Simeon McMillan | Moving math to the next level

I'm all about learning the fundamentals, the basic rules of the game.

Fundamentals dictate why we must learn to walk before we run, babble before we talk and are pretty much the only good thing that could be said about the spectacle that is the WNBA.

Unfortunately for the educational purists, the fundamentals of how we teach math in America are desperately in need of change. And Penn's very own Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences is leading the way.

College Dean Dennis DeTurck is on a mission to reform how schools teach math. DeTurck will publish a book this year that will question the utility of teaching certain fundamentals, such as fractions and long division.

"Fractions have had their day, being useful for by-hand calculation," he said at a 60-Second lecture a few years ago. "But in this digital age, they're as obsolete as Roman numerals."

In numerous statements he's made to the press, DeTurck has expressed his desire to delay the teaching of fractions until later in a student's schooling.

I agree that by-hand calculations are overrated, but Roman numerals did serve one useful purpose this past week. I bet fans of the New York Giants will always remember the numerals XLII to commemorate the Super Bowl that crushed Tom Brady's inflated ego.

Getting back to my point, with such an uncontroversial move to alter the fabric of elementary schools, the dean's proposal has received unduly harsh criticism. Numerous academics in the field and countless anonymous bloggers in cyberspace have expressed strong distaste for his proposals.

I imagine most of these critics are over the age of nine.

Even math students at Penn have differing opinions on the issue.

"I think in decimals, but convert things to fractions to do math by hand," said College junior Wesley Kerr, a Mathematics major.

As always, to deem any debate legitimate, we have to get Harvard's two cents - correction, two hundredths - on the issue.

Harvard Math professor Wilfried Schmid was quoted in The Daily Pennsylvanian as saying, "You have to ask if the best way to deal with problems in math education is just not teaching what is somewhat difficult."

But history tends to repeat itself, so I did some research to look for instances in which people scrapped a fraction-based system in favor of decimalization.

Thanks to the Common Sense Pricing Act of 1997 (a bill bearing an uncanny resemblance to the title of my column) all stock prices on American stock exchanges were converted from a system of whole numbers and fractions to a system based on decimals.

Turns out some radical thinkers finally realized that the American dollar was no longer based on the value of the Spanish real, a currency denominated in eighths.

In a testimony before Congress in 2001, Laura Unger, then acting chairwoman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said that "the goal of decimalization was viewed as necessary to simplify pricing for investors."

Just as the once commonplace act of paying 20 and three-eighths dollars is now considered ludicrous, people shouldn't be so adverse to teaching elementary students a decimal-based system first and saving fractions for later.

Anyone who believes we're not a decimal-based society should turn on the round-the-clock coverage of this election season. I doubt you'll ever hear correspondent Wolf Blitzer or the now bow tie-less Tucker Carlson say a candidate won by 22 and five-eighths points.

"I think people's strong reaction either way just shows how accustomed we've become to our prior experiences in the classroom," said Michael Lurie, a College senior and Mathematics minor. "Change is hard to make, but it's sometimes necessary if we want to improve students' perception of math."

Change versus experience. Hmm. This dilemma sounds familiar.

I fully believe in tradition, but only so long as it's meaningful. It's a well-documented fact that many American students lose interest in math somewhere in the nebulous transition from elementary to middle school. And according to the National Center for Education Statistics, Americans test poorly compared to international peers in mathematics among both fourth and eighth graders.

Change is never easy, but sometimes it's necessary. By bringing fresh ideas to the table, DeTurck is helping find the solution to the nation's mathematical deficiency.

Simeon McMillan is a Wharton senior from Long Island, NY. His e-mail is mcmillan@dailypennsylvanian.com. Common $ense appears Thursdays.

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