As a high school student who struggles in math, I've always questioned the necessity of learning all the algebra and calculus within our curriculums. For years, I had been packing formulas, equations, and postulates into my head and not once had I applied any of this knowledge outside of the classroom. I sat down and thought to myself, there must be a reason we learn all of this complicated math. I searched every corner of reason for the answer, and then suddenly it dawned on me. This is just a hypothesis, but even if my reasoning isn't the same as the reasoning of the school board enstilling mathematics in our schools, it still holds true.
In the past decade, more and more young people are being diagnosed with ADD then ever before. Attention Deficeit Disorder is a syndrome that prevents the mind from focusing for any prelonged period of time. Learning complicated maths battles this disorder. By forcing students to sit down for an hour and concentrate on numbers and equations that have no value of interest because they cannot be related to by students, the minds of the young pupils are conditioned to focus.
There are two problems that need to be addressed. One is the cause of the ADD in the first place. Without this problem that society has brought upon itself, students wouldn't need such complicated math courses. It is my guess that one of the biggest causes of ADD is television. Film styles have drastically changed in the past 30 years. A generation ago, entire action scenes in movies could be captured in one camera shot. Now, in an action scene in a contemporary movie, the camera shot changes once every 3-5 seconds. This requires no focus by the viewer because images are deliberately easy to comprehend, and they are flashed before the audience at a very rapid rate. Music is the same way. Music has sped up drastically over recent years. Instead of slower-paced mellow songs that last 6 or 7 minutes, a faster-paced modern rock song lasts about 3 minutes. This does not require any patience of the mind. When a student is not used to seeing an image for more than a few seconds, staring at a math problem for a minute seems like an eternity.
The other problem is the attitude of math teachers. The most common question in high school math classes is not "What was the answer to #12?". It is "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" The incorrect answer is always given by the teacher. The reason is not "because you have to" nor is it "its in the curriculum". Students have to learn mathematics so that their brains are conditioned in a way that most other forms of learning don't touch on. If a student asks "When will I ever use this stuff outside of school?", the response is usually a reprimand. The teacher's answer should be something along the lines of explaning the true theory of mathematics in schools. The concentration and memory skills learned exclusively by doing math make the mind sharper and able to handle much more intricate operations. If teachers instill this in their classrooms, true students will see more in the work they do and will be more motivated in their classes.