Another fine day of not using algebra…

How many memes do we have which go something like “Another day where I didn’t use algebra.”?  Actually, you do.  Every day.  Numerous times.

The world is trying to get rid of plastic bags, so we all have our trusted cloth bags that we schlep to the shops.  We keep one or two bags in our cars, but when we have to do the big shop, we dig those extra bags out of the cupboard.  Right there you are doing algebra!  

$${x\over y} = { Shopping \over Shopping~Bags}$$

Unconsciously you determined how many bags you would require for the number of items on your shopping list.

You didn’t just wake up one day with the ability to take a big problem (I have to go shopping for 30 items and I only have two hands) and break it into smaller, manageable pieces.  Algebra taught you how to think logically.  Spending all those hours as a ten-year-old doing those equations enables you today to do them in your head – and to carry your shopping. 

I can hear this already – we could have stopped at  The basics.  We don’t need complex equations.  Do you mean the secondary equation you did in your head to determine the volume of the items?  If you were going to the shop to buy 20 marshmallow eggs, you would only be taking one bag, but if you are going to the shop to buy 20 loaves of bread, you automatically calculated the size of the bread into your equation.  What if you went to the shop to buy 20 tins of tomatoes?  Now you are doing even more complex equations in your head because you are considering the number of the items and the variables of weight and size (volume). 

The way life is complex and layered, math is complex and layered because it responds to life.  Algebra teaches us to break down big problems into smaller manageable pieces.  This is a skill that not only works for math but life as well.  Math also teaches us that everything is integrated.  Think about most ball sports or catching a falling object. Catching in itself is nothing but force, angles and speed – so again, subconsciously we all do math, but we have never matched the functionality of algebra to our everyday happenings.  

You are way smarter in numbers than you think and you instinctively apply algebra without perhaps always recognizing the equations in play.  Every season change I do something different with my planter boxes.  This spring I am adding two new ones.  One of the first things I am doing is V=s³ because one of my planter boxes is square. Think back to your junior school mathematics class:  the volume of a square box is equal to the cube of the length of the side of the square box. I multiplied the height, lengths and width of the box to determine how much potting soil I must purchase.  Nowhere, ever, did my brain go ‘what is the cube of the length of the side’, but it did the sum instinctively. 

Keen bakers will understand this problem if they come from a metric country and use some American recipes.  The recipe will state use a 2 x 9 x 13-inch cake tin – so not only do you have to convert the inches to centimetres, but you also need to compare volumes, because the size of cake tins is not universal.  Remember V = length x width x height?  

Staying with food – one of my favourite subjects – but moving on to children’s parties or sleepovers and one of the most important food groups:  pizza!  You have ten children on a sleepover (I pity you – that noise level) and every child will eat 3 slices of pizza – how many pizzas are you ordering?  Right there, your brain has already done the math – you genius you!

$$ How~Many~Pizzas = {(Number~of~Children*Slices~Per~Child) \over Number~of~Slices~per~Pizza}$$ or $$ a = {(x*y) \over z}$$

I can already hear the muttering ‘this is like word sums, they didn’t make sense to me when I was ten and they don’t make sense to me now’.  Really?  What exactly did you do to work out how many pizzas you need?  Did you take the number of children (x) and multiplied it by the number of pizza slices (y) you would need?  You did that?  And then you divided it by the number of slices in a pizza (z)?  Ah, and then you got an answer (a).  

The problem with algebra is twofold:  generally speaking, we are shocking at teaching it at school and the mystery around the incomprehensibility of algebra is being passed down from generation to generation.  We battled with algebra at school, so we expect our children to battle with algebra at school.  The subconscious application of algebra shows that we are fully capable of not only doing algebra, but we do it in our heads, every day, every time.  

Children absorb the meaning of the equations quite early – remember that reference to playing?  What happens when kids play baseball or rounders or any sport that involves bases and throwing a ball?  What do they ask themselves?  Can I throw the ball to where it needs to go, e.g. home base?  If not, what are my other options?  Is my friend perhaps in between the two spaces so that I can throw the ball to him and he can hit the home base?  The kids are applying the Pythagorean Theorem
x² + y² = z² … Smart kids. 

Let’s take the mystery out of math.  Think about the numbers and equations that guide what we do and share them with your children and those people around us.  We need our kids to understand that they own math, not the other way around.  Number literacy is a thing.  The more we understand the numbers, the more we will be able to break down the world’s biggest problems into things that we not only understand but can solve.