UK Forcing maths on the population is straight out of China's playbook - I mean the alternative seems to be teaching kids 90780970 gender identities and how whitey is bad

The most useful maths I ever learned I learned between the ages of five and nine, including memorisation of times tables, fractions, percentages and division. These come into daily life and understanding them on a very basic level is completely essential. Beyond that, attempts to force maths down my throat and have it digested as meaning something other than terror and confusion – and there were a great many attempts – came to little. That’s not quite fair. When I put my mind to it I found I liked numbers, so long as I wasn’t forced to go beyond say quadratic equations (of which I now remember nothing).

If only someone sensible who is bad at maths but successful at life could have sat down with Rishi Sunak before he announced a policy to make all schoolchildren take maths till 18.

This is a pointless and unpleasant idea. Unpleasant because for those who struggle with maths, it is a deeply humiliating, fruitless process being made to do it to a level beyond the basic. And they will never remember it as anything other than hell - in short, it’d put them off for life.

Now to the pointless. These days, it is unclear exactly what purpose all those years of forced maths would be. Anyone can turn to an iPhone or Google for fast calculations, simple or complex. Yes, lack of maths skills might mean we don’t know what questions to ask our calculators or browsers but then do all maths types know what questions to ask of Shakespeare's sonnets – and is that a problem? Not particularly. And the benefits of maths and numeracy are hardly kept secret. Any pupil knows that if they want to become affluent, they’ll probably need maths – all banking, management consultancy, IT and insurance jobs, plus any other remunerative line of work arguably bar law, requires a decent level. But it’s up to them whether they want to pursue such a path. It’s not Rishi’s job to decide it for them.

Britain is meant to be a society where individualism can flourish, and that surely ought to include education. In the Soviet Union or China, enforced maths for all might have been de rigeur, but here in Blighty, those who like or want to pursue digits should have every encouragement, and those who don’t should be allowed to devote themselves to things they like. That way, one day, if they feel it’d be good to know more maths, they may actually feel like learning some.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/08/forcing-maths-population-straight-chinas-playbook (Archive)

 

[Absolutego]

It's just math you smoothbrained nonce. I doubt even by 18 they'll force you to learn vectors, it'll be Calculus at worst. Such a horror!

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

You learn math at school (as well as other subjects) because you might want to use it in higher learning, as well as basic functions of living. letting kids decide whether they do it is a good way to destroy your entire country's future.
But considering the author decides she can just let corporations decide her economic status, she is too stupid for the genepool.

 

[Meat Target]

I struggled with math in 8th grade, so I went down to the dunce class freshman year of high school. It helped me learn at a pace I could keep up with.

Yeah, math is tedious, but you don't have to take the Stephen Hawking level classes as a teenager if it's out of your league.

Just don't expect the STEM departments in college to stoop to your level.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Like I said on the British news thread, if they haven't learned it by 16, they're not going to learn it in the next two.

For those that don't know, mandatory education stops at 16. Everything after that is optional and is where students start specialising.

 

[Paul Pelosi's Boyfriend]

You need to be able to perform basic algebra to function in society so it might be a good idea to get that squared away. Anything more complicated is going to be wasted effort when 90% of your students go on to become janitors and cashiers.

 

[Wallace]

If it makes widdle Precious feel bad about himself, it must be destroyed.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

I'm all for being racist against the chinks but seriously, Wtf is this complaint? Most classes I've taken, once they were added to the curriculum, they were never removed from the curriculum. Maybe they transformed - even when I no longer had a class on writing essays, I was still expected to write - but I don't think they were ever truly deleted.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

"who wrote this article? Bet it's a woman!" I thought before clicking the link to check. Carpenters math is enormously useful for all those icky chuds that does manual labor for a living and don't have a PhD in personal essays.

You need to be able to perform basic algebra to function in society so it might be a good idea to get that squared away. Anything more complicated is going to be wasted effort when 90% of your students go on to become janitors and cashiers.

Agree 100%. This reminds me of another article written by a lady that thought it was stupid to even teach math to children because everyone has a calculator in their pocket, even small children.

 

[Spirelord: Downfall]

It's just math you smoothbrained nonce. I doubt even by 18 they'll force you to learn vectors, it'll be Calculus at worst. Such a horror!

These are the same people I was confused about being pissed that we had to do trigonometry. It's literally just identify which of 3 equations you use and input it into the calculator or do the long division, why the fuck is it so hated? What is wrong with people nowadays not wanting to understand numbers and equations? This also makes me remember the whole 'decolonizing math' thing that never took off, is there a war on math no one's noticing?

 

[Meat Target]

I'm all for being racist against the chinks but seriously, Wtf is this complaint? Most classes I've taken, once they were added to the curriculum, they were never removed from the curriculum. Maybe they transformed - even when I no longer had a class on writing essays, I was still expected to write - but I hint think they were ever truly deleted.

Screwtape Proposes a Toast, the epilogue to C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, has a few paragraphs dedicated to the use of "Democracy" as a buzzword for Harrison Bergeron-esque enforced mediocrity.

The West is afraid of excellence, because someone being stronger than the wimps or smarter than the smoothbrains is "undemocratic". Then it is shocked to find that the Soviets have launched Sputnik.

And today, the Chinese are making leaps and bounds as the West wallows in Slaaneshian debauchery.

 

[Absolutego]

These are the same people I was confused about being pissed that we had to do trigonometry. It's literally just identify which of 3 equations you use and input it into the calculator or do the long division, why the fuck is it so hated? What is wrong with people nowadays not wanting to understand numbers and equasions? This also makes me remember the whole 'decolonizing math' thing that never took off, is there a war on math no one's noticing?

Soh-Ca-Toa is practically rocket science, be more sensitive to the less able lol

 

[Gog & Magog]

The older you get, the more difficult it becomes to learn new things. Maybe Null is right about the Bri'ish.

 

[Plague Dog]

This is a pointless and unpleasant idea. Unpleasant because for those who struggle with maths, it is a deeply humiliating, fruitless process being made to do it to a level beyond the basic. And they will never remember it as anything other than hell - in short, it’d put them off for life.

What does this twit think will happen? If you stop at 14 a bunch more people will just take math for the pure enjoyment of it? That there will be drink and math nights at local dinners?

I don't think so. For a more educated public, you keep them in math longer because no one does math on a Friday night for fun.

 

[Otterly]

Maths is useful in more places than she thinks. I use trigonometry in designing quilts. The UK is failing woefully on teaching kids the basics - other countries keep kids in maths classes they just tailor what they teach. If you’re going in to uni to do maths or physics or one of the numerate sciences or engineering paths you’d learn the ‘harder’ stuff. If you’re doing a technical pathway to become a tradie you’ll do the stuff that’s useful for you, what you need for construction and bookkeeping maybe.
Basic arithmetic type Numeracy is really important. Just for stuff like personal finance it’s important but it’s useful for so much stuff. I’m painting my house - I’ve got x number of walls at roughly x by y dimensions, how much paint for two coats? How much lumber do I need to buy to build this? What do I cut this bit of wood to? What will this car loan actually cost me over five years? Is this a good mortgage deal? How much will this hot tub of water weigh and will it collapse my balcony if I fill it and kill someone underneath?
Literacy and numeracy are the keystones of education.

 

[Cyclonus]

Well I'm thoroughly grateful for the years I wasted learning algebra, calculus trigonometry and quadratic equations that never came up during my adult life ever.

 

[Amber the Hedgehog]

Point of making everyone learn some higher math has three main befits.

One, it develops your general tactical brain functions and skill. Just like mussels brain needs challenging to grow. Math is nice for this because there are only so many variables and right anwers. It's basically logic made simple, even harder math.

Two, it allows us find the kids who are good at this. There are many profession that need good math skills or skills that allain with math. You can't always tell witch kids actually are good at math until they get to high enough level. There are both early and late bloomers so you don't want to jump into conclusions too early. Maybe a boy struggles at first but actually drives when he gets how math and cars go together witch carries him the general logic in math. Maybe a girl picks the early math easily but finds the higher stuff unpleasantly abstract and has no patience with it.

Three, it allows you have the general idea if you are been fed with bullshit and do slightly more complicated useful calculations yourself. Math is everywhere and is often used to impress people for good and bad. Having basic skill that allows you to read math is extremely useful to avoid scams, mistakes and other crap.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Well I'm thoroughly grateful for the years I wasted learning algebra, calculus trigonometry and quadratic equations that never came up during my adult life ever.

And more more useful than gender studies.

 

[Divine right to rule]

It's just math you smoothbrained nonce. I doubt even by 18 they'll force you to learn vectors, it'll be Calculus at worst. Such a horror!

What? Vectors is part of normal curriculum in Austria. Brits don't learn it?

 

[Absolutego]

What? Vectors is part of normal curriculum in Austria. Brits don't learn it?

In their version of high school? Probably not. American schools generally don't get into that territory until University.