Brought us by The Federalist: To Love Math, Kids Should Start Older And Encounter Its Beauty When are we ever going to use this?” Every math teacher (and every parent who has helped his child learn math) has heard this question more times than he cares to remember. In a new book out from Encounter in July, J. Jacob Tawney says we have been giving the wrong answer. Teachers often defend the mental strain required of math students by pointing to the ubiquity of math in our lives. They say things like, “You won’t always have a calculator and you’ll need to know how to do this,” or describe the high pay of careers in STEM fields. Not only are these answers completely unsatisfying to … [Read more...]