A Man Left Albuquerque Heading East

        As a future educator, I think my perspective on ‘pure’ and ‘applied’ mathematics is very different from what a high school student’s perspective is. We often hear complaints about the practicality of math methods such as the quadratic formula from students. When students think of “pure mathematics”, I think that is what comes to mind – math for the sake of math. This usually stands in contrast to their perspective on “applied mathematics”. These often come in the form of word problems that make more sense to students because they might encounter these problems in their day-to-day lives. 

        In A Man Left Albuquerque Heading East, Robson mentioned that there should not be a “dichotomy” (Gerofsky, 2004, p. 117) between pure and applied mathematics. I agree with this statement, as I view the two as very much interconnected. Since math is constantly evolving to reflect the world around us, I think that blurs the lines between pure and applied mathematics even more. What was once practical for the Babylonian’s is not as relevant to our lives, and we are slowly seeing more change as technology becomes a larger part of our lives. It is a matter of time - what is considered more practical now, might have been more pure decades or centuries ago and vice-versa. 

        I particularly found the section about whether Babylonian word problems were practical interesting because it made me question the way we teach math today. Sometimes the word problems we construct and ask students to work through are meaningless. In practicality, numbers in real-life situations do not exist only as whole numbers. The word “autonomy” (Gerofsky, 2004, p. 118) came up in describing how the subject mathematics is sometimes viewed due to its impractical nature. I think this is an opportune time for educators to make a change and weave mathematics into our student’s everyday lives more. Perhaps by doing this, mathematics can be viewed as less intimidating, and more as a tool in navigating life which was what it started as. 

        I personally did not enjoy word problems in high school because I was always taught to compute quickly and accurately. I was a student who was very focused on instrumental mathematics and often disregarded the relational aspect of it. With that said, I notice that I have an easier time interpreting Babylonian word problems because the relational aspect is so apparent. When working through ancient problems in class, I find that the context makes it easier to deduce contemporary expressions to solve the problem. 

Gerofsky, S. (2004). Chapter 7: The History of the Word Problem Genre. A Man Left Albuquerque Heading East: Word problems as genre in mathematics education (First Edition, pp. 113-120). Peter Lang.