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Gaffer Variety:
Education and Math 015:
By Willie Gaffer:
November 21, 2005:
Most days, and especially on Sundays, Mrs. Gaffer buys a copy of a Detroit newspaper. The Sunday edition is handy because it is a combined edition of the Detroit News and Free Press. Two for the price of one. I don't have time to read the newspapers and depend on the televison news which I watch while having dinner. I multitask whenever I can. I also depend on Mrs. Gaffer. She knows my interests so whenever she comes across articles that are of interest to me, she marks them off and gives me the appropriate pages. Thus, she saves me the time and effort of having to read most of the silly stuff just to get a few ideas for my writing.
She handed me such an article from the Sunday, October 23, 2005 issue of the combined papers. I found it interesting, humorous, quite dishonest, and off the mark. In short it was a perfect piece for me to pan. The headline was, "Making Math Count." It was written by Christine MacDonald of the News. Her opening line was right on. "Many love to hate it." I too have noticed that and commented on it several times because I know it is not necessary. However, it is not a result of any problems the students have. It is a problem with the way math is presented to the kids. It is offered as a rule bound memory course rather than an adventure into the beautiful world of mathematics.
After her opening, MacDonald gives us a few revealing facts. For example, in a local school for the gifted and talented, about 75 percent of the kids did not meet state standards for math skills. Say what? A school for the gifted and talented? Wherein are the gift and the talent? She also quoted our illustrious governor Granholm and offered some of the state's plans for fixing up the problems. Then she reenforced the need to fix up the problem by citing statistics from China and the USA. According to this article the Chinese graduate 250,000 engineers per year, whereas America graduates only 75,000 engineers a year. Sounds pretty terrible, doesn't it? That's what she wants us to believe.
Lets take a real look at these misleading statistics. Is this intentionally misleading or just poor journalism? Who knows? However, I can show that the stats are misleading. First let me give you the population figures from our own US Government. The population of China is about 1,261,832,482 (as of July, 2000). Of course, that is more than likely an estimate. I doubt that the Chinese allowed us to count them even if we had the manpower to do so. Good enough though! For contrast, the population of the U.S. on April 1, 2000 was 281,421,906. For sure, that number is from the US Census bureau. We can consider it to be a better estimate.
Now, lets do the difficult math. I can actually do math. I even wrote a book about it called, "Math for Moms and Pops." That's why I know hating math is the fault of the system and not the kids. Even if you cannot do math, division is real easy if you happen to have a pocket calculator. It also saves time. Doing the division, I find that China graduates 1 engineer for every 5,050 or so citizens. By contrast, America graduates 1 engineer for ever 3,750 citizens. Okay, by honest comparison, America graduates more engineers per capita that China. So what? Is more really better?
The question to ask is, what do we really need compared to what China really needs? The fact is, China needs more engineers because they have more to do. Their infrastructure until recently has been medieval. They have a lot of basic stuff to do. They need tools to do it. They can no longer use coolies, not because the coolies would resist, but because coolie labor is just too inefficient. They need engineers and machinery to reach their goal. For any thoughtful observer, their goal should be clear. It is to bring China into the 21st century and into the community of civilized nations. That is why they sat on North Korea. It is not because they like us. It's because they are trying to be like us and North Korea was an even bigger problem for them than it was for us.
America already has an infrastructure. It only needs to be maintained and upgraded from time to time. We do not need engineers to do that. We need skilled tradesmen, machinery, and skilled leadership. Our infrastructure has degenerated recently because we have no skilled leadership. The rest, skilled tradesmen and machinery, we do have.
A s to engineers, we don't need more engineers, we need better engineers. I have been there. I have worked with engineers and played at being an engineer. I give you this fact from my own experience. Most engineers are not creative and don't contribute. Some engineers make new products, but they do it by following a formula, a set of rules. Maslow said it best. "Science can be defined as a technique, if you would, whereby uncreative people can create and discover." That is what good engineers do. They use a scientific formula approach to create new products. Unfortunately, most engineers are not good. Many others who try to do useful things are intimidated and suppressed by head down management.
Now, do we really want to emulate China. I don't think so. It used to be and should still be the other way around. I thing we need to lead the way. We should lead the way in research and in engineering. To do that, we need better scientists and engineers because we have more advanced stuff to do. If we don't do the advanced stuff and just continue with business as usual, we will end up on the short end of the stick. More is not a synonym for better as so many simple minded government and media people would have us believe. You do not get good leadership with more leaders and you do not get good engineering with more engineers. In both case, you need quality, not quantity.
America used to be the land of innovation. We innovated and
the rest of the world followed and copied. Doesn't anyone remember
when Japanese copy was a synonym for junky? Now the copies are
often better than what we make here. We need innovative people
to do what we used to do better than anyone in the world. We will
not get that kind of talent by forcing kids into standard molds.
We will only get it by nurturing and encouraging our kids to do
what draws them in, what excites and thrills them when they are
doing it. Joseph Campbell said it, "Follow your bliss."
We need to let our kids follow their bliss.
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