When I was a kid, I hated math. I thought it was boring and a waste of time. I hated memorizing rules that didn鈥檛 seem to connect to anything in real life, and I couldn鈥檛 stand doing hundreds of exercises. The feeling was mutual; my math teachers were not particularly fond of me.
At home, my mother and I would spend hours doing puzzles and competing to see who could solve them first. If I won, I would get a dollar toward my allowance. I loved puzzles, not just because they were how I made my money, but because they were fun and challenging. I could feel myself improving. Very quickly, my mother had to change the rules of the game because I was becoming quite the little tycoon!
I had no idea that what I was doing with my mother was actually math. It wasn鈥檛 until I got to college that I realized that mathematics is not just memorizing formulas in a classroom, but is actually more closely related to what I was doing with my mom as a kid. Math gives us the tools to solve the world鈥檚 puzzles.
As a doctoral student in mathematics at MIT, I feel the same rush and joy when I鈥檓 working on a hard proof or problem as I did back in my mother鈥檚 kitchen as a kid. It doesn鈥檛 even feel like work. As with football (a sport I play professionally), it fires my competitive instincts鈥攐nly in math, the competition comes from math problems that many have tried to solve and failed. Unlike a game, there is nothing unnecessary about it. The work I鈥檓 doing relates to everything from artificial intelligence to dealing with massive amounts of data.
One of the most challenging things we face is getting students excited about math and science. Building a strong foundation in math and science is critical to help set students up for success in the classroom, in college, and beyond. Math education isn鈥檛 just about solving problems in the classroom; it鈥檚 an exercise in training to help students solve the problems they will face in life.
I want students to see that math extends far past the confines of the classroom and into everyday life."
To show kids that math is rooted in real life鈥攁nd that it can be fun鈥擨鈥檝e recently partnered with the technology company Texas Instruments to explore the 鈥淪TEM behind sports鈥� in a new program. The program consists of a series of activities that allow students to explore the science, technology, engineering, and math behind some of their favorite sports. In one activity about football, students must use math and science to investigate the path of a field-goal kick in order to win the game.
I want students to see that math extends far past the confines of the classroom and into everyday life. I also want them to appreciate that math is cool. In fact, the older I鈥檝e gotten, the more I鈥檝e found that when people want to talk about what I鈥檓 doing, they don鈥檛 want to talk about football. They want to talk about math. Even my teammates think it鈥檚 interesting.
Math isn鈥檛 just about calculations or memorizing formulas. Math is everywhere we look. It鈥檚 in the science behind a perfect football spiral, the velocity of a game-winning three-point shot in basketball. It鈥檚 in the ratio of ingredients you measure when you鈥檙e cooking. It鈥檚 even in how you budget to save for your first car. When I was a kid, I didn鈥檛 realize that math was training my brain to solve these types of problems.
Every day, we make hundreds of decisions that are informed by our quantitative judgment. Most of the time, we don鈥檛 even realize it. When you鈥檙e packing a lot of things into a small bag, you have to think geometrically. When you鈥檙e planning a schedule or dividing your time, you鈥檙e thinking quantitatively. When you鈥檙e trying to decide between two different options, you鈥檙e thinking analytically.
As a kid, I had no idea that I would become a mathematician. But in some sense, everybody has to become a mathematician. We all face problems that require mathematical concepts. The better we can solve them, the better off we鈥檒l be.
