So What If It’s Not Relevant Right Now? (Just Math It)
This week, I’m supposed to teach my students how to solve a system of equations by elimination. It’s the hardest of the four ways for solving systems (graphing, substitution, guess-and-checking), and I’m not entirely sure everyone in the class gets the first three. The main point of the unit is to determine exactly where two or more linear relationships meet, if they ever do. The situation could be realistic (two cars running a race, two trains on a schedule, cell phone pricing plans) or already abstracted (simultaneous equations), but I’m hoping they can find this meeting point because it’s really interesting. Is it relevant to their daily lives? Perhaps. Do I care? Not necessarily.
Really, I don’t always want the things that people learn to be within the realm of possibility, because I’m trying to prepare them for the improbable as well.
One missing piece of the Common Core State Standards debate is that, while I’m glad to teach