There was a very interesting editorial in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution entitled You’ll never us this math again.  It was written by Ken Sprague Sr., a high school math teacher.  Mr. Sprague, in his own words says:

I’m not advocating an end to math, only an end to math for math’s sake.  I am advocating for the option of a high school curriculum of more rigorous “practical math.”

In his article, Sprague makes the claim that only 0.09 percent of workers use the concepts taught in Algebra II.  He is questioning why we force the same curriculum on all students, and suggests that the State Department’s claim that the new math standards are central to a “world class education” is more a public relations point of view, rather than grounded in his classroom experiences.  He suggests that:

The new math standards might prove out as a case of “all dressed up with no place to go.”

Sprague has raised the question that has long challenged educators, and that is, “what knowledge is of most worth?”  It was proposed long ago by Herbert Spencer.   In asking the question ‘what knowledge is of most worth?’, Spencer answered that it is the knowledge needed to pursue the leading kinds of activity which constitute human life (see Brian Holmes, 1994, for an excellent paper on Spencer).

Surely, Sprague’s comments relate to science education, as well as mathematics education.  A science curriculum that follows the suggestion of Mr. Sprague would be a humanistic science curriculum, as argued in this weblog, and by many science educators, especially Glen Aikenhead as developed in his book, Science Education for Everyday Life.

What do you think about the comments made by Ken Sprague?  To what extent do you think they apply to us in science education?