‘What if ’ we could teach the thrill of math?

‘First, change the subtraction symbol to the addition symbol and make the 1 negative,” said Mr. Smithers, the math teacher. I never understood why we did this, but I wrote it down.

Then, as the lesson progressed, the teacher, like Picasso outlining a rapidly drafted sketch, added the following on the blackboard: (5y + 3x)(8y + -1).

Wait a minute. Why + -1? What is that? That’s a mistake — right, Mr. Smithers? Shouldn’t there be separate brackets or something around that minus 1?

“Keep up, Johnson. Shakespeare and Wordsworth will not get you into university without math. In fact. … ”

And so on, until my eyes glazed over.

Even more annoying was that my buddy Paul, sitting across from me, lapped up this stuff as if it were ice cream — never asked a question, just wrote it all down and beamed at me as if he had discovered Nirvana.

In later life, Paul, who bored me silly over many an undergrad beer with his enthusiasm for “set theory,” eventually graduated from the University of Sydney with a doctorate in some obscure branch of engineering and became one of Australia’s first astronauts — but that’s another story. Not sure how they use algebra up on the space station, but staying in orbit around the Earth probably requires something to do with advanced math.

But now algebra, according to some writers, is in danger of falling on hard times. There are even folks who lump it in with the widely criticized “new math” approaches, which some believe are responsible for a reported decline in Canadian achievement on international assessments.

In the U.S., leading the anti-algebra charge are people such as Andrew Hacker, an emeritus professor of political science at Queens College, City University of New York.

“Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent,” says Hacker. “In the interest of maintaining rigour, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower.”

Fortunately, B.C. universities and colleges are not as stringently prohibitive as in the U.S. regarding entrance requirements for “non-math” types.

Diploma, certificate and degree programs might have different prerequisites, but, depending on which course choices a student is making, a thorough check on math requirements is worthwhile.

It is important for aspirants to universities and colleges to research specific programs directly for accurate and current admission requirements. Many colleges and even some universities also provide opportunities for math upgrading where students have not obtained the basic prerequisite.

And math is no longer just the domain of engineers, astronauts and secondary-school math teachers.

These days, algebraic algorithms underpin animated movies, investment strategies and even airline ticket prices. The adult son of a friend, trying to qualify for a well-paying job, found himself struggling through adult-education math courses in advanced geometry and trigonometry. The job? An overhead crane technician and operator at $35 per hour.

As one who barely scraped through high-school graduation with math, I never opened a math book or looked at an algebraic equation again for 40 years. Done with that, or so I thought.

But then, 40 years later, in the course of supervising a young University of Victoria teacher-training student, I rediscovered algebra.

I watched in wonder as the young student, step by step, simplified the irrefutable logic of an algebraic equation, not unlike the one Smithers had used to turn me away from math for most of my life. It was an epiphany of a kind. “How did I miss out on this?” I thought. “This is fascinating stuff.”

The difference was that Smithers taught math as an infinite and profound mystery accessible only to vastly superior math intellects like his own — a mystery not to be shared with lesser beings and certainly not literature-loving types like me.

The UVic teaching student, wellprepared and completely comfortable with math herself, revelled in the brainteaser fun algebra provided. Clearly, this was a teacher who delighted in sharing that comfort with her students.

Smithers, on the other hand, by holding math and, specifically, algebra as a secret code of some kind, no doubt cost me my shot at the International Space Station.

Now I can only gaze up at the night sky and wonder “what if.”