In Defense of Algebra 2

 In Defense of Algebra 2

By Bobby Neal Winters

I attended McLish High School in Fittstown, Oklahoma.  It was a small school at the time, and since then it has been consolidated with our neighboring school Stonewall, but it served me well.  I was always lousy with arithmetic, but when I got to algebra, something clicked with me.  I think this was because the arithmetic in algebra is easier.  When I got into geometry, I caught on fire.  

I took these courses as a freshman and a sophomore.  When I was a junior, there was a crisis.  Trigonometry and Algebra 2 were both being offered.  Trigonometry wouldn’t be offered again while I was in high school because it was only offered every other year, but Algebra 2 is a prerequisite for Trigonometry and for good reason.  I talked it out with the teacher (Mr. Hoyt Sloan) and administration (Billy R. Scott, in pace requiem), and they let me take both.

I hunkered-down and I did it. I worked every homework problem twice. Seriously.  There were nights doing my homework when I literally cried. But I did it.  Having gotten my Algebra and Trigonometry out of the way, I was able to start college in the mathematical sciences on the right foot.

These days, I spend way too much time on Facebook.  I do it because you can keep up with your friends and not use much of your brain.  If you’ve been there, you know there are other people who are not using much of their brain either. (Rim shot)

That having been said, sometimes you see things that are well-meant, put up by good people with the very best of intentions, but are in need of, shall we say, a bit of nuancing.  The one I have in mind begins, “It’s 2019...get rid of Algebra 2 in high schools and replace it with Finance Fundamentals. Teach kids about careers (not just college), salaries, credit, budgeting, money management, taking out a loan, buying a house, filing their taxes.”

As you can imagine given my history, this makes me set my jaw.  This was a course that I suffered to take.

Let’s take a look at this and dissect it a bit.  It starts with an attack on Algebra 2.  Does everybody have to take this class?  I don’t think so. It has been put there for a couple of reasons.  

It gets the reader’s attention and puts them on the writer’s side. Everybody hates algebra.  The students hate learning it, and their teachers hate teaching it.  It requires patience.  It requires building the capacity to abstract.  It requires attention to detail.  Very little of this comes naturally to us.  It can be very frustrating.  Whatever we math teachers may say in jest, we don’t enjoy making students suffer.  (Well, not all of them.)

Algebra is taught because it is a foundational skill for physical science and engineering. If you are going to be in any of those disciplines you need to have Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and a whole lot more.  In my personal opinion, teaching Algebra 1 in middle school is too early, and while we are at it, I don’t think Calculus should be taught in high school at all, but that is just as I said, my opinion. 

Not everybody is going to be in the physical sciences or engineering.  This is understood.  There are reasons for taking Algebra besides this.  It does require the building of the abilities I described above, which are useful in other areas.  I use the ability to be frustrated every single day of my life; Algebra 2 ain’t nothing compared to some of the stuff I put up with, but I digress.

The suggestion in the meme is to replace Algebra 2 with Finance Fundamentals.  It sounds like a good class, but this isn’t an either/or thing.  While I absolutely don’t think everyone will specifically use the knowledge they learn in algebra, students in high school take 6 classes a year for 4 years.  That is 24 classes.  You can go wild and take Math, Science, and English every year and still have 12 other classes wherein that Finance Fundamentals class can be fit, just sayin’. 

Having wrestled with writing this column--and I have wrestled with it--it seems the central issue is college preparation. I will stipulate the following: If you are not going to college, the probability you are going to need the subject matter in Algebra 2 (or Algebra 1) is vanishingly small. So this is really a meme about college tracking versus non-college tracking.

Did you know what you were going to do with your life when you were 14 or 15 years old?  

I was still in the process of figuring it out. To be honest, I did know I wanted to go to college and because I took algebra, I learned I could make it in a mathematical scientific area. Let people like me have the chance.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. )