It's fun!

So we can pay taxes and be good citizens! (or to know what kind of deal a refund in advance loan from a tax service is)
--Pam E. Ostrowski
<http://www.irs.gov/compliance/enforcement/article/0,,id=163044,00.html>

Studying math in high school helps us to be productive citizens. First, you must have it if you go onto college. But even if you don't, it's needed for the joys of every day life.

Shopping. Did you ever try to go to a sale at Kohl's with a 20% off coupon if you're on a budget? And if you're paying cash, you'd better know the basics of how much change you're supposed to be getting back, or else a cashier's counting error could result in your getting short-changed.

Mileage. You need to know how far you'll get on a gallon of gas. How much money it will cost to fill your tank - or have enough to make it home (particularly if you forget your credit card and are short on cash).

Does a high school student learn about probability? It might help if one plans to play the roulette wheel at the casinos. How much can I make if I bet $2 on black/odd numbers vs. my favorite number?

Game shows. If you can't sing or dance, maybe you'll want to try your ten minutes of fame via a trivia/game show. Certainly you'll need math to succeed.

Now, I never "liked" math in high school. But in college, I joined a study group (in order to pass because the professor had too brilliant a mind to "teach") and I quickly learned that practice was essential for success.

These days, I use it every day at work to analyze sales numbers (sales projections) and in my personal life to budget my money and of course to know how much to leave for tips!
--Buffalo gal

Well, I am not a rocket scientist, but I do run a glass company that deals with math all day long. Every window is like a finger print, every size is different. I need to know square feet and make then into inches so that I can price out the glass I need. I need to know how many pieces of glass I can get out of a stock sheet of glass. Or what size stock sheet I need to make sure that it matches to my glass or mirrors. I need to know measurements for doors, showers, table tops, radius table tops, radius corners. Oh there is so much I could tell you about the glass business but I will leave you with this.... A house has anywhere from 8-12 windows. A complete window would cost you 400.00, the labor to install is about 100.00. How much money can you make on 1 house? Now times that buy about 300 calls a month. Or you could even do 1 window a house at 500.00, 8 houses a day, 5 days a week. The glass business it huge. If 50 companies started tomorrow there would be enough work for us all. Everyone needs glass at one time or another.
--Corena
<mailto:[email protected]>

Having six children of my own, I get asked questions like this very often. Math is everywhere. It's used in everyday life by everyone. As someone has already mentioned shopping...you need to know how much everything is going to cost, if you have enough money to pay for it and most important your change. Also, you need to be able to figure out which product is the better deal. Say you have 3-4 different brands of peanut butter. You only have so much money to spend so you want to get the one that costs the least.

My husband and I own our own floor cleaning business. I need to do all the paper work and I need to be able to figure out the tax on our service work. My husband has to measure the floors, find the total square footage and figure out what we are going to charge per job.

Everyone has to do their taxes or have someone else do them for them. When you have someone else do them, you can pay quite a bit of money. It's much easier to do them yourself.

If you fish, sometimes you need to measure your catch to be sure it's of legal size to keep.

If your caught speeding, in some states, when they give you the ticket, it doesn't have the amount of the fine. You have to look on the back and figure out how much it is yourself(not that I know this from personal experience!).

If you every plan to build anything, you will most definately need to know math! You need to figure out all different kinds of measurements and make things square and ....let's just say there's a lot of math in building, even if it's only a bird house!

Let's say you love to play video games. You decide you want to make and design them for a living. There is a lot of math in making and designing video games.

Cooking...you need to be able to figure out how much your going to need if you want to double the recipe or vice versa half the recipe.

I could go on but I'll give some others a chance to add there two cents!
--Tracy Taylor-NY
<mailto:[email protected]>

I'm not sure if this applies in this particular situation, but my problem with school Math is that doesn't teach Math in a realistic life setting. Of course we use Math daily in so many forms, but it's hard to see how that can be when given a sheet with 30 problems all looking like "x-y=?" and so forth. There is no practical connection to how that can apply to ones life.

Ways we use math daily:
Shopping (weighing foods, comparing prices per amounts, budgeting, money handling, taxes, sizing products (fabric, soil, lumber), eating out (budgeting, money handling, taxes, tips), traveling (taxes, tips, budgeting, money handling, money conversions, finding a deal), job related (most jobs you have to have a good grasp on basic math, many jobs even more, and even other jobs a specified field of math knowlege), taxes, milage/gas budget, cooking/baking, home improvement projects, sewing, animal care, child care, health care for self and/or family, budgeting bills and other finances, basic machanics and household upkeep, investing, charitable donations, and the list can keep going.

Your comment, "is that doesn't teach Math in a realistic life setting" is exactly what I wanted to get at. I agree that it's not hard to see the practical applications of math, but for the most part, that stuff is taught by middle school; so my question is - why do we make kids go on to algebra and geometry? I am a high school math teacher and I have lots of good reasons for studying math... but I can't give them all away here, because my assignment to my students is to make them think of reasons. Some brief thoughts would be... for the fun and joy of learning, problem-solving, logic (that's what those proofs are all about, anyhow!), exposure to abstract thinking and imagination, puzzle-solving for brain "work-outs," oh, I could go on and on.

Your issue of those tedious lists of problems is well-recognized; the curriculum we use is much less "drill & kill" than what I remember from high school. Sometimes you need to do that practice to master the skills you need to go further (something like a soccer player dribbling the ball back and forth during practice). Once you have some skills, you can go further and explore the field in greater depth. In high school, kids should have the opportunity to explore a broad range of areas so they can make an intelligent choice for their future. (so much of what we learn in school we never "use" again - does that make it all useless?)
--Mrs. Anderson
<http://www.geocities.com/sadlo29/mathpage.html>

Why Higher Math?
Mrs. Anderson beat me to the punch. I agree that I knew "enough math" to survive in the real world by the time I finished 9th grade. So why did I have to go on and learn trigonometry, calculus and physics? At the time I didn't understand why either except I knew they were "required prerequisite courses" at some of the universities I was interested in attending. Here are some of the reasons I've discovered over the years that made me glad I learned all that higher math.

Trigonometry
I don't remember all of the functions anymore, but I still use a lot of trigonometry instinctively when playing sports. If you either watch or play football, basketball or hockey you'll hear other players talk a lot about "angles" with respect to playing defense or when describing passing lanes. That's all trig they're talking about. When I play hockey and am getting ready to shoot from above the circle I instinctively know there's a triangle formed by my body, the puck on the stick and the goal. I can't tell you the sine or cos of the various angles and sides, but I do know that the puck on the stick has a different view of the net and the open spots than I do, and that when I shoot I have to shoot from the puck's view.

Calculus
Ahh, the beauty of derivatives! No, I don't work a lot of functions on a daily basis, but I do use a lot of the problem solving approaches I learned on a daily basis. I also gained confidence from the belief that through calculus I could find a formula or formulae to describe an object of nearly any shape, or a mix of resources that is optimal when planning production, etc. (That's called Linear Programming. Having that kind of belief makes problem solving just a bit easier. You KNOW there is an answer to the question or issue.

Physics
I had to learn a lot of physics for my science degree. No, I don't use it every day and I sure don't use the laws of ideal gases to solve equations very often. But I DO use the laws of leverage nearly every single day. Sometimes in as simple a way as opening a new jar. Mostly I use physics when reading scientific literature. I'm not a rocket scientist, but having a rudimentary knowledge of physics helps me understand what that rocket scientist is talking about in an article he has written. That helps me feel good about myself...helps me have confidence when dealing with scientists.

Finally, there's a beauty and an honesty to math. You can trust all those formulae and functions. They'll treat you far truer than prepositions, verbs and gerunds, not to mention wives and lovers.

Hipparchus & Newton

Well uhh i dont like math...its really confusing and it makes my head hurt so i geuss math is good for advil and tylenol companies, and im never gonna be a waitress or a rocket scientist.
--Justin Yoast

Here is a fun little math joke. No political intent is implied. Just enjoy.

A public school teacher was arrested today at
John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted
to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a
protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General
Alberto Gonzalez said he believes the man is a member of
the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the
man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons
of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzalez said.
"They desire solutions by means and extremes, and
sometimes go off on tangents in a search of
absolute value. They use secret code names like
'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but
we have determined they belong to a common denominator
of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are
3 sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said,
"If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math
instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

hey x-y=?, i think you're missing the point,math isnt about the answer, its simply the painsakingly tear-jerking process to teach you how to think. and hey all variables stand for something remember those good old 9-8=? dont get freaked out just because you have to define the variables yourself!
--carolynn

Why learn math? I'm always astounded at this question for this reason: Even an average high school athlete goes to the weight room constantly. Never does this person ask the coach "Why am I doing curls? I won't EVER do a curl on the football field, the basketball court, or the soccer field!!!". Why not? Because even the dullest lineman knows that you are building muscles that are going to help you in hundreds of ways, none of which are exactly like doing a curl. Same with math. You are training yourself to approach problems mentally and that practice will stengthen your logical reasoning. You will use it in countless ways that you may not even know you are using it. Don't go into the game without being as strong as you can be!!!!

You big stupid head
--Jack Perkins
<mailto:[email protected]>