Education, Math, and More with Mr. Allison

 The Land of Opportunity. That's what I always considered our country. I was taught that I could be anything I wanted if I was willing to work hard enough. I've made a good living as a blue collar worker--driving a truck and as a chicken farmer. I've also made decent as a teacher in the white collar world.  As a kid, I never really saw myself going to college. I never thought I'd need it, that I could do whatever I wanted without spending the time and money for school. I went for a year right after high school because a lot of people expected me to, but I only lasted a year. I didn't flunk out, but I spent all my money and as a student I was less-than-stellar enough to lose my tuition scholarship.  So I went back to what I knew best, hard work. And I was good at it. After 17 years bouncing around from the Marine Corps to driving a truck to raising chickens and cattle, God made clear to me that He was calling me to teach. I tried to convince Him He was wrong, but fai...

Here's an interesting study by some Alabama college professors that claims the typical math sequence of American high schools isn't meeting students' needs. Their conclusion is that most kids need less algebra, trig, and calculus, but more statistics and data analysis. I agree, and have said for years, that Statistics is probably the "math" class we teach in high school that is most useful to most students for their future. But I don't think the problem is the typical math sequence in high school. Our problem is we (the math education professional community) have largely lost sight of WHY the math sequence is what it is. It was never implemented because everyone needs to know the sine of 30 degrees, or because everyone needs to know the quadratic formula, or that everyone needs to know the end behavior of a polynomial function. The reason for the sequence is to grow and train PROBLEM SOLVERS. Taught correctly, the math conventional math sequence from 1st grad...

Perhaps the most oft repeated question every math teacher hears. Worse, regardless how we answer it, the kid asking figures we're just blowing smoke and have no idea what we're talking about. Then of course, we also constantly see memes on social media, "Another day and I didn't use [fill in a high school math class here.]" The truth is, math is more than counting and memorizing formulas. The main reason most education systems require students to take as so much math, up to algebra or higher in most cases, is not so everyone can "cipher" as Jethro used to say on the Beverly Hillbillies. It's not so you have a bank of formulas memorized when you're 40 to pull out and use at the grocery store.   The reason you're required to take so much math is because it teaches you logic and reasoning. When you put these two things together you get good problem solvers. An THAT is why you're required to take so much math! So you'll develop problem so...