[From Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams http://www.squidoo.com/stop-stealing-dreams]
 

Every year, more than a million kids are at exactly the right age to radically advance their understanding of leadership and human nature. They’re ready to dive deep into service projects, into understanding how others tick, and most of all, into taking responsibility.

And so, of course, the system teaches our best and brightest how to complete the square to solve a quadratic equation.

In case you missed it, it involves adding (b/a)[squared] to both sides of the equation and then solving from there.

It’s almost entirely abstract, it is certainly of zero practical use, and it’s insanely frustrating. The question worth asking is: why bother?

One reason is that quadratic equations are the gateway to calculus, which is the gateway to higher math.

Another reason is that many of the elements of Newtonian mechanics involve similar sorts of analysis.

Both reasons are based on the notion that a civilized society learns as much as it can, and advancing math and science (and thus engineering) requires a wide base of students who are educated in this subject so that a few can go on to get advanced degrees.

Less discussed is the cost of this dark alley of abstract math. In order to find the time for it, we neglect probability, spreadsheets, cash flow analysis, and just about anything that will increase a student’s comfort and familiarity with the math that’s actually done outside of academia.

Also ignored is the benefit of learning how to actually figure things out. Because we’re in such a hurry to drill and practice the techniques on the SAT or Regents exam, we believe we don’t have time to have students spend a week to independently invent the method of completing the square. They don’t invent it, they memorize it.

Obedience again.

Precisely at the moment when we ought to be organizing school around serious invention (or re-invention and discovery), we wholeheartedly embrace memorization and obedience instead. Because it’s easier to measure, easier to control, and easier to sell to parents.

The puzzles of math and physics are among the most perfect in the world. They are golden opportunities to start young adults down the path of lifelong learning. The act of actually figuring something out, of taking responsibility for finding an answer and then proving that you are right—this is at the heart of what it means to be educated in a technical society.

But we don’t do that any longer. There’s no time and there’s no support. Parents don’t ask their kids, “what did you figure out today?” They don’t wonder about which frustrating problem is no longer frustrating. No, parents have been sold on the notion that a two-digit number on a progress report is the goal—if it begins with a “9.”

Here’s the nub of my argument: the only good reason to teach trig and calculus in high school is to encourage kids to become engineers and scientists. That’s it.

The way we teach it actually decreases the number of kids who choose to become engineers and scientists. It’s a screen, the hard course schools set up to weed out the less intent. In other words, we’re using the very tool that creates engineers to dissuade them from learning the material that would help them become engineers.

Advanced high school math is not a sufficient end in and of itself. If that’s the last class you take in math, you’ve learned mostly nothing useful. On the other hand, if your appetite is whetted and you have a door to advanced work opened, if you go on to design bridges and to create computer chips, then every minute you spent was totally worthwhile. And so the question:

Is the memorization and drill and practice of advanced math the best way to sell kids on becoming scientists and engineers?

If not, then let’s fix it.

(Have you ever met a math whiz or an engineer who explained that the reason she went on to do this vital work was that the math textbook in eleventh grade ignited a spark?)