There are three kinds of people in this world: Those who are mathematically inclined and those who aren't.
In my senior year of high school I took Advanced Placement Calculus.
I was under the tragically false assumption that I needed an extensive knowledge base of abstract formulas that do not really apply to my life in any way to get into college (unless, of course, I chose to major in masochism and become an aerospace engineer).
I spent a large portion of my time sitting in the back of the classroom playing "Miss Suzy Had a Tugboat" hand-clapping games with Andrea Berkimer, who went on to become the valedictorian.
While she pranced merrily and easily through the flowers of math literacy, I dragged myself by my fingernails through the barren tundra of explicit differentiations and derivatives, neither of which I actually understood the definition or, more importantly, the purpose.
The school year came and went, and before I knew it the time had come to take the AP test. And, for the first time, I could apply math to my life. Using the logic skills I had acquired, I concluded that if I had $80 and chose to spend it on the AP test, I would have an imaginary IQ because I would be paying actual U.S. dollars to learn that, indeed, I do suck at math.
So I entered college footloose, fancy-free and singing praises from the rooftops that I would never have to take math ever, ever again.
Pfffft.
As it turns out, Ball State has this thing called the "University Core," which enables the university to obtain as much of the students' money as possible without actually having to prepare the student for his or her desired occupation. For example, this summer I am reverting to the days of yore by fulfilling my math requirement.
I forced Katy Briel, a music major and fine human being, to take Math 125 with me because I was under another tragically false assumption. We would be responsible, diligent math pupils. We were going to study together and get wonderful grades and laugh in the face of [insert name of a famous mathematician here], and it was going to be fantastic.
Whoever coined the phrase "two heads are better than one" is obviously a few variables short of a quadratic formula.
Quick theorem: When you add one mathematically inept person to another equally mathematically inept person, you have a mathematically inept duo who plan to study but then give up and retreat to Applebee's to consume "x" number of half-price quesadillas.
However, I can say, with a 99.7 percent confidence interval, that Katy and I are not alone.
A recent Associated Press article entitled "Average Kids: U.S. Students in Middle of Road Compared to Other Countries" included a table of the average scores of 12th graders from various countries on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat.
According to the results, the U.S. ranks behind 16 of the 20 countries tested including but not limited to Bulgaria.
One could argue that American kids are mathematically illiterate, but I maintain that the American people are also lagging behind in the area of geography because no one really knows where Bulgaria is.
Indeed, there are three kinds of people in this world. Four, if you include Bulgarians.
Write to Aleshia at aahaselden@bsu.edu
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