If the definition of a course requirement is “needing” it in real life, when is the author/NPR going to suggest we drop most English classes. I mean come on, how often is Shakespeare used in real life. I’d bet a lot less than Algebra 1. 
The author of this book thinks students instead should be considering questions like “How would you decimalize time?’” Come on. Everyone needs to learn that?
I will be delighted if students learn enough math to select a loan that’s the best deal for them, to not waste their hard-earned money at the store because they lacked the mental math skills to compare prices, and to build the wall in my house that isn’t a foot too short. (Next time, I hope).
I disagree completely, bluebayou. I “use” Shakespeare all the time. I go to productions of his plays, I quote phrases that have made it into the language, I think of real people whose character flaws remind me of Hamlet or Macbeth. Whereas I loved algebra and all the other math I took but decades later I don’t use any math but arithmetic and basic statistics. I’m glad I learned all the other stuff but I have to admit I don’t use it.
@delurk1 but not many use Shakespeare line do they?
What do you mean? We use Shakespeare lines all the time. People say “To be or not to be, that is the question.” “Now is the winter of our discontent.” “Lend me your ears.”
I love Shakespeare and I loved math (but I’ve forgotten most of it.) I wish everyone could appreciate both. I’m just not sure what should be required in schools.
One friend and HS classmate who was a hardcore CS/aspiring pre-med had that very attitude about our STEM-centered public magnet’s 4 year literature requirement.
Somehow managed to hack the scheduling computer so he wouldn’t have English classes for 4 years. Amazingly, he managed to escape notice and even receive several college admission offers…including from 2 Ivies before HS admins caught on, notified the colleges to rescind their admission offers, and forced him to stay a 5th year where he did nothing but take the lit classes he felt were “a complete waste of my time” as he was passionate about CS and medicine and wanted to be a doctor.
While his parents felt like throttling him at the time, turned out this was just a minor bump in the road as after a year at a public college, he managed to transfer into one of the Ivies which initially accepted him, finished with flying colors, admitted to med school, and is a practicing doctor.
I found 4 year of literature is very repetitive. You don’t learn much other than reading books and doing same activities all over again.
I think instead of 4 year literature, 2 year literature and 2 years of essay writing s would be much more useful.
The 4 years of lit classes included plenty of rigorous writing assignments of the 5, 8 and even 15-20 page varieties.
And that’s not including the 20 page English senior thesis required to graduate from my STEM-centered public magnet.
All of that made undergrad and to some extent, some grad-level writing assignments far more manageable in comparison.
@cobrat You didn’t name any specific courses. Did they take multi-variable calculus, or linear algebra, or real analysis or abstract algebra or differential equations, or what? To be frank I think there’s something missing in your story.
Re: math education in Taiwan, ROC
Here is an old (1984, but probably relevant to the time that someone’s older relative were in high school in Taiwan, ROC) paper comparing US and Taiwan, ROC math education in secondary school:
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED248142.pdf
Starting at page 30 (using the numbers in the upper right of each page, not the numbers at the bottom of each page) is the curricular comparison (description of US math starts at page 30, description of Taiwan, ROC math starts at page 35). Table 7 on page 36 indicates that 10% of high schools in Taiwan, ROC at the time offered calculus and analytic geometry in the advanced math track; other math courses offered are typical ones leading up to calculus.
As a high school student in a decent public school, I would say the problems aren’t the requirements but the general attitude in high school itself. In high school, no one likes learning, and everyone constantly influences each other to hate it (both through example and though social stigma against students who enjoy learning, which I have experienced). Rigorous subjects like math require students to work hard to understand them, which is not possible if they’ve been trained to dread the subject before they even took it. As a result, students encounter various roadblocks that prevent them from learning the subjects thoroughly and in ways that they can apply to their lives, and teachers are forced to teach them in a dumbed-down, shortcut way just so some of them pass (that’s what I’ve observed in calculus, a subject that everyone dreads enormously).
I really do believe everyone needs at least some math (algebra at the very least), and shouldn’t be allowed to quit when they’re at an age where they don’t know their careers yet. The only solution is to increase enthusiasm for learning in schools, but this is a huge uphill battle and I don’t know how it would be carried out.
When I was in high school (where about a third of graduates then went on to four year colleges), I did not observe students dreading calculus (BC was taken in 12th grade by students who completed (usually honors) precalculus in 11th grade, which is a year ahead of the normal sequence). There was a non-trivial amount of anti-intellectualism, particularly in courses off the main line college prep sequences, but it was absent in the honors math courses that were mostly populated by one year ahead students who reached calculus in 12th grade. Obviously, these were students who liked math and were good at it, but it seems odd that the students in your school in the same advanced math sequence dread calculus.
Sounds like the author watched boyinaband’s video “Don’t Stay in School.”
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I took calculus my senior year of high school, but frankly I can’t remember anything from my previous math classes (geometry, algebra, pre-calculus). I learned all of the concepts for the SAT thanks to review books and my school’s SAT prep course (which everyone took).
For high school students, Statistics and Finance would be far more useful than “Pre-Calculus” and possibly calculus. However, algebra shouldn’t be removed. It’s essential to chemistry, physics, computer science, statistics, and many more fields; the concept of a variable is far too important to ignore.
Good to see the author call out the STEM shortage for what it is.
The way I see it, we don’t really have an option to dummy down high school math. We’re pushing more and more students into higher ed, and when you walk in the door at a four-year school, they’re probably going to start you on calc. Even if you’re doing business calc or what not, you’re still going to need to have a foundation in algebra to pass. If high schools start dropping algebra as a requirement, public colleges will have to pick up the slack, and soon we’ll be paying $20,000 a year to learn how to do the quadratic equation. IMO, that’s one of the major problems with college right now. We’ve been trying to use it to cover for deficits in public education.
There’s still a decent chunk of a high school students that won’t go on to higher education and won’t have to bother with calculus, but algebra is still a useful everyday math to have, and really, algebra 1 as a graduation requirement isn’t a high bar to clear.
If you don’t go to college, there is no reason to go past trigonometry. But many trades use ideas taught in algebra 2/trigonometry.
It really angers me that the SAT is becoming so anti-STEM, which will hurt students like my children, in favor of increasing weighting of “soft” skills.
Either math and language arts are the two most important classes in a student’s schedule, or they aren’t. Can’t just plug in science, when it’s based on math, or social studies, when it’s based on language arts.
I think the premise is correct and despite some of the protestations, so does everyone on this forum. The question is really more about where is the appropriate line to draw 1) for all HS graduates and 2) for all college-bound graduates.
For me, there is a 3rd line. Students interested in STEM or similar studies should take more, perhaps.
I personally believe that we have become much too specialized a the HS level. HS is the best place for discovery and exploration. It is also important to be able to impart life skills to all graduates. While a minority of students may be suited for specialization early, most are not and should not be pigeon-holed so early.
I would require Algebra, Geometry and Statistics for everything but STEM and similar.
English classes are better at teaching how to write effectively. They use literature to teach varied ways of getting it done. The difference is that we all need to be able to communicate effectively. We do not all need to have the math skills to do engineering. Even the statistics is more important for understanding concepts than for being able to do the calculations. That being said, I would not be averse to reducing the English requirement by a year.
That is not to say I want to dumb down the HS curriculum. We need to make more well-rounded students. Too many graduate without understanding very important concepts like how our economy works and how our government works. A great many of our societal ills are based on a fundamental lack of knowledge of these things. Every time I hear an otherwise intelligent person cry for the elimination of the Electoral College, I cry inside for the poor state of our education system.
College is the proper place for specialization with just a bit of reinforcement on the broader ‘core’ subjects. HS should be more general.
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What do you mean? We use Shakespeare lines all the time. People say "To be or not to be, that is the question." "Now is the winter of our discontent." "Lend me your ears."
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You probably use algebra and don’t realize it just like people quote Shakespeare and don’t realize it.
US high school curricula are mostly “general education” or “core curriculum”, in contrast to the situation in some other countries where it is the norm to attend specialized high schools in preparation for specific post-high-school destinations. Whether there is insufficient elective space for exploration is a different topic from excessive specialization.
Those 10% of high schools are likely “remedial high schools” of the kind my mother ended up attending because she didn’t complete calculus until sophomore year in HS or vocational oriented high schools for students who weren’t considered suitable for the academic high schools for students aspiring to university.
Also, up until very recently, only a minority of the academically top performing middle school graduates would have gone on to academic-oriented high schools for those aspiring to university. Everyone else, especially in the '50s and '60s would be placed on various vocational oriented high schools, apprenticeships, or even be expected to proceed directly into the workforce. As such, academic-oriented high schools would not make up the majority of all high schools in that society.
Also, keep in mind that in Taiwan, compulsory education mandates end at middle school. Anything afterwards is optional for the student and his/her family.
Incidentally, this has become a subject of heated controversy within the last couple of years as increasing numbers of folks feel this should be extended to include high school as well.
This perspective on HS and college education is an American one which developed from a period when even K-12 education for college-aspiring students was very uneven in quality…especially during the colonial and early US period up until the mid-19th century at least.
This very issue was one reason why even elite American educational institutions like West Point had academic remediation* to account for such issues.
In contrast, Gen Ed coverage for university aspiring students was expected in many European countries and societies which adopted their educational models to be covered and completed during high school or even middle-school years. A reason why there’s a greater level of specialization even in academic high schools and why it wasn’t felt to be an issue.
It’s also a reason why some international college-prep schools like the German Gymnasium were noted in WWII era military reports and by those studying foreign education systems were considered the equivalent to an academically respectable/elite high school AND the first 2 years at an academically respectable/elite US university.
- West Point was briefly structured on a 5-year curriculum from 1854 till 1861 to provide an extra year for academic remediation for cadets whose prior education wasn't up to their standards and to increase coverage of humanities/gen-eds in what was such a STEM-heavy curriculum that every cadet graduated as an engineering major.