In high school, we didn't take probability statistics, scaling, estimates, anything like that. Are you implicitly suggesting a radical revision of the secondary school math curriculum? Well, I mean, it's hard to generalize because some schools, I think, do, and the best schools do. But certainly in addition of sub-stopics that are most relevant to politics,. estimation and so on. And just an ability to kind of think outside the box.
People have a complicated relationship to mathematics. We all use it in our everyday lives, from calculating a tip at a restaurant to estimating the probability of some future event. But many people find the subject intimidating, if not off-putting. John Allen Paulos has long been working to make mathematics more approachable and encourage people to become more numerate. We talk about how people think about math, what kinds of math they should know, and the role of stories and narrative to make math come alive.
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John Allen Paulos received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is currently a professor of mathematics at Temple University. He s a bestselling author, and frequent contributor to publications such as ABCNews.com, the Guardian, and Scientific American. Among his awards are the Science Communication award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Mathematics Communication Award from the Joint Policy Board of Mathematics. His new book is Who’s Counting? Uniting Numbers and Narratives with Stories from Pop Culture, Puzzles, Politics, and More.
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