How to love Maths? The Purpose of Mathematics in School Education.

The very first time when an Indian student thinks that there's something wrong with our education system and seriously thinks to change it, is when that fellow cannot wrap his head around MATHS. Almost all the students who think that Indian education system needs to change, subscribe to the thought that maths, as a subject, is sometimes a little too complicated and unnecessary. They cry, "Oh, the last time I learnt real math was when I learnt all the basic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division etc." They think that maths is made only to help them in their future financial affairs. Today's youngsters wail and howl, "Oh, it's been 20 years of my independent life, not even a single time have I used that bloody Pythagoras theorem or that trignometry nonsense."

When I first thought about this, I had at once arrived at this conclusion that maths should be made a bit more specialised. I mean I myself had mastered maths but not everyone sees it the same. All these concepts, riddles, twist-o-turns, what for? My inner self regarded all this as useless for general study. Well, it did not take me long to correct my opinion on this.

When I surf in YouTube, I am open to knowledge of all fields. I am ready to learn economics, politics, quantum mechanics and literally everything that comes in my way. There I stumbled upon a video of the channel Big Think called "Anyone Can Be a Math Person Once They Know the Best Learning Techniques." (https://youtu.be/M7febmLhS6E). It was a video where Po-Shen Lo, a PhD and a famous Maths Proffesor, gives a staggering point of view to look at maths.

He says, "I think that everyone in the world could be a math person if they wanted to. That said, I do think that everyone in America (edit-everywhere else too) could benefit from having that mathematical background in reasoning just to help everyone make very good decisions. And here I'm distinguishing already between math as people usually conceive of it, and decision making and analysis, which is actually what I think math is."

"So, for example, I don't think that being a math person means that you can recite the formulas between the sines, cosines, tangents and to use logarithms and exponentials interchangeably. That's not necessarily what I think everyone should try to concentrate to understand. The main things to concentrate to understand are the mathematical principles of reasoning...What they are is that they are ways to show you how these basic building blocks of reasoning can be used to deduce surprising things or difficult things. In some sense they're like the historical coverages of the triumphs of mathematics, so one cannot just talk abstractly about “yes let's talk about mathematical logic”, it's actually quite useful to have case studies or stories, which are these famous theorems."

He means to say that the core purpose to teach maths, apart from being able to handle economic affairs, is to develop critical thinking. Reasoning means the ability of mind to think deeply in a logical and a sensible way. The very structure of mathematics is such that it makes people present their views in a logical and structured way. Maths in a way teaches oneself to find a way to very complex problems using this very reasoning of ours, which works as a knife for us to cut through everything. Maths is not remembering formulas and using them wildly without any meaning, but it is a history of some of the greatest thinking minds and how they solved their life problems in a rational and step-by-step manner, that is, through the ways of maths. This universe, we cannot take as a whole, thus maths help us to break it down into simpler sections to understand it more better.

Po-shen Lo adds, "You see, math is one of these strange subjects for which the concepts are chained in sequences of dependencies."

"When you have long chains there are very few starting points—very few things I need to memorize. I don't need to memorize, for example, all these things in history such as “when was the war of 1812?” In mathematics you have very few that you memorize and the rest you deduce as you go through, and this chain of deductions is actually what's critical."

You know it. Every math sum is a different problem. To arrive at the needed answer, you literally struggle with your creativity and logic. If you are a genuine maths person, you know that you can never be sure about your maths paper before filling it. In other subjects, your marks are based on all the early revisions and preparations you've did. Math goes one step further. It not only needs preparatory understanding but also demands immideate attention.

 Let me put this straight. Once my friend stuided for 9 hours for a 25 marks paper. He thought that he will atleast get respectable score because of his full-fledged preparations. But the whole thing turned upside down when he sat to solve the paper. Maths is a paper where everything you do is spontaneous. Like a complex knot you gradually unfold the entire problem as you go on solving it. At the end, with all correct methods, it may take you to a wrong answer, just because of your calculating mistakes. Maybe you knew everything but were unable to express it stepwise. Maybe your plus-minus made your sum go wrong. Now you see? This is what happens. Math demands immideate focus and spontaneous awareness while solving.

While solving a maths paper, better for you to concentrate fully on the problem, for you may miss just one or two details! The sum, you may not use it again in your life, but that critical thinking that it breeds within you, that struggle, that exercises your nerves!

And at last, Po-Shen Lo concludes, which I totally agree on, saying

"Now, I think that the way to help to address this is to provide a way for everyone to learn at their own pace and in fact to fill in the holes whenever they are sensed. And I actually feel like if everyone was able to pick up every one of those prerequisites as necessary, filling in any gap they have, mathematics would change from being the hardest subject to the easiest subject. 

I think everyone is a math person, and all that one has to do is to go through the chain and fill in all the gaps, and you will understand it better than all the other subjects actually."

Be a math person, Be a critical thinker.

Thanks,

Daksh Parekh.