Oct 7 - Babylonian Word Problems - Questions of Practicality and Classifying Mathematics

I think the conversation of ‘pure’ vs ‘applied mathematics, or of practical vs abstract, speaks more to our desire to categorize ideas and concepts than it does to differentiate forms of mathematics. As this chapter discusses, and as we discussed (briefly) in Monday’s class session, what came first, the problem or the method (specifically from class: did the Egyptians learn to construct pyramids because they liked/needed them, or did they like them so they learned how to construct them)? It seems to me, based on this chapter, that word problems were used by the Babylonians to flex their mathematical and intellectual muscles – which is perfectly acceptable of course. My own experience with solving word problems has felt similar, the questions, under the guise of ‘real world application’, are in fact heavily contrived and impractical. There’s nothing inherently wrong with solving a question like this to demonstrate conceptual understanding, but I think the danger comes when we try to tell our students it’s a ‘real world application’ when in fact most of the mathematics we teach in K12 will not be directly used by students in their careers. This can lead to feelings of frustration and disappointment, and can cause students to feel like learning mathematics was useless. I think this conveniently ties in to the conversation from EDUC 450B about changing how and what mathematics we teach, and more and more on qualitative ideas, while letting technology do the heavy computing.