A stand against innumeracy

Despite the cover of "diagnostic" this and "evaluation" that, the UDWPE represents an attempt by the UA to ensure that no one is graduating without possessing the general reading and writing skills expected from college-level students. A noble idea considering the frighteningly high illiteracy rate among students graduating high school.

While I support such an aim, I think as a culture we are still lacking the rightful concern about innumeracy and scientific illiteracy. Innumeracy, a recently coined word, refers to a lack of ability to put numbers to things, assign amounts to reach practical decisions, or the general inability to take account of quantitative aspects of reality.

Recent research studies have estimated that 60 percent of the adult American public is functionally innumerate (that's six out of 10 people). While only about 20 percent of recent college graduates are thought to be innumerate, I would offer that the incredibly lenient criteria used in this evaluation is simply embarrassing if applied as a standard in institutions of higher education.

Yet, how can we expect the majority of students graduating from this university to be fluent in mathematics when Math 117 fulfills the requirement for many majors? Language and mathematics, with their various uses and disciplines, form the very structure of human accomplishment. To consider a person educated, having only shown passing proficiency in college algebra, is akin to saying one is well read if they possess a subscription to People magazine.

Unfortunately, we hold a fallaciously pragmatic view of the usefulness of math in our culture, and thus allow innumeracy to flourish. This is clearly marked by the common children's remark of, "I'm just no good in math"-- that being when we smile and nod our heads politely as if the child had found spinach disagreeable. However, we find our children saying, "I no good in English," a generally unacceptable scenario.

The central philosophy of American culture is that if you don't intend to use numbers in your occupation, don't bother learning mathematics. Such an outlook glazes over the most important feature of learning symbolic dynamics, mainly the structure and elegance of reasoning and critical thought that it spawns. The manipulation of the abstract is a powerful cognitive process that we are denying a large portion of the populace through lack of emphasis on the subject.

Some of the same criticism holds true for the basic sciences and their place in higher education as well. While students in the College of Engineering are required as many as 18 hours of humanities with at least one sequence of non-introductory style classes, a considerable number of our peers will graduate from the UA with only two extremely basic classes in the sciences. The scope of science is so broad that perhaps even year-long, introductory classes in three primary disciplines, such as physics, chemistry and biology, would not be enough to consider a person "educated."

From a purely functional viewpoint, what of a little computer science? Anyone stepping out of academia today without basic knowledge of computer applications is in serious social and economic trouble. Yet, there has been no real attempt made by higher education to enforce computer literacy as a standard.

We are each responsible for the development of our own minds. The key to creative thought is exposure to the creative genius of others and the ripening of our individuality within our environment. Read literature to engage one's self. Learn calculus to comprehend elegance. Listen to music to understand harmony. Ponder art to visualize the aesthetic. Study physics to believe in the beauty of our cosmos.

I will be the first to stand in support of literature, history and the arts, thus I feel quite undermined when our social system is so irreverent of the aesthetic quality of mathematics and science. As much as I believe William can enlighten and enrich one's mind, so in the same way do Isaac and Albert. To be educated is to possess and display qualities of culture and learning, thus we are largely falling short of this goal when we fail to learn the essential aspects of our human accomplishments.

Jason Pyle is a self-directed student of fine arts and a senior majoring in engineering physics. His column, 'Critical Point,' appears every other Monday.

By Jason Pyle (columnist)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 21, 1997