<p>[How</a> to get smart | Free exchange | Economist.com](<a href=“How to get smart”>How to get smart)</p>
<p>Oh, damn. I signed up for mostly humanities classes next year. Guess I’m doomed to the streets!</p>
<p>Here’s another study on the benefits of higher math courses.
<a href=“http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_701JBRB.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_701JBRB.pdf</a></p>
<p>A related site: </p>
<p>[Philip</a> Greenspun’s Weblog Comfortable with our stupid children](<a href=“http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/08/11/comfortable-with-our-stupid-children/]Philip”>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/08/11/comfortable-with-our-stupid-children/)</p>
<p>DD sent me these links earlier! She has always been very structured and disciplined and math takes structure and discipline to learn. Our question was whether the math taught her the structure and discipline or if she was wired for structure and discipline and therefore could love math.</p>
<p>it doesn’t sound like the math classes the author is referring to are that advanced; the author writes that black females and whites didnt appear to benefit from extra math bc they already had “basic skills”.</p>
<p>The paper is [url=<a href=“http://www.columbia.edu/~jg2394/papers/jobmarket.pdf]here[/url”>http://www.columbia.edu/~jg2394/papers/jobmarket.pdf]here[/url</a>]. </p>
<p>I have a few issues with it. First, you might imagine he had data that directly addressed this topic. He didn’t. He had to work on the data in several ways to get at this relationship. I haven’t gone through his actual work to see how important the manipulations are, etc.</p>
<p>Note: the discussion on p.14 will likely interest people.</p>
<p>Second, no matter what, the data is not that great because it doesn’t get at family characteristics - or school quality. So is the effect related to better schools doing more? (We can’t see if the effect occurs across the board or where it occurs.) </p>
<p>It’s strange to read the paper because what comes through is that young black males have not / may still not be taught basic math. So maybe the effect is worse schools doing what they should have been doing and the effect is from standards imposition.</p>
<p>I don’t see the connection that many commenters around the net are making about math making you smarter. This study is about a much more limited thing. </p>
<p>My guess, btw, is that more kids go farther in school when they take math because math gives them basic competence and allows them to take science classes you need to graduate high school and go to college.</p>
<p>I don’t know if taking more math makes you smarter or richer, but with a background and comfort level in math, a student can feel more comfortable majoring in biology, medicine and health related fields, math, accounting, and engineering–which often lead to jobs that often have more higher salaries.</p>
<p>Apart from the methodology of the study (which I’m not qualified to critique), the study cited in the Economist article linked in post #1 found only that more math is correlated with higher earnings in black males—not in whites of either gender or in black females, for whom the effect is apparently neutral. Worthy of further study to see what’s going on with black males, perhaps, but I wouldn’t get too carried away with the broader implications for our educational system in general or for anyone’s education in particular—unless they happen to be black and male, in which case I suppose more math couldn’t hurt, pending confirmation of this single study.</p>
<p>The paper won’t be “confirmed.” This isn’t a drug test where they’ll go through an approval process. They dredged some interesting data sets and came up with this tidbit. That’s all that will happen with it. If it has life in the future, it will likely be misused.</p>
<p>^it will be added to the scientific literature on this topic, and together with other studies, may influence educational policy. Or maybe a parent will read this, and encourage his or her child to stick with math all through high school instead of giving up when it gets hard.</p>
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<p>Oh, damn. I skipped a year of math junior year and am only taking AP Stats next year. Wanna share a card-board box?</p>
<p>I was a math whiz in my youth, and I really think that all the practice I had at looking at a problem, finding a logical step by step solution and writing it out, helped me tremendously. I’m very successful at what seems to be a totally unrelated field, but I think the logic practice has been invaluable for me.</p>
<p>I was a math minor at the beginning of college, and dropped it because it was too much homework. At age 18, that kind of stuff is important, but at 23 I am kicking myself – I really wish I had added a minor in math or computer science to my psychology major. It would’ve been extremely useful! I’m taking a lot of higher statistics now as a graduate student.</p>
<p>I guess because I’m a black woman it wouldn’t have impacted my income, but…still? Anyway, there are plenty of other ways to learn logic and structured reasoning besides math classes. Philosophy, any science field (including social sciences that require research like psychology and sociology), economics, management, what about those?</p>
<p>“Oh, damn. I skipped a year of math junior year and am only taking AP Stats next year. Wanna share a card-board box?”</p>
<p>Sure! Dumpster diving is always more effective when done in pairs!</p>
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<p>So we have a single study that says more math is economically beneficial for black males only. And you think this is something that doesn’t cry out for further investigation? I think we’ll see plenty of additional literature on this, not replicating this study exactly but arguing that it’s b.s. or that it misinterpreted the data or that the conclusions should be much broader, or something. But the “black makes only” part is the part that seems to be glossed over by a general readership and the part that is sure to pique the interest of serious researchers in this area and their funders. Further studies will be funded. And because further studies can be funded, scads of ambitious assistant and associate professors will step forward with research proposals. This is not the last we’ll hear of this subject.</p>
<p>I’d say the better way to “get smart” would be to read the Economist cover to cover each week. Knowledge base, critical reading skills, facility with language - they blow away math any day for fueling test scores, gpa, and an interesting persona that will open doors.</p>