Of course maybe someone has a better answer to Sandy's original question.
Phil Mahler
Middlesex CC
Springs Road
Bedford, MA
Here's a question from my 83 fifth-grade math students, who keep asking me
what your answer is: "in real life, when would you ever multiply (or
divide, for that matter) two negative numbers?" The closest I've come up
with is, "if you didn't get what you didn't want, that's positive."
-Sandy Hindy, Westlake Village, Calif.
Forget this kind of justification for studying math. It's as irrelevant as
asking a question like, "In real life, when would you ever do a sit-up?"
Unless you work as a trainer, you wouldn't. That doesn't mean you should
complain about doing sit-ups as part of physical conditioning.
People need to be in good intellectual condition too. Even if you're not
going to make heavy use of math in your profession, you still need to know
how to think logically. Tell the kids I said that studying math
accomplishes two goals: It prepares some kids to think like scientists,
and it prepares all the rest of them to think, period.
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