I have been thinking about math.
I have never been what you would call a math person. I took one class in college (math for non-math majors) and, as a condition to being accepted to the Wharton Business School, I had to take a remedial calculus class before (most of) the other students arrived on campus. It seemed like a small price to pay. I know that calculus must be important and that we likely would not have been able to send a rocket to the moon or build the Sydney Opera House were it not for calculus. In hopes of generating a few comments, I thought I would pose the following query: Should calculus occupy the pinnacle position in our high school math curriculum?
I’m not against math. In fact, I am writing precisely because I recognize the huge importance of mathematical competence in a technology-driven, globalizing, internet- connected, value-added world. So what math skills do we need to know, what math skills would it be nice to know, and what math skills should our most precocious students be acquiring? Is it obvious that calculus should occupy sacred ground (advanced placement territory) rather than statistics? Or finance? Or economics? Or computer science? Maybe calculus is the crème de la crème because that it what selective colleges expect from really bright students. OK, that’s a reason. But is it the best way to prepare Sandy Spring Friends School students for college? For work? For life?
All of our kids should graduate with the ability to think (and write and debate and reason) like a biologist, an artist, a chemist, an historian, a philosopher, a teammate, a global citizen, a man/woman of the letters, in two or more languages, and as a mathematician. As it regards a solid math platform that our students can build on for the next 50 to 60 years, what do we need to know, how do we teach it, and how is it learned?