Newsletter from Jay Wilcox - October 2019: On Math, Fear

Good morning/afternoon/evening!

Tell someone you teach math, and they boast about how bad they are with numbers. More than half cower before fractions--and even the students who *surprise* can actually handle this stuff still swear by their own incompetence.

When did math become the hard subject? The one that we're all expected to be so relatably, charmingly bad at?

I teach GED prep, all subjects to all ages, and even beyond my classes, too many grown adults play bamboozled the minute they see two numbers added together or realize they might have to perform simple subtraction in public. Is this an American thing, this performative befuddlement? Are we the same people that built railroads and landed on the moon?

I'm competent and so are you.

"But it's true!" the performer cries. "I really am that bad with numbers!"

Not everyone has a gift for calculation. Students are allowed to not enjoy a subject and to prioritize certain aptitudes over others--but just as language arts curricula can choke off a love of reading, math education seems to attract too many easily-frustrated facilitators, people for whom the subject comes easily and thus affords no patience for slower students. Maybe the best were once C-students themselves, keyed into the fears and doubts of the mathematically-disinclined.

Of course, I'm writing about more than math. Understand givens and variables, and the fact that a society disinterested in math risks certain strains of hoodoo--merchants of snake-oil with answers from thin air. Can cutting Medicaid really balance our budget? Are average Americans really the ones who need to "tighten their belts?" We spend money we don't have while under-funding education and then wondering why our kids struggle.

I'm capable of critical thinking and so are you.

If you lose your keys, the odds are slim to none that they simply bounced into another dimension. When Hannah and I backpacked across Asia last summer, we constantly lost things and learned to triple-check our bags' side pockets--and whatever bug-spray/ointment/sunglasses/matchsticks/silverware we'd been looking for invariably turned up. Have faith in relentless algorithms.

This way of thinking often differs from "common sense," which so often feeds our biases and worst assumptions. Common sense once said the world was flat. Common sense might say that injecting yourself with a virus is always a bad idea. After all, isn't it a better to just avoid the virus altogether?

Wait--you're telling me that if I fight a small, weakened form of the virus now, I won't get sick from it later?

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Unless it isn't. But the important thing is, you're more than capable of knowing the difference. Unless you aren't.

Infinite Regards,

Jay

P.S. -  By the way, this October newsletter may have been sent out in November, but I wrote 95% of it in October, and so much of writing consists of rounding up.

P.S.S. - If you're reading this, I sincerely hope you're well. Life is hard. Feel free to write back if you'd like to keep in touch.