School has just gone back, and students are once again asking:
“Why do we learn maths?” or “what’s the point of all this maths – will I ever use it?” or (my personal favourite) “My future job won’t need this – so, are there any benefits of mathematics for me?”.
The answer might change creatively from parent to parent, or teacher to teacher, as there are too many reasons to easily name them all.
So… why do we learn maths?
Maths is so important in our lives and, without realising it, we use math almost every day, it is involved in so many parts of our everyday lives that without understanding maths, you would encounter significant issues from time to time. It teaches us some fundamentals to succeed in life, such as – every problem we encounter can be overcome!Why is math different in school?
Because maths in most of the schools are very skills-based maths, where students are learning more about the problem of the week, they may not learn about what maths is really about, and why maths is important. Maths has shown us that there is a reason why everything happens, from Newton explaining gravity after an apple falling on his head, to why it will take 18 hours to fly from Australia to Italy.Maths is a study of patterns and a way for describing and representing the world in terms of quantities, shapes and relationships. For many students, maths is just “another subject” where they are “right or wrong”. Usually, it’s a series of small tasks, and students haven’t been given the opportunity to properly understand why they have been learning all these concepts.
How math can actually be interesting for everyone
Maths can be so much more than just a subject where the students are learning the ‘rules of algebra’, or developing their understanding of trigonometry. We use math in our day to day lives, probably a lot more than we may realise – and usually when students grasp the importance of mathematics to them, they find it a lot more interesting.Making the subject seem relevant to a student and a part of the 21st century, with real-world implications is always helpful. Math can be the underlying reason as to how some of their favourite songs were formed, using rhythm algorithms, estimating the likelihood of something happening, how the weather is forecast, navigating the way home from school, or even keeping score on their favourite sports match. There are even interesting movies like Moneyball that work directly off math to predict baseball!
The issue sometimes is the way students have been introduced to the subject, as the focus is often taught on skills instead of problem-solving and recognition of maths being all around us, students are discouraged from studying and nonplussed about the subject. I have heard many students say over the years that their teacher’s explanations of certain topics have been “you need to learn this for your exams – so just take notes”. It is for things like this, that it isn’t surprising that students are going to be disinterested in maths. This is an enormous shame, as maths is hugely important in order to be employable in a range of occupations. Every occupation will need some level of maths knowledge.
Let’s get real about math lessons and daily life
Here’s the truth about maths. Some of it you will learn only once in school and then will never, ever have to do it again. But that is not the point. It does not matter if you have to use calculus or invisible numbers again, because the concepts and reasoning ability in math is the important part you have learned. Maths trains you to think logically and effectively with a solution-driven attitude. Math teaches you so much more than how to solve for x.So, when a student next asks: why we are learning about maths. I would say that maths helps us to understand why so many things happen in the way we do, it allows us to predict events happening in the future, or to solve problems (which is more or less the basis of any video game – ever… Not to mention that maths is to thank for video games even existing too). I would explain that it may just be one of the most important skills to learn to improve their daily lives.