Forcing maths on the population is straight out of China's playbook
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
Australia has a similar policy: maths is taught at school from Kindergarten classes up to year 12. The solution is to have multiple levels of maths for the same year (after reaching a certain point).
For example, a Year 10 student can be in one of 4 possible maths classes, 3 of which are selective, i.e., available to students above the specific thresholds.
The way I see it, math is a really powerful multiple purpose tool that people just don't use all that frequently in day to day life.
Philosophy, on the other hand, while intersting from a history of human thought pov, and an inspiration for divergent thinking when having an overview of its evolution, is not actually a field with a strong tether to reality. It is useful as an idea incubator. But whenever a topic starts becoming scientifically riguros it splits and becomes its own field of inquiry.
In my “living experience” philosophy was used as a tool to enforce the “correct” thinking. It can be easily converted to such a tool, exactly because it has no strong tether to reality. Math is much less susceptible to such a conversion since each statement needs a proof, at least in principle.
And I don’t like the tendency to eliminate something just because it’s too hard for somebody. It may be reasonable in some cases, maybe even in this one - but where do we stop?
But in soviet countries during soviet times we had precisely that kind of "philosophy" classes mandatory. I wonder if that is what they meant?
Also, note, I have some doubt that math is too hard for the majority of people. It is simply though very badly and most people develop a hatred for math very early on, subsequently making it a pain during each school year.
Stephan Banach quoted by Steinhaus in Through a reporter’s eyes, Roman Kaluza, 1995
It must be terrible to be an opinion columnist and have to come up with hot takes on schedule, regardless of whether you have any strong feelings or original thoughts. I weep for the plight of our bylined intelligentsia.
On the other hand - my parents tried force on me playing a piano. It was both a tyranny and a failure…
Creating a bunch of subservient robots is not a winning strategy in the long run as any education leads to later moments of self reflection which will create hate for the system that interned you.
As for modern day journalism, I’m with you I wish there was better way to fund voices but this is what we have for now! At least the topic is relevant to the larger debate going on.