Don’t Math Me…
Welcome (back) to my (new) blog and my (new) website.
New design, new essays.
Same commitment to empowering students and inspiring parents.
In many of these 780-something essays I have endeavored to be evenhanded, giving equal voice to disparate views. In 40 years of counseling, I have seen differing parenting strategies allow for the healthy academic, emotional, and social growth of children. There may be as much art as science in bringing up healthy children. Whereas there is only science when it comes to actual science. Your beloved children are highly attuned to your feelings toward them. Whereas fermions are indifferent to your opinion regarding their function or existence. Your children’s attitude regarding how they learn about subatomic particles matters more than their insight into the building blocks of matter. The neutrons remain indifferent. I’m just going to come right out and write it: The scientific method gives me hope. Doctrine gives me gas.
It is often remarked that science doesn’t lose any sleep over whether you believe in it or not. Mathematics also snores soundly independently of your understanding of or appreciation for Fermat’s last theorem. The Earth doesn’t care if you think it’s flat although your ability to enjoy traveling significant distances may be unfortunately prescribed if you think fall off the edge! rather than make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Fewer tourists in Nairobi or Canberra I suppose as you hunker down in Pig Knuckle, Arkansas or Clam Juice, Idaho convinced that the Earth has edges rather than continents. But if believing in a flat Earth gives you psychological comfort and empowerment, good for you. Your world (pun intended) certainly makes sense, and you are welcome to feel superior to me as part of the duped majority. Similarly, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and all those NASA folks were part of a naughty conspiracy? You can still get through the day believing the moon landings were fabricated although if you involve your children in this silliness they may, as a consequence, struggle with their geography and science classes.
I imagine history deniers have their agenda. Let’s see if we can get a rise out of sensible folks by gaslighting them about a sensitive topic. Like when Phoebe and the gang enjoy forcing Ross to say that Australopithecines (three million years ago last Thursday) overlapped with dinosaurs (62 million years before that.) Or O’Brien who tortures Winston Smith in Orwell’s 1984 until Julia’s boyfriend with say anything, do anything.
That the earth is flat, the moon landings were an elaborate hoax, that 1943 never happened were likely told to fellow believers, by another mouth-breather possibly with a bully’s agenda. You’d have to be a criminal or a member of congress, but I repeat myself suggested Mark Twain. You’d have to be an especially dumb bunny or eager for Kool Aid to deny geography, science, history.
But again quarks, mitosis, evolution, and balanced equations go about their business independent of your blazing ignorance. But your kids can muddle along well enough without understanding how cells divide or how life evolved. Ignorance can be expensive elsewhere though. If your children believe they can consistently walk out of a casino with more money than they had going in, I don’t just feel sorry for them, I want to grab you by the shoulders, sit you down, and teach you the expected value theorem. If you believe that by concentrating, you can counteract gravitational attraction, let me help you find appropriate treatment. “I Dream of Jeanie” was a sitcom, not an instructional video.
To say that there is a lot of misinformation available on the Internet, on the playground, and in the basement is to grossly understate the case, akin to suggesting that the nearest galaxy is “quite far away.” As always, to keep our kids in touch with what’s right, we have to keep our kids close. Our beloved children need to believe their parents and believe in their parents. The alternative, having our kids get their information from people who don’t understand that Ally Oop was fictional, is too unfortunate to think about.