In Defense of Math
Mar. 3rd, 2013 02:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueEvery week or two, someone I know posts this gif somewhere:
[How I see math word problems: If you have 4 pencils and I have 7 apples, how many pancakes will fit on the roof? Purple, because aliens don't wear hats.]
Each time, from each person, it gets a lot of "I know, right!" "so true!" "my life, lol!" comments and shares. It's epidemic.
I have to assume the people who post this see it as a charming self-disclosure, maybe even on the order of a humblebrag, because not knowing math is cool and unifying. Numbers are for gross nerds with no social skills, and are completely incomprehensible to a passionate, artistic, outgoing adult-about-town. How many anecdotes a month do I read from otherwise pro-intellectual sources, in which a kid asks for homework help in, what else, math, and the writer doesn't remember, because not having to do math anymore is a sign of maturity, like not having to ask to go to the bathroom? Today, in the Globe, the writer assumed I couldn't remember the distributive property I learned in 8th grade algebra. Only I do. It's easy. It's easy enough you can invent it for yourself if you forget it.
[I'm buying food for a dinner party. I know I need 1 piece of whatever the meat is, 2 servings of whatever pasta, and 1/4 pint of ice cream per person. There will be 4 people coming, including me, so I need 4 pieces of whatever meat, 8 servings of whatever pasta, and 1 pint of ice cream. In other words, 4(x + 2y + z/4) = 4x + 8y + z.]
If you really can't handle math - if you have number dyslexia - I sympathize and am happy to help. But I won't celebrate you. And let's be honest: you're not number dyslexic, just proudly ignorant. When I read that "how many pancakes" joke, it's like somebody just said "I can't use utensils and have to eat everything with my hands, and I smear it all over my face! Haha! YOLO!" That stuff's embarrassing. You're the same people who were horrified when Herman Cain talked about "Ubeki-beki-bekistan" during the Republican primary. Know what? Same thing.
I need to be able to say, when I'm driving to a meeting 50 miles away, traveling about 60 mph on the highway but 30 mph for the last 10 miles of surface roads, plus about 10 minutes to park and walk into the building, whether I have time to stop for coffee if the meeting's in an hour. (Answer: No, I don't.) If that sounds like gibberish to you, it's because you've decided to switch your brain off when you see a number, not because it's hard or unimportant. (It's neither.) Word problems aren't some standardized test "gotcha" trick. If you're late to a meeting with me because the answer you got was "purple," you're not cute. You're offensively stupid and inconsiderate.
But you're not late to a meeting with me, are you? And you know how to buy groceries, and whether you'll have enough left over to pay rent next week if we go to a restaurant tonight and you get paid again on Friday. You can and do solve word problems pretty much daily. Somewhere along the line, you decided on this "math is hard" pose, which even you have forgotten is a pose, and in so doing, you've joined the last stand of the ascendant bimbo, mascot George W. Bush. I'll leave you alone about it out of courtesy, the same way I'm not going to grammar-pick your e-mails or criticize the way you parent. But stop acting like I'm the weirdo.
[How I see math word problems: If you have 4 pencils and I have 7 apples, how many pancakes will fit on the roof? Purple, because aliens don't wear hats.]
Each time, from each person, it gets a lot of "I know, right!" "so true!" "my life, lol!" comments and shares. It's epidemic.
I have to assume the people who post this see it as a charming self-disclosure, maybe even on the order of a humblebrag, because not knowing math is cool and unifying. Numbers are for gross nerds with no social skills, and are completely incomprehensible to a passionate, artistic, outgoing adult-about-town. How many anecdotes a month do I read from otherwise pro-intellectual sources, in which a kid asks for homework help in, what else, math, and the writer doesn't remember, because not having to do math anymore is a sign of maturity, like not having to ask to go to the bathroom? Today, in the Globe, the writer assumed I couldn't remember the distributive property I learned in 8th grade algebra. Only I do. It's easy. It's easy enough you can invent it for yourself if you forget it.
[I'm buying food for a dinner party. I know I need 1 piece of whatever the meat is, 2 servings of whatever pasta, and 1/4 pint of ice cream per person. There will be 4 people coming, including me, so I need 4 pieces of whatever meat, 8 servings of whatever pasta, and 1 pint of ice cream. In other words, 4(x + 2y + z/4) = 4x + 8y + z.]
If you really can't handle math - if you have number dyslexia - I sympathize and am happy to help. But I won't celebrate you. And let's be honest: you're not number dyslexic, just proudly ignorant. When I read that "how many pancakes" joke, it's like somebody just said "I can't use utensils and have to eat everything with my hands, and I smear it all over my face! Haha! YOLO!" That stuff's embarrassing. You're the same people who were horrified when Herman Cain talked about "Ubeki-beki-bekistan" during the Republican primary. Know what? Same thing.
I need to be able to say, when I'm driving to a meeting 50 miles away, traveling about 60 mph on the highway but 30 mph for the last 10 miles of surface roads, plus about 10 minutes to park and walk into the building, whether I have time to stop for coffee if the meeting's in an hour. (Answer: No, I don't.) If that sounds like gibberish to you, it's because you've decided to switch your brain off when you see a number, not because it's hard or unimportant. (It's neither.) Word problems aren't some standardized test "gotcha" trick. If you're late to a meeting with me because the answer you got was "purple," you're not cute. You're offensively stupid and inconsiderate.
But you're not late to a meeting with me, are you? And you know how to buy groceries, and whether you'll have enough left over to pay rent next week if we go to a restaurant tonight and you get paid again on Friday. You can and do solve word problems pretty much daily. Somewhere along the line, you decided on this "math is hard" pose, which even you have forgotten is a pose, and in so doing, you've joined the last stand of the ascendant bimbo, mascot George W. Bush. I'll leave you alone about it out of courtesy, the same way I'm not going to grammar-pick your e-mails or criticize the way you parent. But stop acting like I'm the weirdo.
