they should remove algebra because of mathematics anxiety. He was mocking the other person for assuming that mathematics is easy for everyone when in reality it isn't and that it's important to recognize that fact. algebra is hard for some, which can be seen from posters in this thread talking about their difficulties with it. this points to a misstep in the education system somewhere (possibly everywhere) that should be addressed in a more thought out way than removing the subject most students find difficult. [editline]22nd July 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Saxon;52497145]Yeah but what do you do with the people that it has already failed? Force a square peg through a round hole, or tell them to go flip burgers at McDonalds because they can't get a degree for a career which uses no higher math?[/QUOTE] algebra isn't considered higher math. at least not from my experience in the education system. for the people that it has already failed, that's a really hard question. i really don't know except find a good teacher or try it on your own from the very beginning.

[QUOTE=srobins;52497138]Wow, some people get nervous taking tests? Incredible, thank god I stumbled across your enlightening post, otherwise I never would have realized! If you can't pass a college algebra class you shouldn't be in college, you shouldn't even be graduating high school. It's basic baby-poo math and I'd say is arguably the most applicable field beyond basic arithmetic in the real world. Just because you get nervous and can't be bothered to study doesn't mean we need to change the curriculum to suit poor students.[/QUOTE] There's more to it than just nerves, it's struggling to understand the concept and how to work it out. Admittedly it's most likely more to do with the teaching rather than the inability to understand the concept, but you're being really demeaning and condescending to people who genuinely do struggle with algebra, it's not always the student's fault

[QUOTE=djjkxbox;52497154]There's more to it than just nerves, it's struggling to understand the concept and how to work it out. Admittedly it's most likely more to do with the teaching rather than the inability to understand the concept, but you're being really demeaning and condescending to people who genuinely do struggle with algebra, it's not always the student's fault[/QUOTE] I think my problems with it were personally part of my aspergers, due to interpreting things differently than most people, but the teaching method also probably didn't help. They had to set up online courses on the school computers for me to finally hone it and physical science down, because when it came to actually writing things out on paper and in my head normally, I struggled hard.

For me was that a lot of algebra and other math classes were taught too abstractly for me, and I just couldn't understand it. It wasn't until I started doing physics where everything started making sense for me.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;52497207]I think my problems with it were personally part of my aspergers, due to interpreting things differently than most people, but the teaching method also probably didn't help. They had to set up online courses on the school computers for me to finally hone it and physical science down, because when it came to actually writing things out on paper and in my head normally, I struggled hard.[/QUOTE] I think I had a very similar experience to yours, as I also have asperger's. They didn't set me up online courses but I did have to go and look it up online myself when revising

What a joke. Shameful.

i fucking hate algebra or any type of math. never cared for it either too, but i agree that it is necessary in many situations and that this was a bad idea

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52496890]In my opinion, the importance of algebra in education isn't for the algebra itself. The importance of algebra is that it requires, and as such teaches, abstract thinking, which I feel is a critical skill in [b]any[/b] field. I'd imagine even 18th-century French literature history would require some level of abstract thinking, in things like interpreting phrases no longer in modern use, or whose meaning has changed over the centuries.[/QUOTE] This is exactly why I'm huge proponent of algebra and education surrounding it, and mathematics, in general. The more educated general people can be in soundly making logical arguments, reading them, and dealing with abstractions, the stronger and more successful they can be as a person in really any field. I find this to be incredibly overlooked in how most people view mathematics and how even the educational system views mathematics (and really most STEM) education. [QUOTE=djjkxbox;52496956]"I'm good at mathematics and I don't understand why everyone else isn't" [url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_anxiety"]Maybe you should do some reading.[/url][/QUOTE] I've had to do a lot of reading and writing about this in the past through my degree. Something this seems to tangentially lead to is a cultural norm of people saying, and bonding, over "hating math", like it's something to be proud of. I don't have any concise solutions for how to avoid this attitude being so pervasive, but I know it could really help if early childhood education didn't almost try to segregate people based on what they are and are not good at. Something that's really damaging, as benign as it might seem, is calling children/people "smart" when they show any sort of adeptness in a particularly field, as it makes their efforts more extrinsic than they are, or need to be. If one is recognized to have a strong work ethic, and then have the results show tangible progress, they're more likely to: feel good about their achievements, internalize as personal achievement, and continue to have a good work ethic towards attaining anything. [QUOTE=wauterboi;52497004]For me, math in school has always been the worst. And I'm not convinced I hate math itself, because I use it all the time with programming in private. The difference is the excessive and arbitrary need to memorize. In one semester of college-level trigonometry, I recall having to memorize the cross product, the dot product, other functions pertaining to vectors, the unit circle, the names of shapes of polar graphs, formulas for converting from rectangular coordinates to polar coordinates and back... why? Personally, I think a mind on mathematics is understanding how to use these functions, why these functions work, and what to expect from them. Instead, much of math all throughout high-school and towards the beginning of college was memorizing formulas. This is in contrast to programming, which I find to be incredibly similar. For programming, I generally have references open and build up my knowledge of what I can do and why it works as opposed to maintaining a hellish focus on specific ordering of parameters. I know I can replace a string in JavaScript and I know what it's doing internally, and I don't see harm in checking out the [url=https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/replace]API[/url] if I don't remember. Often times, memorization ends up happening as a result of routine, which makes me feel like memorization isn't important. So, when it comes to math, why do I need to memorize the formula for a parabola? If I know how to use it, I know the relationships between the variables, and I know the necessary variables, why is it important for me to know y = (x - h)^2 + k and why is it a mortal error to ever refer to a textbook or notes during a test? If the fear is that people can just going without knowing anything that has to do with math, I guarantee that someone who hasn't worked with complex formulas enough to even approach some of the complicated calculus questions I've come across will run out of time before achieving an acceptable score. It just doesn't happen. Calculus is where math has been far more focused on why formulas work as opposed to simply plugging stuff in, and that's what math should be like from the very beginning, or at least the start of high school![/QUOTE] See what ShazzyFreak0 said. From my point of view, so this gets anecdotal here, if you truly do understand the concepts you should be able to then figure out all the formulas for whatever you're trying to do. I understand how that's a stretch in some places, but if can recall the fundamentals you should be able to get to the end formula for something like a parabola. I don't agree with not being allowed a single bit of paper to even note down common formulas so that you can't focus on understanding the concepts and applications, so I will give you that. My better professors either let us write stuff down, but I always preferred being given a sheet of formulas like how they do for the International Baccalaureate program. [QUOTE=Mr Kotov;52497090]If so many people in community colleges are failing algebra then that is a deeper-running problem with the education system, not algebra.[/QUOTE] Agreed. Again anecdotal, I've had a lot of friends and family lament to me how difficult [math class here] is and how stupid it is in the grand scheme of what they're doing. I know I've felt that way too and I don't believe the American education system does, across the board, a good enough job of instilling a desire to learn in its students as a whole for a lot of reasons that I could drone about. I can summarize a lot of it with "teaching to the test" instead of teaching for the sake of education and pushing the next generation to be higher achieving than the previous. [QUOTE=ShazzyFreak0;52497093]i don't believe they're saying that students of color are inherently worse at algebra than white kids man. i think they're implying that most students who struggle with algebra happen to be non-white and that can be explained by a variety of reasons other than race but it's not expanded upon in this article.[/QUOTE] This is a real problem in mathematics education. You can write a textbook all about how Sally and Jim trade apples and oranges to add tangibility to a kid, but if the example isn't relatable to every single child trying to learn through that method, someone is going to get left behind as the examples continue to be difficult to relate to, and they'll be completely lost by the time they're pushed to be [URL="http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1"]doing abstraction they might developmentally be unable to do at their current stage of life[/URL]. Then try taking those examples globally; a solid example I have is trying to force two different cultures that construct boats differently to do it the way "my culture" does it (western methods versus Indian methods. I don't recall the names, but I know one likes to build around the chassis/reinforcement beams and the other does the shell with the support beams at the end). To give my post context, my minor (physics major) in all of university was studying educational theory from early childhood to general developmental psychology, specifically centered around mathematics. I wrote my senior these paper on this entire topic this thread is surrounding on and I'm completely open to being wrong or feeling too strongly one direction about certain things I said.

[QUOTE=RikohZX;52497207]I think my problems with it were personally part of my aspergers, due to interpreting things differently than most people, but the teaching method also probably didn't help. They had to set up online courses on the school computers for me to finally hone it and physical science down, because when it came to actually writing things out on paper and in my head normally, I struggled hard.[/QUOTE] I've always wondered I have/had some sort of undiagnosed learning disability or something, but that's probably me trying to find a cheap excuse for it :v: Dunno of there is anything specific to struggling with math, but it was the only subject I had any inherent struggle with. History, English, most sciences until they became a second math class, all good. Math? Made my brain melt and I've never been able to figure out why.

calculus destroyed my chances of getting a good degree. could never pass with high enough grades to move on

[QUOTE=MissingGlitch;52496960]Keep algebra. But Calculus is pure evil.[/QUOTE] Calculus is much more fun than algebra, especially when you get into applications of integrals and derivatives, choosing convergence tests can sod off though :v:. The problem with not taking algebra is that for most of high school, math is taught in a way that can really loose student interest, once you past that though, algebra opens up the world of all the fun stuff like Calculus and discrete Maths. Without algebra, you never really get to experience all that and perhaps find out you want to do a Math major like every person in that field I know.

[QUOTE=Xyrofen;52497316] This is a real problem in mathematics education. You can write a textbook all about how Sally and Jim trade apples and oranges to add tangibility to a kid, but if the example isn't relatable to every single child trying to learn through that method, someone is going to get left behind as the examples continue to be difficult to relate to, and they'll be completely lost by the time they're pushed to be [URL="http://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development#1"]doing abstraction they might developmentally be unable to do at their current stage of life[/URL]. Then try taking those examples globally; a solid example I have is trying to force two different cultures that construct boats differently to do it the way "my culture" does it (western methods versus Indian methods. I don't recall the names, but I know one likes to build around the chassis/reinforcement beams and the other does the shell with the support beams at the end). To give my post context, my minor (physics major) in all of university was studying educational theory from early childhood to general developmental psychology, specifically centered around mathematics. I wrote my senior these paper on this entire topic this thread is surrounding on and I'm completely open to being wrong or feeling too strongly one direction about certain things I said.[/QUOTE] reminds me of this scene from The Wire [video=youtube;O1mmePD549o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1mmePD549o[/video]

[QUOTE=Sumap;52497375]Calculus is much more fun than algebra, especially when you get into applications of integrals and derivatives, choosing convergence tests can sod off though :v:. The problem with not taking algebra is that for most of high school, math is taught in a way that can really loose student interest, once you past that though, algebra opens up the world of all the fun stuff like Calculus and Descrete Maths. Without algebra, you never really get to experience all that and perhaps find out you want to do a Math major like every person in that field I know.[/QUOTE] If I didn't have the professor I have, I'd despise calculus. He actually takes the time to explain the [I]why[/I].

[QUOTE=SandvichBL;52496888]In my opinion everything past algebra 2 was retarded. I never could even learn to factor in highschool. I'd imagine I'd fail hard in college algebra.[/QUOTE] The biggest issue is not giving up and not getting into the mindset of "this is too complicated for me" because that just gets people to not even bother trying. For example let's compare my group of friends and my sister when they were in school. My friends never advanced beyond the most basic algebra class in our school and it wasn't because the teacher sucked at it. We had two math teachers in our school and both were quite good at their jobs, one of them even won some regional award for it. My group of friends all have Asperger's so they're naturally more adept at math than most people. My sister on the other hand has always struggled with math. The difference between the two of them though is that my sister never gave up and if she didn't understand something she'd come to me and/or our mom to try to get it. She still didn't advance terribly far through math before she left school but she nonetheless improved a lot and has kept improving even after leaving school to the point where she helps her stepsons with their math pretty commonly and does fantastically at math she struggled with in school herself. My friends on the other hand just wanted to goof off in class and because they never paid attention they quickly got lost and got stuck in the mindset of it being too complicated and gave up. (Which is hilariously ironic in one case because one of my friends is always going on about how he wants to be a game programmer which would obviously require knowledge of some reasonably advanced math. Not that he ever even does any programming to begin with anyways.) [QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52496890]In my opinion, the importance of algebra in education isn't for the algebra itself. The importance of algebra is that it requires, and as such teaches, abstract thinking, which I feel is a critical skill in [b]any[/b] field. I'd imagine even 18th-century French literature history would require some level of abstract thinking, in things like interpreting phrases no longer in modern use, or whose meaning has changed over the centuries.[/QUOTE] Simple algebra is pretty important in daily life though. Most people are going to need it fairly commonly for simple things. [QUOTE=MissingGlitch;52496960]Keep algebra. But Calculus is pure evil.[/QUOTE] I did precalculus my senior year in highschool and I still have no idea how I passed it. I had absolutely no freaking idea what the hell I was doing. Though it didn't help that we completely skipped over trigonometry altogether and went straight from advanced algebra to precalc. The whole experience left me thinking I'd stand no chance in college until I learned that most of the math I'd already easily passed in highschool was the sort of math I'd be doing in college anyways, lol. [QUOTE=djjkxbox;52497033]I think poor teaching or poor teaching methods is highly to blame, so maybe it just needs a rethink, and people would understand it much better. In the current way it's taught at least in the UK, many people do struggle with it. Maybe not so much in other countries, though[/QUOTE] I'm definitely not saying poor teaching has nothing to do with it but no matter how good a teacher you are, you're going to fail to teach students who don't want to learn. And it can pretty difficult to convince them to want to learn. A lot of people are just totally lacking in natural curiosity and you can't simply tell them that this stuff will be important to know when they're adults because they're still too immature to think that far ahead. When you have a ridiculous proportion of the populous that is actually [I]proud[/I] of being stupid it's a cultural issue and not really an educational one.

I thought a lot of the math I was doing in middle and high school was stupid and never would be used. Then I got to college, and realized how [I]integral[/I] it is to understand Calculus or a lot of higher level subjects

I loved math up until I flunked out of pre-calc my sophomore year of highschool. My workload was so huge from advanced level courses that I didn't do the homework on the class the whole year and didn't manage to memorize a damn thing. It was entirely my fault but my teacher worked with me and suggested that the next year I should take a college level Java programming class (since it was a math credit), and I found a lot greater success in that. Algebra is a necessary skill though and I'm sure that most people use a rudimentary form of it even when they don't think of it as such. When learning algebra in grade 7 I remember something in my head clicking that a lot of the sort of abstract ideas were things I was already doing, I just didn't know what name to call them by. As mentioned above I am convinced the problem is in America's terrible fucking test culture. Who needs to learn specific concepts if you know how to pick the correct answer out of 4?

Give math classes small personal robot arms and have the teacher come up with a course to exercise not only the students programming skills but also their mathematical ones. 2 birds with one stone and you also get to teach kids radians and self terminating equations in a much more intuitive way. Sure its expensive but its better than wasting money on iPads that only serve to distract students. Such an arm could be programmable via graphing calculator if you REALLY want to cut costs.

[QUOTE=Saxon;52496918]College Algebra was one of the biggest wastes of my time in college and this was for a degree in Enterprise Networking (and you can't test out of it). I had to skip a vmware class to take it as well which was a limited time offer. Now here I am at my job building a vmware server, knowing nothing about vmware but at least I can divide polynomials. Just my own anecdotal experience I know. You can argue that it develops critical thinking skills, but by the time your in college its harder to teach people a different approach to thinking. These are skills and knowledge that should be imparted at high school or younger which the education system is failing at.[/QUOTE] I can confirm this. Had to push aside a class so I can do a algebra class when I am going for a degree in IT Support. When in the hell am I going to use algebra in that field? When I am talking to some idiot on the phone how to turn a computer on and off again? I now have to wait a entire year to take this other class because of it. I have not needed to use 95% of the algebra that I have learned outside of a math class. I don't expect that number to decrease either. My time is better spent on learning actual skills. Yes I am ranting. Yes I know math is good and stuff. I don't need a lecture. It is just completely useless for me to spend ~5 months sitting in a class where I am going to hardly, if ever, use those skills.

Wait wait wait Algebra is a [I]college[/I] course in California? I took my first algebra class in middle school, and was into calculus by the end of high school. I know I was accelerated even by my state's standards but I'm surprised you can get through high school in California without algebra.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;52497504]Wait wait wait Algebra is a [I]college[/I] course in California? I took my first algebra class in middle school, and was into calculus by the end of high school. I know I was accelerated even by my state's standards but I'm surprised you can get through high school in California without algebra.[/QUOTE] I don't know about California but in Oregon the lowest math class in highschool, at least in the district I attended, is basic algebra. There's quite a lot of overlap between more advanced highschool math classes and college math classes though.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;52497504]Wait wait wait Algebra is a [I]college[/I] course in California? I took my first algebra class in middle school, and was into calculus by the end of high school. I know I was accelerated even by my state's standards but I'm surprised you can get through high school in California without algebra.[/QUOTE] I think the way it is suppose to work is. You have middle school algebra, then high school algebra, and finally college algebra.