Rethinking Math Edu
Education is the formalization of learning. A standardized education curiculum ensures that all humans are equiped with the relevant skills to navigate life.
There are a few ways in which the current math curriculum contributes to this overall objective :
- Learning skills that are useful for day to day living
- Learning how to learn (ie. frameworks of thinking)
- Learning problem solving skills
Only a small percentage of math topics actually contributes to our development in the first way. (Think arithmatic, fraction, probability and statistical thinking etc). The rest of the math skills we learn (think quadratic equations) aren’t actually that practical. They contributes to our learning largely though the second and third way. But there are many ways to accomplish these implicit goals, and forcing children to learn uninteresting theorems they can’t relate to defintely isn’t effective.
My thinking is that only the most important topic should be part of the compulsory math syllabus. Instead of teaching lots of math topics poorly, we should teach a selective groups of topics extremely well and ensure high level of mastery.