The cultural tide of being at best indifferent or at worst proud of math illiteracy is tough to fight.
I’m a professional mathematician, it comes up in small talk “what do you do” type stuff. It’s almost always met with some flavor of “oh lol I’m so bad at that” or “oh I hate that”, with the lingering implication that it’s normalcy, at least colloquially (like “hating Brussels sprouts”)
I can’t imagine a person responding to an author “oh lol I can’t read but who cares”. No shame from me on folks who can’t read, but as the headline states there’s such a response to that need because frankly, our society will shame you if you can’t read, but commiserate with you if you can’t math.
I don’t want math literacy to come on the back of shaming either. I just struggle with the amount of indifference (and mishandling by educative bodies) to such a vital language.
The cultural tide of being at best indifferent or at worst proud of math illiteracy is tough to fight.
I’m a professional mathematician, it comes up in small talk “what do you do” type stuff. It’s almost always met with some flavor of “oh lol I’m so bad at that” or “oh I hate that”, with the lingering implication that it’s normalcy, at least colloquially (like “hating Brussels sprouts”)
I can’t imagine a person responding to an author “oh lol I can’t read but who cares”. No shame from me on folks who can’t read, but as the headline states there’s such a response to that need because frankly, our society will shame you if you can’t read, but commiserate with you if you can’t math.
I don’t want math literacy to come on the back of shaming either. I just struggle with the amount of indifference (and mishandling by educative bodies) to such a vital language.