I think that Conrad is very clear of the importance of mental math, but I am wondering if its necessary to log that many hours to conquer basic math. I think we are seeing in this forum that it doesn’t take that much for a child starting at an early age to understand and memorize math facts when given time on a consistent basis to obtain the knowledge. I guess I wasn’t really thinking about the implication of this video towards the public school system. We all know the issues with public school system. The greatest issues is math facts are generally not memorized holding children back from moving forward. Mental math is generally not a focus either. so blah, blah, blah…we know where public school takes us.
Let’s just think about the child in our own home. Do we really think it will take that many hours and problems for our kids to obtain an understanding of how to do double digit, triple digit and so on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? In 1 year I took my four year old through kindergarten to second semster 1st grade math. My kid doesn’t show any abnormal aptitude. He is pretty average except he has been exposed to concepts not generally taught to his age group. I am not using any fancy or extraordinary products either. I am not saying lets throw away the Saxon books either. I think there is a place for writing out problems, but when we get to trigonometry, I am not going to write out logs for every problem.
I like the concept of being able to teach your child a full view of math application. Showing them raw data, how to manipulate the data, how to obtain specific information and understanding from the data and so forth. I think this is all missing from most math curriculum. I think we have learned that children are quite capable of more than we generally give them credit for. It certainly doesn’t hurt to expose them to such concepts as we have all learned. I have approached math is so many different ways and used so many different techniques and never once I have found my children damaged from it. In fact, I think they are almost better for it. I think a full view of math at an early age certainly won’t hurt anything and may give them insight and understanding. I think it will be empowering for a child to have this understanding. I think we can keep our kids interest in math early on because we can make it relate-able to them through money, food, toys and candy, but what about after that? How do we make algebra, trigonometry and calculus relate-able? How do we show them the point to it all? I think that is what he is really trying say.
I think that his software is suppose to make this easier without all the need to hand write everything out. I didn’t stop teaching my son adding and subtracting because his handwriting is weak. I just found ways to teach him, or wrote for him when he became tired of writing. Did that make his understanding less? No. I don’t think handwriting out thousands of problems means you will be better at math or that you understand what you are doing. I can solve algebraic and trigonometric problems because I memorized the steps from doing hours of problems. It doesn’t mean I have intuitive understanding of what I am doing. Using software to assist in manipulating data isn’t going to hurt a child but allow the child to develop intuitive understanding of math concepts. I don’t think that Conrad is talking about the millions of ways to do add and subtract which is mostly what new math is about. I think he is talking about allowing children to move beyond the basics which might be boring the children to death leading them to no longer apply themselves. I think he is trying to show that there is a way to develop math understanding intuitively through developing a more well rounded understanding of how math is used in the real world. Again, I am not talking about your basic elementary math. If you take a look at his software, his software application is used for the very basic but mostly for the very complicated. Anyway, that was my take on it.
I think he is talking about allowing children to move beyond the basics which might be boring the children to death leading them to no longer apply themselves.
I’ll always remember being in 6th grade math and hating my math teacher because she seemed so stupid - in retrospect, it was her dumbing it down that I hated. The school didn’t actually teach me anything until 8th when they put me into honors algebra (but I digress)… I think you’re right in some respects here.
As for relating math to real life, that’s the challenge, isn’t it? Word problems are key here I think. I’ll give you an example of a real life decision I’ve had to make where I use this basic algebra.
Plane tickets cost $250 round trip + cost of a rental car of $125 + a tank of gas… or I can drive the entire way, save the rental cost and the airfare, but pay in car maintenance and fuel; the maintenance costs might be a bit nebulous, but the fuel isn’t. At $3.50 per gallon and a presumed MPG of 28, how far can I travel until I’m better off flying? (of course time does weigh in somewhere, but that’s a personal choice not based as much on the numbers)
I’ve done this mathematical problem many times to weigh my choices. Being able to understand and calculate simple equations like this will help in everyday decision making - and think about how much a cost analysis would come up in any business.
In my personal opinion, if someone can’t set up a basic equation and compare apples to apples like this, then automatically they’ll have poor decisions overall and making the wrong choices won’t be as simple as a few bucks flying or driving… it can make or break a person’s finances if the wrong choice is made somewhere.
EDIT: I wanted to add regarding the original video - I think he’s correct that computers are the “future” of math, but perhaps not in the way he’s describing; actually, computers are the “now” of math. He seems to underestimate or undervalue having a grasp of computation and overvalue this vague understanding, even if it’s strong enough to write a program. My guess is that he’s correct, but incorrect about how much value there is in learning computation and in actually writing (ie, practicing it). So, FWIW, I agree a lot with him, but disagree in a few of the things he’s saying. The video I posted, OTOH, is total garbage of an outlook.
I believe that math as wells as mental math stay important in the future. Especially mental math I try to keep in shape by practicing once a while. For the people interested: www.calculationrankings.com
Side note: If you want to help your kids develop that “High Order Thinking Skills” part of math, even if it’s only part of the picture , http://hoodamath.com/ is a great place to do it. There are lots of puzzles. Be fair-warned, it can become very addicting, especially for Mom. That, and there are plenty of advertisements. Still, there are a lot of games there that really make you think. They are a bit over my 4-year-old’s head, but my 5-year-old does very well with them. For younger kids, there’s starfall.com.
So I finally have been able to watch both videos. Admittedly I did not even finish the first one. I think computing has more importance than Conrad expresses.
For the second video I am going to go against Pokerdad and say sadly I agree with with the speaker.
Now I loved math, I was good at math. I did math algebra problems for fun the same way people did crossword puzzles. I chose not to do math beyond 10th grade because I could easily learn math from a book. In fact I was tutoring 12th graders doing the highest level of math while I was in school.
But here is the reality… I have not done math beyond the elementary basics since math class over 15 years ago. I currently tutor elementary math. And I still don’t need anything beyond the basics.
It took me a long time to figure out and wade through my math teachers’ spiels about how much i will use math for the rest of my life. But I finally figured the same as Mr Bennett, maths is important for grades, grades are important for college and so on. Advanced math doesnt have much more purpose than that. That is, unless you go into a field that requires math. In that case, you need more advanced math.
Now, I am pretty gung Ho about teaching my 3 year old math. He enjoys it. And he is doing well. Do I want him to do higher level math? Indubitably.
But when he asks me what is the purpose of math. I will tell him point blank. He may not need it for the rest of his life. But he certainly NEEDS it for the rest of his school life.
Honestly I would love for him to get a math degree in college. I have friends with degrees in math and that degree opened he door for amazing job offers. But of course I don’t control his path. At the very least I would love for him to enjoy math and to have no math anxiety, just so it makes his overall education smoother.
Great talk - thanks for the link. I wholeheartedly agree that stats is more important for the general population than calculus. BTW - Arthur Benjamin has a nice book “Think Like a Maths Genius”. It has some nice techniques for playing with maths and doing almost-instant calculations.
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I can whole-heartedly agree that stats is far more important than calc for 99% of people out there - except, stats isn’t really a math class, is it? sure you compute variance and deviations and means and all, but that’s simple stuff an 8th grader could do. Having a solid conceptual understanding is the important part - especially as it pertains to education because how often do you hear about some study that says XY or Z… if you have the mind for it you can look for sample size, deviations, confounding variables (co-variance) or in other words, strength or weakness of the research.
And then there’s just the everyday randomness that people encounter and having a stat understanding will help in digesting it all.
I believe that math as wells as mental math stay important in the future. Especially mental math I try to keep in shape by practicing once a while. For the people interested: 
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