Is Algebra Necessary?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by ManicMechanic

Motivating students to do the boring work helps, and connecting math to previously discovered concrete examples (rather than to what they can imagine/discover) seems to work well with my lower level students. For example, whenever students ask "Why do we have to know about singularities?", the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, coupled with a discussion of resonance caused by undefined frequencies gets their attention.

In that case, you should definitely talk to them about flutter. 747 Wind Tunnel Flutter Test

It's been really interesting reading everyone's responses. I went to a magnet school, and for us Calculus AB was a graduation requirement. I thought that was pretty awesome, even my friends who said they were "bad at math" still got mostly 4s and above on the AP.

Originally Posted by JVN

It is my hope that natural curiosity would drive people to seek out this understanding. Algebra is of course (imho) a big part of this understanding.

Spot on! I think Linear Algebra was probably the coolest class I took even if I liked it the least. I always get excited when something I thought was unrelated pops up in a new place, and Linear Algebra has this tendency to show up just about everywhere. But that sort of natural curiosity means that I would be okay with really any class so long as it wasn't pointless.*

*I can't think of a pointless class I took with a good teacher...

[Taylor]

Student: This has no application. I don't get it. How can I use this? I don't understand it. It has no meaning to life.

Teacher: Well, this is how it's used every day. And here. And here.

Student: But those are story problems. I don't like story problems.

... and so the cycle continues.

[Ankit S.]

One thing that I don't think was brought up earlier is what happens if Algebra is no longer made mandatory in school. Many of my peers are lazy and would cut corners in any way possible. If given the option to take a moderate-workload Algebra class or to take the relatively homework free class Art 1, many would choose Art 1.

As a result, they would not even try to take Algebra. And who knows? Maybe some of them really will not benefit from Algebra and skipping it was a great choice, but for others who do no know what they want to study later on, the skipped Algebra course also narrows their options further along the road(either not do something related to math, or confront Algebra years later).

In summary: many people are lazy, if given the option to skip Algebra for an easier course they probably will. This skipping will narrow their study options later on.

[Tom Ore]

One of my favorite quotes that applies to some of the discussion here:

"Culture is what's left over after you've forgotten the details of what you've been taught."

EDIT: Another quote applies also: "The purpose of computation is insight, not numbers."