to beat a dead horse, but I will link to yet one more response to the NY Times "Is Algebra Necessary?" piece which drew a lot of fire (ire?) earlier in the month. This one from Jennifer Ouellette that I missed a week-or-so ago:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2012/08/14/make-us-do-the-math/
A bit therefrom:
"I spent ten years training in jujitsu, yet I have yet to use my skills to defend myself from a real-world attack. So I guess those ten years were a waste, right? Wrong! The most important lessons I gleaned from martial arts had to do with learning to fail: getting my ass kicked and getting back up, again and again and again, until I mastered a given skill. Why wasn’t I willing to do the same for math?
All we’d end up teaching kids with Hacker’s strategy is avoidance. I was a master of avoidance. But learning to buckle down and do unpleasant things that don’t come easily to us prepares us for life…
"There’s a lot to be said for confronting fear and anxiety head-on, and fighting through a wall rather than throwing up one’s hands in defeat."…I dare say we haven't heard the last on this topic.
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