Posts Tagged ‘math skills’

Every day now driving home and listening to the news, I try, like everyone else I imagine, to wrap my head around the kinds of numbers they’re throwing around. The scale of the numbers is incomprehensible. How meaningful is the difference between a billion and a trillion...

I’m increasingly conscious of the gap between the urgent calls for more effective math education in the U.S., and the seemingly low expectations some parents have for their own child to advance in math. It’s as if the pressing national need has nothing to do with us on a personal level. I hear parents talk about their child’s math performance, and say things like “I was never good in math either.” Or regarding newer ways of teaching math, I’ve heard “I don’t like the ‘new math’ because I wasn’t taught that way.”

No, this is not a commercial of any kind (trying to convince you that if you buy 1 you will get 2)! This is just a mathematical proof that 2=1. I remember that my math teacher in high school first showed me this. I was quite impressed! A few days ago I randomly encountered the proof and recalled it. Here it is:

Someone recently asked me whether better math education would have avoided our current financial crisis. My immediate response was, "Unfortunately, no!".

We've had a lively discussion in our office this week about the recent New York Times article on issues in US math education in general, and in encouraging girls to be successful in math in particular...

As I read the economic headlines today and the news about AIG’s bailout, I can’t help think about how much math is being done right now all over Washington, Wall Street, and the world. Serious folks are attempting to calculate the impact of this financial melee across instruments, sectors, and countries. Some of the math is easy, more is fuzzy, and even more is mind-numbing in its complexity.

My little girl started preschool this week. I’m not sure who is happier – my husband, my daughter or myself. Probably my husband because I’ve started being nicer to him again. I had no idea how stressful this would be.

I took time off from work the other day for a very important occasion with my 5 year old son: a chance to meet his new Kindergarten teacher and classmates, and preview his new classroom!