Making Numbers Palatable

Steve Marsden has the right idea about math. “Attitude,” the Glendale City College professor contends, “is more important than aptitude.” That’s why he and colleague Sid Kolpas take pains to demonstrate the practical--and even the beautiful--aspects of a discipline that far too many students and parents write off as esoteric, pointless and downright difficult. Kolpas and Marsden’s efforts to make numbers friendly are all the more important considering that the United States scored a dismal C-minus in a recent worldwide report card on math and science education.

In the debate over how best to teach mathematics, Kolpas and Marsden take the view that context matters. When illustrating the uses of differential equations, for instance, the professors ask students to calculate the time of death for a body discovered at noon, outside a house where the ambient temperature is 70 degrees and the temperature of the corpse is 80.6. Admittedly grisly, the multi-variable mystery is just the kind of exercise that shows students the usefulness of math beyond basic arithmetic. Stockbrokers use it to value options. Pollsters use it to gauge public opinion. Carpenters use it to measure walls.

The practical approach works. Students who struggled in past math classes say that Kolpas and Marsden helped them finally discover the intellectual creativity math allows. In creating a new proof for 2.718--the base for natural logarithms--Kolpas and Marsden used calculus and probability theory to prove a notion that previously had been demonstrated only through number theory.

The proof shows students that solutions can vary. And that, in the end, is the most important lesson most students take away from their math training. For the past 40 years, math education in the United States has swung back and forth between fads that emphasize memorization and calculation and those that stress process and approach. The correct course lies somewhere in between--a delicate balance between process and result. Math teaches new ways to think about the physical world and results do matter. But just as important are the logical thought processes math demands.

Particularly in the electronic age, when labor-intensive calculations can be done in seconds by a computer, students need to understand the concepts and applications that lie beneath the surface. Kolpas and Marsden help students peel back the layers to overcome their fears and to discover the potential the world of numbers can hold. It’s all about attitude.