A quote from the article: "President Obama regularly talks up the need for more math classes 'to equip our children for the future.' The latter is odd and a bit dated, particularly when we consider that computers and calculators have largely made the need for math knowledge something of the past."
This is absolutely false. What computers and calculators do is arithmetic, not mathematics. To do math above the trivial, you still need a properly trained person.
This doesn't argue against the point of the article, which I agree with. But the fact that calculators and computers can do arithmetic shouldn't be used to argue against math education. That would be like arguing that, because computers can spell-check, we no longer need readers, writers or literacy training.
Comments
A quote from the article: "President Obama regularly talks up the need for more math classes 'to equip our children for the future.' The latter is odd and a bit dated, particularly when we consider that computers and calculators have largely made the need for math knowledge something of the past."
This is absolutely false. What computers and calculators do is arithmetic, not mathematics. To do math above the trivial, you still need a properly trained person.
This doesn't argue against the point of the article, which I agree with. But the fact that calculators and computers can do arithmetic shouldn't be used to argue against math education. That would be like arguing that, because computers can spell-check, we no longer need readers, writers or literacy training.