All The Math I Needed To Know

I Learned By The Ninth Grade...


From time to time in my public service career I have some interesting revelations and insights about teaching science and math to today's children.

Since I don't have any kids of my own, it is through my work with the theater and one of the local high schools which brings me into contact with the occasional rare student that asks the question: "how did you figure that out?"

In answering these little darlin's questions, of course I could as a matter of pride drag out my calculus books and differential equations textbook--all giant, dusty hardcover tomes with which my instructors tortured me while I was attempting to make my way through the first couple of years at Georgia Tech back in the late 1970's.

Instead, thus far I've resisted that urge and tried to keep things simple.

I usually just mention how I use a handheld calculator to solve simple little things like the Pythagorean Theorem and Sine/Cosine/Tangent functions that most college bound children learn in middle school.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure how far my attempts at putting a practical insight into the use of apparently mundane subjects goes when it comes to inspiring academic excellence, but I'm darn sure of how easy my ongoing mastery of those subjects makes my life on a day to day basis.

Tonight I'm working on the pre-planning for the final Ghost of Christmas Future fabrication later this morning, and in that process a working knowledge of basic geometry concepts are all that I need to lay out the shape of the "tether lanyard" that keeps Mr. Ghost Puppet from crashing down across Scrooge while "leaning down in the middle of his face with flashing red strobe light eyes." (you know what I mean here Rusty...)

I did have to cheat a little by employing some of my Sophomore year college Statics Structures class to fine tune the details, but the basic geometry was still the key to problem.

I really wish that our schools could employ more hands-on educational solutions instead of computer labs and diversity sermons--employing things like balsa wood, wooden dowels, or PVC pipe in lab sessions in order to demonstrate the usefulness of mathematics concepts. I'm building giant pyramids featured on football fields and humongous puppets seen on the theater stage using the exact same simple concepts.

At the same time, it would also be nice if they taught things like (real) economics, household budgeting, credit management, and how to balance a checkbook.

Is it just ME???