When will you ever need Algebra again ?

  Remember those little red Barron’s books for Regents?  Yes, even with online resources they still exist.  I have never been a fan of standardized, long form tests.  I did well on them but I felt I learned less in classes with them than without them.   This little red book brought me back .. back.. to that time when I had to use it.

Now since I am older than I can imagine some days, because in my mind I am 50 years young but in reality I am 51 years old, I also recall that you did not have to take Regent’s in New York State.  They were part of honors classes, a bonus, a gold star (literally) on your diploma if you passed a certain number.  I took them, I passed them, outside of NY colleges didn’t even know what they were

These days they are mandatory, they are only a New York State thing called a Regent’s.   Other States, places have what they call comprehensive tests or something like that.  So the stress is much higher for kids today.  I mean if I failed my Regent’s I still would have passed the class, gotten a diploma.  Not so now.   I still see no real value in that.  If a kid got a 90 and somehow fails the Regent’s .. you got it they re-take or could have to retake the class.

In our house my 9th grader has been gifted, yeah I used that word and am sure he wouldn’t, a Barron’s book from us.  His father is great at math, likes math.  My son approaches it like me “Why? When am I ever going to use Algebra again?”.  Luckily his father can help him, I look at formulas and understand them as much as I would hieroglyphics.  Did I really know all of that at one point? Yes, shockingly, yes.

Parenting moment .. do I admit that you sort of use it but not in the depth of the way this test requires, unless you go into certain professions.  Do I admit I felt the same?  Is that going to seem like I am agreeing with his frustrated eye roll, on his side, possibly to give him a pass?

No, no, no.  Not in this house.  I think a lot about education since I had children.  While I think my children, in public school, are learning more than I and my generation did at the same ages I am also sometimes dismayed at the pressures they seem to be under, the focus on testing.  I am not a fan of the Asian continent’s approach to education, memorization, test scores but no real creativity.  No questioning.  No sense of not everyone will learn the same.  I find the best inventions from the US came because they weren’t teaching like that, because of the misfits.

I keep hoping someone will look at the education system and realize we have not changed it since hundred of years ago, we just update the data.  Is there a better way to teach kids to learn, to love to learn, to be curious, to question?

My approach to Algebra and all the other subjects that we may never use again is that education is not about use only.  It is about pushing yourself to think in different ways, math is like a different language.  Learning to figure out how to fix problems, in any subject, and seeking help when you need it.

We will not use most of what we are taught in school, we will use all of it to be well rounded in bits and pieces.  It will be the foundation for how we identify what we love in life and what we may not.  School is boring as a kid.  Only as an adult you remember that it is filled with laughter, pain, angst, great times, love and yes we all know what we learned even if we swore we would never recall it again.  It is like Dickens said “the best of times and the worst of times”.

That little red book, where he practices, reminds me of terrible moments with my dad.  He had no patience, was quick to belittle, dismiss me when I made a mistake.  I learned from that to expect less of myself, to hate the red book and the math because it brought that out in him.  As an adult I realize that had nothing to do with it.  Yet in these moments there were also moments of awe, for how much he knew as a man whose schooling ended with high school but whose education was a life long pursuit.  I found ways to learn despite my reticence, my dislike of a subject and I am an admitted fan of learning.  I would love to go back to school, to audit classes, to not have to hand in papers or take tests but to sit and learn.

That’s what you learn from Algebra, Geometry, Biology or whatever subject you as a high school kid feel you never will need again.   The test, deep breath and get through it.  It is but a stepping stone to more.

You need math so you can count the stones to your goal...x years = success...