Why Math is Actually a Cool Subject

My early math education consisted of memorizing a bunch of facts and doing pages and pages of arithmetic problems. It was confusing, frustrating, and intimidating. Why was I learning this stuff and what good was it? Then I had a teacher who taught math in a different way. I learned to focus on key concepts and skills so that I developed a mental structure that allowed me to "think mathematically." I became excited about learning math and felt more confident. Math definitely became "cool" for me.

How do you feel about math? Unfortunately, many people admit that, "I'm no good in math." We need to change this attitude because positive attitudes about math are important for our country's future. All jobs need math - the fast food worker, the doctor, the cashier, the tile-layer, and the structural engineer. Our world is technology-oriented and some very "cool" inventions came about as a result of understanding numbers. Computers, web sites, CDs, and video games were possible because of two simple numbers: 0 and 1.

It is really fun to focus on finding math in nature. For example, if you pick up a pine cone, you can see spiral structures which are beautiful examples of something called the "Fibonacci Sequence". It is easy to understand the sequence if you know that each subsequent number consists of adding the last two numbers of the sequence together: i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,... Count the spirals on a pine cone, and you'll find that they fall on one of the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence. This particular sequence also occurs in other forms as well: plants, flowers, and fruit. Very cool! So the next time sometime says, "I hate math," let them know that the beauty of our world is very much the result of mathematical relationships, from the patterns of nature to the way in which awesome new high-tech machines are created. Math really is a cool subject!

By: Dr. Alan Iguchi, Owner and Operator of Mathnasium in Lafayette, Colorado