The following TED video, given by mathemagician and professor Arthur Benjamin (about whom I’ve previously blogged about here), embodies the best idea I’ve heard about math education in a LONG time. Perhaps ever. Just as I recently posted about how games like backgammon embody the 21st century in replacement of games like chess for the 20th, statistics is the central branch of mathematics for the 21st century rather than the calculus centric view of the 20th century. If you’re into math and math education, this will probably be the best 3 minutes you’ll spend today.
Tags: Education, Math, Statistics
This makes total sense to me! The main reason kids loathe mathematics in school is that they feel like they’ll never use it in real life. Like he said in the video, statistics and probability are used more often than Calculus. If we show kids how they can apply their knowledge in every day situations, then they will enjoy learning.
wow…this is really thought-provoking. thanks, ian!
I’m in partial but not total agreement with Prof. Benjamin here. I don’t care for his calculus::analog, statistics::digital analogy. But I do think that the discrete and probabilistic approach to mathematics is in the process of taking over from the continuous and deterministic approach, and it’s probably time for our educational structure to start preparing students for this reality. Certainly I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person — whether student or professional — where I’ve thought “I wish that person knew their calculus a bit better!” but I have definitely seen (and do see each day) people who really ought to understand chance and data better.