Great. Another Non-Math Person Complaining About Algebra.
Holy cow, Andrew Hacker. Shut up!
OK, that was a bit harsh. Warranted, but harsh. Say what you want to, but lower your voice a few decibels. Frankly, I didn’t care much for your rhetorical question, but you had to write it in the New York Times, adding a semblance of legitimacy (if not outrage) to your argument against teaching abstract math to kids. The crux of your argument, that we shouldn’t teach algebra except to those of us who want to get deeper into the math and that we should instead focus on useful life math, whatever that means. I won’t spend time debunking any of your claims because Dan Willingham did so rather convincingly today.
Rather, I’ll ask: if we taught the humanities (presumably English, arts, and yes, political science) in the same