Geek-Speak

The cartoon below is similar to a small part of the method I teach in “Numbers Juggling – Times without the Tables” e-book and course (see http://learn2multiply.com)

You can see a video of the method I teach here:

http://www.learn2multiply.com/video-quickstart/

You’ll need a password for it. You can get the password by requesting it below

(After you fill out the form, hit the “back” button on your browser to return to this page)

What’s interesting about the comic is that the method works the same way, (using slightly different fingers for each number) and for the same reasons, but it comes to a very discouraging and misleading conclusion at the end. The “Numbers Juggling – Times without the Tables” e-book and course clear up the problem the cartoon describes.

Although the comic is funny and makes an ironic point at the end, I find disturbing and not entirely true. Read it for yourself, and then check out my notes at the end.

In the cartoon, the point is that the answer is “totally unsatisfying – this is the worst thing about being human.” It is ironic and funny, but I think it is the wrong message, and an incomplete and wrong conclusion.

Here’s the deal :

Because some people speak geek and some don’t, there is a huge communication gap. Geeks understand the “reason” that it works is because x = y. But their language is algebra, which lots of geeks don’t understand. So geeks end up saying things like, “Now that you’ve seen the proof, you know fully why it works.” Yeah, some people do, and some don’t.

What geeks don’t understand, though, is that algebra is more or less just a language. It is not the reason, really, it’s just the language they use to explain the reason. Plain english can explain the reason as well, it just takes longer. Algebra is pretty much just shorthand. Because geeks “get” this shorthand, they’ve forgotten that other people don’t, and they don’t see the reason to expend the effort to rethink it so they can explain it in plain english.

You know the syndrome – it’s like the computer geek who is going to “help” you with something. He’s going to go into the unix shell and explain all the coding to you, but you just want to cut and paste the thing.

That’s the dilemma that Math Mojo aims to solve. I’m not a geek, but I “get” geeks, and I’m not a “dummy” anymore, but I “get” dummies.

So, in the ”Numbers Juggling – Times without the Tables” book and course I teach “secret” ways of multiplying (the main one is without the fingers, but it works similarly). Each step is explained in plain english, then (in the e-mail course) it’s translated into algebra, so that the reader can seamlessly follow along and understand the value of each “language.”

One of my aims is to subtly get the readers to see that they can understand the algebra if it is made plain to them in their own language first. Then they slowly have their “lightbulbs go on” and realize that algebra is not some intimidating “geek-speak”, it is simply a shorthand for what we already understand. It doesn’t necessarily explain things, but it always describes things.

What geeks don’t get is that if someone doesn’t “speak” algebra, they can’t understand the description, so it doesn’t explain anything to them. It’s like when Robinson Crusoe tries to communicate to Friday in English, and Friday doesn’t get it. So what does Crusoe do? He speaks louder. That’s what geeks more or less do. How smart can they really be, then?

It’s the human geeks like Carl Sagan, de Grasse Tyson, Isaac Asimov, and the king of them all, Martin Gardner, who know how to talk to both worlds, who are really going to save us, if we can be saved at all, I think.

My message is exactly the opposite of the conclusion of the comic.  I appreciate the irony and the humor of the comic, but you can take the irony further. The more you know (geek), sometimes the less you understand (about relating it to others). That is what is unsatisfying.

The real message is that it can be extremely satisfying to understand deeper things, as well as understand that although you are unique, the ability to understand is not. (Almost) anyone can understand things if you understand the human relationship to understanding knowledge as well.

If you are learning something, and sometimes you don’t understand the explanations even though you are truly trying, don’t beat yourself up about it.

I spent the weekend trying to build a garden shed from “professional instructions.” They left out a lot of important steps because they made so many assumptions about the reader’s skill level, even though the plans were ostensibly for beginners. Made me want to choke someone.

Then I realized that it wasn’t me. It was exactly the “geek-speak” dilemma. I then sat down with the plans, took it slow, and tried to figure out what the writers were trying to say. I even ended up figuring out something things that will help me with my building skills in the future.

It’s good not to have blind faith. It’s good to use your brain.

Remember, there is a higher percentage of teaching-disabled teachers than learning-disabled students. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t blame anyone. Just see if you can identify the problem, and find a way to deal with it in your language, or find a way to learn the language that is more compatible with the problem you are dealing with.

Math is something that you are going to have to deal with, like it or not, for the rest of your life. So you might as well learn as much as you can about it. The more you dig in, the more you’ll find things to like about it.

Eduction (Edux)

A professor friend of mine, Dr. Kent Lawson, taught his own theories about something like what I’m trying to express here. He taught at RPI, and at SUCO(State University College at Oneonta, NY).  He was a decorated professor of Theoretical Physics.  I had the privilege of taking one of his physics for non-physics majors courses, as well as one of his Eduction (Edux) courses.

Dr. Lawson passed away last year, and his family left all of his materials to me, which I consider a great honor. I am going through about 40 boxes of class notes, audio tapes, old reel-to-reel tapes as well as a few video tapes. It is slow going, as he wrote much of it in his own handwriting, and he had “essential tremors” (something like Parkinsons disease – the great senator, Robert Byrd, had the same affliction. Maybe you’ve seen him on TV) so it is almost impossible to read.

Dr. Lawson was very concerned about the de-humanization he saw all around him. A lot of it was pernicious and some of it was less malicious (like academia). He was a great translator of physics, but even more, his Eduction (Edux) theories contained (among many other things) a system of exercises to help humans see the kind of thought-traps we fall into. It offered ways to identify and deal with them.

The comic above is a classic example of such a thought trap. Math Mojo is my way to deal with it.

I hope some of this made sense. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Hoskeebo!

Brian (a.k.a. Professor Homunculus)

P.S. You will probably be hearing a lot more about Edux from me in the future. The culmination of Math Mojo will be to eventually offer entire online courses of Edux, in the spirit that Dr. Lawson presented it, and in his words.

P.P.S.  I still like the comic. It’s very well done, and there are many other good ones on the site where it came from. Click on it to take you there.