Page 10 - Priorities #12 2000-April

We hear much these days about gender inequity in math. Is this what happens to girls? They get the message that they can’t do math?
I think this is one of the problems. We don’t completely understand all of the factors that affect, especially, middle school age females in the classroom. But we’re learning. There are many interesting experiments in progress that may help to clarify the best learning environments for girls.
We are aware of these issues at the Priory and perhaps having female math teachers is helping us model that girls can do math. I’m very excited that my current Pre- Calculus class has eight girls and two boys, but even in this class I see some hesitation
among the girls. I don’t believe you can tell girls too much, or too often, how very good they are at math and other subjects.
Have you been surprised by the research that links math aptitudes and music ability?
I don’t think this is surprising to anyone who really knows math, because math is itself a very creative process. To be creative you have to look at a problem or something you want to create, and pick and choose which options make the most sense...which note goes with which note, which color goes with which color, which process goes with which problem.
Just as there are an infinite number of sounds and ways to combine them, there are an infinite number of numbers and ways to combine them. How you compose them, whether numbers or notes, is the difference between both a creative answer and an unimaginative answer, or a great piece of music and an uninspiring piece of music. It’s all very tied together.
How has math education changed since you’ve been a teacher?
At the high school level the way we teach math has changed remarkably, and for the better, with the invention of the calculator and especially the graphing calculator. With the press of a few buttons an educated calculator user can look up the sine or log of any number and you can graph any equation in seconds. This frees teachers to take math conceptually to the next level. Instead of spending an entire class mired in the tedium of creating graphs, we can move quickly to experimenting with graphs and trying to understand what this equation is really trying to say. This is where the creative process in math kicks in.
The frustrating thing about any educational system is that there’s just a lot of basic stuff that students have to slog through in order to get to the fun, creative part of any subject.
Where do you see math education headed in the next 10-20 years?
What would horrify most students today is the fact that math in the next 10-20 years will be more and more about word problems! There is nothing better for a student than to grapple with a one- or two- paragraph description of a problem, try to create an equation, figure out an approach to solving the problem, and then to plug it into the calculator and model what it’s going to look like. It’s all about integrating fundamental skills with creative problem solving in real world situations.
This is really the key to a good math education... teaching students to look at problems with multiple solutions, and use their entire repertoire of skills to discover the best solution. At its best, math education is about pushing students towards connecting the verbal, creative sides of their brains with the analytical sides of their brains. It’s good preparation for life!
Do math and music abilities go together, as some brain research indicates? Or, do some people just think both are fun?
Charles Kou, Jeff Lin and Richard Lin may be good examples of either theory. They are taking multivariate calculus via a computer-based distance learning program from Stanford University.
They are better known among students as three of the four singers in the highly popular Shoo-Be-Do-Wahs, which specializes in a ‘50’s Do-Wop sound. With their fourth member, Jason Lam, they independently arrange and rehearse their music for school concerts.
Stephen Sondheim said that if he hadn’t succeeded in musical theater he would have pursued his second love, theoretical mathematics. Who knows?
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