Why Should We Learn Math?

Part 1: What would you say to your future high school students about why they should learn math?

Math can be one of the more difficult subjects to learn and seems the most abstract – but, in reality, it is the subject you probably use the most on a daily basis. Anytime you buy a new pair of jeans, a CD, or even your first car, you are using your math skills to determine the best deal for the amount of money you have. If you don’t have a working knowledge of math, you can be taken advantage of in the consumer world. I can’t tell you how many times I have been overcharged at a restaurant, a department store, or a grocery store. It is your money, and you want to protect it.

Math also teaches you how to think logically so that you can make wise decisions. Many times as you have to make a decision, you don’t have all the information that you need to make an informed one. Math teaches you how to work with unknowns. It gives you confidence to problem solve so that you can take control of your circumstances instead of them taking control of you.

Of course if you are going into medicine, engineering, architecture, business, music, art, culinary, teaching, agriculture, politics, or many other fields you will rely heavily on your math skills. But even if you choose another field, seemingly unrelated to math, you will still need math to live a productive life.

Part 2: What will you tell your future students that you think they will like about math?

I think you will like learning math because, in my class, learning math will be a challenge, but you will be successful at it. I am a hard and demanding teacher, but a very involved teacher. I will work with you so that you will become successful. You will like learning math, because, though you may not understand everything, you will see math in a way that will give you confidence to tackle more difficult things. If you want to move ahead in your learning – that’s great! If you need more time to absorb the concept – that is great, too! You will meet math, head to head on your own terms – that is why I think you will like learning math!

Part 3: What might your future students find useful in learning math that they can apply to their current lives?

Did you know that, after you finish your schooling, if you invest $2000 a year in an IRA for 6 years and then stop, at 65 years of age you will have over one million dollars invested? That sounds too good to be true! It also sounds like a business or marketing question – not a math question. But math involves almost every area of your life. Don’t blow it off because you have had a poor experience with math in the past or you are not going to be a rocket scientist. You need knowledge of math right now so that, for example, your employer pays you fairly. Our teenage daughter came home this summer with her paycheck. After looking at it closely and using a little math, she discovered that they had mistakenly decreased her wages by 50 cents an hour. She came home with another paycheck the next day for $32 more. Maybe you are trying to decide whether you should go to college or stay at home and work for awhile. This may be a question you have never encountered before. In math you will also encounter many things that you have never seen before. So what do you do? Well, math will teach you the principles of how to work through a new and difficult problem. Math may not give you the answer of whether to go to college or not, but it will teach you the invaluable skills of processing. Math is for you – for who you are today and for who you are going to be tomorrow.