One of my former student asked his math teacher, “ Why do I need to know algebra and calculus?’’
He further questioned, “Where do I use it in my life?’’
His teacher gave him all abstract answers, not a single concrete and real life experience answer.
One of the answers was – “Algebra teaches procedures to manipulate symbols for better understanding of the world.”
Another answer was- “Calculus teaches the relationship between variable quantities.”
My former student was suffering in algebra in high school, so he didn’t grasp any information what his math teacher said to him and took the same question to two other professionals.
The first person was a doctor, MD in internal medicine in his city hospital, and asked him the same question.
The doctor replied to him, “I never used algebra or calculus in my life, except to use it to get admission to medical school.”
The second person whom my student asked the same question was his dad’s 81 years old math teacher, and again he asked the same question.
His dad’s old math teacher said, “I never used algebra in my life except to teach algebra at high school for living.”
Whether you agree or not, these two professionals are telling the truth. In most situations, the so-called subject experts especially in science and math like my former student’s math teacher provide a curse of knowledge.
Many journal articles, science stories, and reviews are written for other same people like authors, not for the general audience.
The main concern is why don’t we connect the general audience?
We have to make our science and math with a message that makes most of the ordinary people care.
Don’t let the curse of knowledge prevent you from expressing it well.
Take off the jargons, show how knowledge, discoveries and ideas are associated with things that ordinary people care about.
Knowledge is useless until we know it has value for others.
Have you ever tried to answer these questions?
Who are you as a person?
What are you trying to do with your life?
These are hard questions to answers if we go in depth but easy to answer superficially.
We can connect the first two questions with the following question. The answer to the following question comes how you answer the first two questions.
Is knowledge the means or the end for you?
So, what do you think the algebra is? The means or the end.
My former student is a 12th grader. I don’t know when he considered himself a proponent of real life education.
He told me, “I’ve met people with 10 times less knowledgeable than me and 10 times more knowledgeable than me in algebra, and people 10 times more knowledgeable than those- all of these knowledgeable people are truly dirt poor in knowledge of algebra in front of the professional wrestler lady I met in one event.”
He asked the same algebra question to a lady, a professional wrestler.
She said, “Yes, I’ve used algebra in my whole life, to achieve success in my field. Even though I never did any abstract algebra calculation in my life after high school, it helped me to think properly and logically in order, it gave me a tough brain training which I utilize every single day in my life.”
Only knowledge doesn’t help, but it’s connection to real life boosts us.
Many people in the core field of math and science like my former student’s math teacher forget that other people don’t know what they know.
How do we convey the work of scientists and mathematicians for an ordinary audience of nonscientists is challenging. To understand this part we need to communicate a gap in our knowledge.
The tendency to become overconfident about how much we know about the raw data and algebra needs to be addressed.
Math and science language are often abstract, but life is completely different, it is beyond abstract.
Abstraction makes it difficult to understand an idea and its connection to life.
Our brain contains so many tools that create connections.
If connection is so powerful, why do we slip so easily into abstraction?
Experts speak different languages, they think abstractly on math and science but ordinary people think on real ground.
Our experts on R&D want to make complex and sophisticated products and technology, but our customers or ordinary people want easy and reliable products and technologies.
The goal of ordinary people and customers isn’t meet.
Exactly the same applies in conveying science language, the huge communication gap exists.
It is estimated that only about 20 percent of papers cited have actually been read. Research shows that an average paper in a peer-reviewed journal is read completely by around 10 people.
This clearly indicates that the impact of most peer-reviewed publications even within the scientific community is infinitesimal.
Concise communication is a way of bringing math and science in our community.
Brain works on the concept of visualization, therefore, it helps to transform math and science to another level.
How did the wrestler lady visualize the high school algebra in her professional life?
She connected the lesson of algebra to her emotional maturity, and she conveyed it nicely to my former student.
She can inspire others why algebra is important in high school, her message carries emotion and strength.
Algebra not only helps to solve complex math problems or secure good grades in tests but also makes you think tougher in life.
Emotion and personal connection are more powerful to convey the message of abstract materials like math and science.
Most of our peer-reviewed journals begin with an abstract.
The beginning is already very dry for the general readers.
Robin Warren, a staff pathologist at a hospital, and Barry Marshall, an internist in training, discovered H. Pylori bacteria which causes ulcer in our body.
Initially nobody believed, especially the experts in the area.
At one point in Marshall’s life, he poisoned himself to prove his science due to desperation. Ordinary people paid attention, read their stories, as a result in 2005, they got Nobel prize in medicine for their work.
Science and math speak volumes, emotions, and diversity because it brings a broader audience to a cause, cause to improve life and cause to cure life.
When my daughter asks me, “Tell me a story,” at bedtime, she is looking for entertainment, not any instruction or knowledge.
I tell a story about periodic table, but not as abstract science, elements, symbols and names, columns and rows.
By my story, she makes the picture of a periodic table in her mind.
She shouldn’t remain only a passive listener.
The story provides the context of knowledge to my daughter which is missing in abstract science.
The wrestler lady, her story about algebra, its understanding and putting it into a real life framework is inspiring to others.
When my former student asked an algebra question to MD doctor, the doctor said, “When I was becoming a doctor in medical school, I needed every answer of my body organs as well as expertise. But now I have to convey my expertise to the masses.”
He added, “I must dissociate my expertise from the curse of knowledge. I know many things that the general audience don’t know but I should get around the general audience to share the information. I need to communicate as if I am in the audience.”
How we relate our work, our findings to the day-to-day work and day-to-day people is how we set our value in life.
Some of the existing curse of expertise needs to be cured.
We become a medical doctor with MD without taking a single communication class.
We become a CEO of a business with an MBA without taking a single class in communication.
We become a professor of mathematics with a PhD without taking a single class on how to teach and how to communicate.
Due to these leaks in our system, knowledge becomes a curse for the general audience.
Imagine attending an hour-long powerpoint presentation from an expert and nothing sticks in your memory after the presentation, you are just exposed with a curse of knowledge.
Remember, people care more about individual impact than they do care about abstract math and science.
Even though many current students are struggling to learn algebra and calculus in school and many of their math journey ends there.
At present most engineering designs are replaced by computer software so the real application of our algebra and calculus is debatable.
Anyway, utilize the power of algebra in your life, everybody.
Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina