Why take Mathematics?
Children need to learn mathematics to make their own adult lives better, by making smart decisions on routine day-to-day matters. Let’s explore the ways we live smarter when we grasp the numbers. Here are 12 reasons for children to take maths in school:
Maths is to learning what endurance and strength training is to sports.
It is the basis that enables you to excel in the speciality of your choice.
You cannot become a major sports star without being strong and having good cardiovascular ability.
You cannot become a star within your job or excel in your profession unless you can think smart and critically.
Maths will help you do that.
Winners of Idols and other "celebrities" may make money, but only a tiny number of people have enough celebrity to make money, and most of them get stale after a few years.
Then it is back to school, or to less rewarding careers.
If you skip auditions and the sports channels and instead do your homework -- especially maths -- you can go on to get an education that will get you a well-paid job.
Much more than what pop singers and sports stars make -- perhaps not right away, but certainly if you look at averages and calculate it over a lifetime.
When hordes of people throw their money at pyramid schemes, it is partially because they don't know enough mathematics.
Specifically, if you know a little bit about statistics and interest calculations, you can look through economic lies and wishful thinking.
With some knowledge of hard sciences you will probably feel better, too, because you will avoid spending your money and your hopes on alternative medicine, crystals, magnets and other swindles -- simply because you know they don't work.
Yes, it is hard work to learn maths properly while in school.
But when it is time for college or university, you can skip reading pages and pages of boring, over-explaining college texts.
Instead, you can look at a chart or a formula, and understand how things relate to each other.
Maths is a language, shorter and more effective than other languages.
If you know maths, you can work smarter, not harder.
In a global world, you will compete for the interesting jobs against people from the whole world.
The smart kids in Eastern Europe, India and China regard maths and other "hard" sciences as a ticket out of poverty and social degradation.
Why not do as they do -- get knowledge that makes you viable all over the world, not just in your home country?
New technology and new ways of doing things change the daily life and work.
If you have learned maths, you can learn how and why things work.
You will avoid scraping by through your career, supported by Post-It Notes and Help files -- scared to death of accidentally pressing the wrong key and running into something unfamiliar.
If you don't take maths in school, you close the door to interesting studies and careers.
You might not think those options interesting now, but what if you change your mind?
What if someone else changes your mind -- “You’re fired!!”
Besides, maths is most easily learned as a young person.
Social sciences, history, art and philosophy benefit from a little maturing -- and some maths.
Too many people - including some teachers - will tell you that maths is hard and boring.
But what do they know?
You don't ask your grandmother what kind of game-playing machine you should get, and you don't ask your parents for help in sending a text message.
Why ask a parent or an uncle (who perhaps got a C in basic maths) whether maths is hard?
If you do the work and stick it out, you will find that maths is fun, exciting, and intellectually elegant.
Maths becomes more and more important in all areas of work and scholarship.
Future journalists and politicians will talk less and analyse more.
Future police officers and military personnel will use more and more complicated technology.
Future nurses and teachers will have to relate to numbers and technology every day.
Future car mechanics and carpenters will use chip-optimisation and stress analysis as much as monkey wrenches and hammers.
There will be more maths at work, so you will need more maths at school.
If you cherry-pick the easy stuff in school, you might come through with a certificate that makes you eligible for an university or college education.
Having a piece of paper is nice, but don't for a second think this makes you ready for college or university.
You will notice this as soon as you enter university and have to take remedial maths programs, with ensuing stress and difficulty, just to have any kind of idea what the professor is talking about.
Many think maths only has to do with logical deduction and somehow is in opposition to creativity.
The truth is that maths can be a supremely creative force if only the knowledge is used right, not least as a tool for problem solving during your career.
A good knowledge of maths in combination with other knowledge makes you more creative than others.
You have permission to be smart, you have permission to do what your peers do not.
Take maths so you don't have to, for the rest of your life, talk about how maths is "hard" or "cold".
Take maths so you don't have to joke away your inability to do simple calculations or lack of understanding of what you are doing.
Besides, maths will get you a job in the cool companies, those that need brains.
Maths is for smart people
You don't have to become a mathematician (or an engineer) because you took maths in school.
But it helps to take maths if you want to be smart, think critically, understand how and why things relate to each other, and to argue effectively and convincingly.
Maths is a sharp knife for cutting through thorny problems.
If you want a sharp knife in your mental tool chest - Take maths!
Mathematics is the most important subject in the school curriculum.