My t-shirt says it all.
“When will I ever use this?” is a question I get a LOT as a math teacher. Especially from middle school level students. Believe it or not, I’ve even had conversations about this at the college level.
Have you ever told someone (maybe even your child) that you didn’t see the point in learning algebra? That you always wondered when you would use it and, now as an adult, realize you didn’t even need it?
Spoiler Alert: You probably use it every day.
Remember that college student I talked about in a previous post? The one who accepted my challenge to attempt to go an entire 24 hours without using math? Well, he quickly realized that short of being in a coma in a hospital bed (where folks are using math on your behalf) it is pretty much impossible to not use math in some capacity.
Whether you realize it or not, algebra is a big part of our daily math interaction. You probably just never made the connection. In a 2004 newsletter, then National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) President Cathy Seeley described algebraic thinking as “recognizing and analyzing patterns, studying and representing relationships, making generalizations, and analyzing how things change.”
Have you ever looked at your watch and determined what time you need to leave to make it to an appointment on time? That’s algebraic thinking.
Do you sometimes need to double or halve a recipe and adjust amounts of ingredients? That’s algebraic thinking.
Ever notice certain patterns of behavior in your child and change routines, like bedtime or types of food, to see the effects? That’s algebraic thinking.
Most of us get so hung up on the idea that algebra means letters get mixed up with numbers that we don’t realize what algebra really teaches us. The letters aren’t the point. The real aim of algebra is to learn to use what we know and what we can generalize by noticing patterns to solve a problem that happens to be missing a vital piece of information.
In a nutshell, it’s really all about solving problems, which is something we do all day, every day.
Algebra isn’t the enemy. The way we were taught algebra probably has a lot to do with that mindset. If we didn’t have a grasp on the concepts of math before being introduced to algebraic symbols (aka letters in my math problem) then we probably had a difficult time. If we were presented with equation after equation to solve out of context, we might have had a difficult time unless we were really good at memorizing rules and procedures.
The next time you find yourself trying to figure out what time your alarm needs to go off or how much you can spend on a new pair of shoes and still have enough for groceries, thank algebra.
Coming Soon: Algebra is Not the Enemy ebook!
