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…
One of my favorite things to do on the first day of a math class is to get my students thinking about what math is and how they use it. I once had a student in a community college class who made it his mission to prove to me that it is possible to go an entire day without using math.…
If I asked you to define “mathematics,” what would you say? Is it solving problems? Is it memorizing number facts and rules? Is it fun or boring, easy or challenging? Is it a set of useful tools to help you through life or is it a bunch of irrelevant nonsense that you will never use? We each have our own ideas…