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Daniel Owen Lynch's avatar

Unless new research has come up in the 35 years since I was in college demonstrating otherwise, the part of your brain responsible for language is the same part of your brain responsible for math. IOW, if a person can speak a language as complicated as English, there's zero reason they can't be competent at least through high school algebra.

When I was a cop, I used to work a security job at a high school in Houston that was about 95% Latino. I knew a lot of the kids by sight and name, and talked to them quite a lot. "I'm not a math person" was a common refrain, even 30 years ago.

"But you speak English AND Spanish fluently?!?!?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Math is just another language. You learned English and Spanish, now learn the language of numbers."

No idea how many, if any at all, took that to heart. I am hopeful that some did. "How many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" The world may never know.

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Josh Slocum's avatar

"This imagined parental response probably sounds reasonable to you."

What scares me is how many--perhaps the majority-- parents do not perceive that as reasonable.

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