Algebra is not about maths

Dear every-maths-teacher-I-had-in-high-school,

About that algebra stuff you tried to teach me...  I'd like to have a word with you.

I know what you think this is going to be: one of those "I've never used this in my life and I can't believe you made me waste all that time on something pointlessly confusing for no good reason" rants.

You're wrong.

I mean, sure, a few weeks ago I would totally have gone with the "never-use-it, waste-of-time" option, but I sat down the other day and had a good think about things, and I've come to the conclusion that I regularly use transferable skills that can be taught with algebra - and that it is a useful thing that should definitely be taught to all students in high school.

Just not in a maths class.

You see, algebra is not about maths.  Sure, it involves maths, but it is not about maths.  It is about logic and reasoning.

Essentially, what you learn from algebra is deduction.  You have certain pieces of information in front of you, and you must use those pieces of information to deduce the information you don't have.

Now, maths is a particularly useful way of illustrating this principle, and the principle is particularly useful in mathematics - but quite frankly numbers are about as necessary for algebra as they are for sudoku.

I struggled with maths in high school.  This was surprising and depressing for me, because I was very good at it in primary school.  I regularly managed 100% results for maths tests and often topped the class for maths assignments.

Then I hit high school and suddenly nothing made any sense to me at all.  I realise, now, that this is because there were actually three different disciplines involved in the maths they teach you in school (perhaps more), and my brain couldn't accept them as being the same thing.

There's what I like to call "real world maths" - this is the stuff where the numbers equate to real things and you can see the connection between them.  The world is full of quantifiable things, and you can add to, subtract from, multiply and divide these.  If I have a pie, I can divide it into five pieces and I will then have five fifths of that pie.  Good.  Concrete.  Sensible.

Then there's that weird crazy-pants stuff that only makes sense in it's own universe.  They tell me that, mathematically, it all works.  However, you can't apply it to real life.  The simplest example I can give is dividing fractions.  If you divide a fraction by a fraction you get a bigger number.  That doesn't work in real life.  If I divide one fifth of the pie by two thirds of the people I don't magically get more pie.

Now, I'd like to think that if I wasn't meant to regard "real world maths" and "separate universe maths" as one and the same thing, I would have been able to work with it much more competently.  But, as it stood, I was constantly trying to reconcile the two versions of reality and failing miserably.

Then there's the third subject that gets bundled into the whole "maths" umbrella:  logic and reasoning.  This has applications to maths, but it is not maths specific.  It's a really good, useful set of skills to have, but in a maths class the focus is all wrong.  Rather than teaching the skills and applying it to maths, they try to teach the maths and hope the skills come out of that.

Algebra got caught up in that whole "real world vs pocket universe" issue that maths embodied for me, instead of being a very useful and practical skill that assists me in all sorts of things (like solving sudoku puzzles).

So, maths teachers of the world, do the future generations a favour and don't be quite so maths focused.  I know you find this hard to believe, but maths isn't the centre of the universe.