College Students’ Fear of Math

* Re “For Students, Math Equals Fear at Two-Year Colleges,” March 15:

I would bet that if the math exams were given to the general population, the results would be the same, or if the general population were to go to high school today, the same percentage would flunk math.

As a tutor in high school, I find that practically none of the students know how to add, subtract, multiply or divide, and they’ve never learned their multiplication tables. It’s easier to use a calculator. The algebra and trigonometry books are so complex that only the best students can really understand them.

It may be that I’m getting too old for the new math, but when I was in school (in the 1930s), we were taught the basic processes in a simple step-by-step form. When I graded calculus papers as a reader in college, students were graded on how they went through the process, not just on the final answer (as in the SAT).

HOWARD NIEDERMAN

San Clemente

* It was very upsetting to learn that some would-be teachers were angered that they should be required to solve math problems without counting on their fingers or using a calculator.

It’s a sign of several frightening facts: that their own basic educations were woeful; that they apparently would like only to know enough just to get by in the area they want to teach; that their own professors seem to lack an ability to communicate not only the facts about math, but the point of learning math; that the education system is in such need of teachers that the new graduates will be able to enter a classroom having barely squeaked by; that the trend toward specialization of knowledge has resulted in specialized ignorance.

What kind of guidance and excitement about learning can a teacher who dreads certain subjects communicate? But let me add that as an academic tutor at UCLA, I dealt with many an engineering or math student who railed against the university’s requirement that he or she read a few literary classics and be able to write a semi-coherent essay.

LAURA GLENDINNING

Los Angeles

* Once again you have published an article moaning about the inability of college students to do algebra, without addressing the real problem, which is that students with absolutely no need or use for algebra are being required to pass these classes in order to graduate.

No matter what your profession, everyone needs basic math skills, right up through percentages and decimals. And, obviously, anyone going into a science profession will need advanced mathematics.

However, why force algebra on an art or history student, someone who wants to teach preschool or be a psychologist or counselor?

What’s both unrealistic and perhaps surrealistic is not the expectation that all college students should learn as much math as possible, but the absolute requirement that they spend precious time learning something they will never use.

BARBARA ASPENSON

Los Angeles