There once was a frustrated educator, frantically trying to create band-aid after band-aid to fix the crumbling structure of mathematics education at their institution. Institutional and legislative initiatives demanded faster and faster fixes for systems that no longer seemed to work for institutions nor students: placement, college-readiness, STEM-readiness, pathways, advising, pass rates, enrollment, job-readiness for a gamut of careers in an ever changing technological landscape, equitable and sustainable assessment practices, faculty workload, faculty-student feedback and interaction, universal design practices, co-requisites, developmental education, transferability, (keep it cheap!)...oh, and don't forget to make sure they like math and that you have reversed decades of antiquated pedagogies and the impacts of exhausted educators that don't have any energy left to be passionate for their discipline.
I've struggled for YEARS with trying to reconcile fixing the above. I've complied when asked to fix issue after issue only inevitably to be told new issues have been made by the band-aids to the old issues. And I'm TIRED. I'm tired of trying to fix small issues that are symptomatic of much larger issues.
Here's what I've decided:
All of these problems trace back to one thing: For too long we have prioritized STEM education as being the great mobilizer and weapon against competition. We were right...for a while.
Prioritizing STEM as the way to remain competitive (this assumes a capitalist perspective) and prepare our society for the advances in technology was a good strategy when technology was in its infancy (1960's-1990's) but that prioritization took the focus away from something even more important: Numeracy. What does it mean to be 'numerate'? Merriam-Webster defines being 'numerate' as having the ability to understand and work with numbers. The achievement of a STEM educated citizenry as the indicator of a mathematically literate society does not produce a numerate citizenry. Assuming STEM students will 'understand how to do taxes because...ya know...you're in STEM' is a gross assumption and one that I am a living counter-example to. Students who successfully navigate through STEM pathways do NOT automatically know how to do taxes, or understand loans, or understand statistics and assuming they will 'figure it out' assumes that each of them comes from a background where individuals they can learn from about these concepts are present in their life and are also knowledgeable about these concepts. This is a privileged assumption with potentially disastrous impacts, withholding concepts that are critical to succeeding in a 21st century society! It's not a coincidence that my generation (I'm 40) is the generation full of STEM degrees with lots of student loans that cannot buy houses or save for retirement. We were told that EVERYONE should go to college and equally disastrously...we were taught all about STEM and nothing about numeracy.
STEM alone is not going to be enough to ensure our society remains competitive in the 21st century because prioritizing STEM education does not mean we are developing citizenry that are 'numerate'.
In order for our society to remain competitive in a global economy, and to ensure we have educated citizens that can function in a highly technological world where unimaginable amounts of information, of varying validities are almost freely accessible, people must be quantitatively literate.
For too long, the 'STEM pathway' (College Algebra to Calculus) has been considered the 'default' academic pathway through high school and higher education. Why? Read above. STEM has been considered THE WAY to remain competitive against our global economic competitors (we MUST beat Russia to space!). But maintaining that mentality will come at a cost: we will produce a workforce of STEM workers that don't understand data, don't understand statistics, don't understand taxes, finances, voting, democracy, sales, loans, or any of the other critical ways that numeracy is present in every day life. Notice I said 'numeracy', not 'mathematics'. That is the great distinction: math education is full of calls to 'make mathematics relevant to students' and vague recommendations for how to do this but what is more important is for students to 'see numeracy in their everyday lives' and develop a robust and mature ability to be 'numerate'.
Just as literacy was seen as the great social and economic mobilizer of the 19th and 20th centuries, numeracy will be the great social and economic mobilizer of the 21st century.
For a great reference on what got me thinking about this, please see this resource from my friends at the Mathematical Association of America and the National Council on Education and the Disciplines:
Mathematics and Democracy: The Case for Quantitative Literacy (2001)
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