I’m appalled by Richard Cohen’s column arguing that algebra is worthless. (And I’m not the only one.)

You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it.

I don’t think that Cohen knows what algebra is. He certainly doesn’t appear to know what math is:

Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator.

Calculators - at least the ones someone who couldn’t pass algebra is likely to be familiar with - do arithmetic. As anyone who’s ever asked a math major to calculate the tip knows, arithmetic isn’t math. (OK, it is, but math is so much more than that.)

And if you don’t know algebra, you can’t set up the problem to punch it into your calculator. Do you need to know the quadratic formula? Probably not. Do you need to know that ax=b is the same relationship as x=b/a? You sure as hell do. Quick: the grocery store is selling loaves of bread 5 for $10. How much for one loaf? Congratulations, you just did algebra.

Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not.

This is self-evidently false (writing isn’t any form of reasoning, unless you define “reasoning” as something like “brain activity”), and Cohen goes on to demonstrate, in the rest of the paragraph, that logical reasoning does indeed escape him.

The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence.

I’ve met a few people who were whizzes at math and couldn’t write a readable English sentence. Every last one of them was a recent immigrant from an Asian country. I have never once met a math whiz who couldn’t write a readable sentence in his/her native language, and I don’t believe that Cohen has, either. Perhaps “math whiz” means “someone who passed math while I failed.”

I can cite Shelly, whose last name will not be mentioned, who aced algebra but when called to the board in geography class, located the Sahara Desert right where the Gobi usually is. She was off by a whole continent.

Oh, I get it. “Reasoning” is defined as “memorizing facts.” And if you want to talk about things you can go through life without knowing? The various locations of the world’s deserts would probably fall into that category.

So check it out. Cohen claims that writing is the highest form of reasoning, then goes on to “prove” that by making two anecdotal claims: one is, if not completely false, greatly exaggerated, and the other isn’t relevant to the argument. See what happens when you don’t learn math?

OK, so what does Cohen think is useful to learn in school? He mentions history and English, but:

I let others go on to intermediate algebra and trigonometry while I busied myself learning how to type. In due course, this came to be the way I made my living. Typing: Best class I ever took.

Well, no wonder he doesn’t like the idea of algebra class. His idea of a great class is one that teaches a menial skill any third-grader can pick up on her own.

I’m so glad that someone who’s proud of his failure in ninth-grade math is using his nationally-read column to encourage young people to give up just like he did.

Posted by Amanda in General |