How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenburg

Confession time.

I like math.

Yes, I was an English major.  Literature is my passion.  Loving books probably had something to do with my becoming a Librarian.

But I still liked math (and science!).  I took AP Calculus in high school, at the time one of only 2 AP courses offered at WHHS (the other being AP Statistics).

I hear people (students and teachers alike) say "I don't math", myself included.  I really don't do a whole lot of math anymore.  The reality though is that while I still had a classroom, sometimes we'd finish tasks early.  I'd give my students time to work on other homework if they did not have a reading assignment for me.  It started as "Miss, can you help me with my math?" to sometimes having the whole class follow along on a mini-geometry lesson.  When the district mandated 20 minutes of math in every classroom, I didn't really begrudge it.  I was already doing it.

 Everything in education today is focused on data (for better or worse, and that's another argument/debate for another post).  But what are doing with all these numbers?  What does this data really mean?  For teachers, it's how many kids reached goal on a post-test?  How many families showed up to parent visiting night?  How many books were checked out last month (and then returned!)?  For kids, what range of SAT scores do I need for this school? What percentage of my total costs are covered by grants? What's my on-base percentage? Tackles this year versus last year?    Math, people, math.  (I would be remiss to not mention how music is math, but my Band and Chorus kids know that already!)

So earlier this summer I attended a conference on data literacy.  There was a whole lot of math in two days (I did this virtually, online).  Several resources were given out, including the book I'm about to review.  It was recommended by several participants.

I have to say, I laughed out loud a few times reading this.  There's a lot of snark and sarcasm.  There's history you probably weren't taught in class.  I learned a bunch of new historical tidbits in reading this.  Ellenburg has my warped sense of humor it seems.

You will need to have a solid foundation in math skills and a pretty good math vocabulary to get most of what's going on here.  I'd say this is for juniors and seniors who have passed geometry with a B at least.  There were a few concepts I had to go and Google to figure out (probably since I no longer math, I've simply forgotten, like a foreign language or complicated knitting stitches).  I also think our AP kids in Stat, Calc, and CompSci should read this to see why they are doing what they do.

Remember to get those summer reading forms in!  All info was sent to school gmail and is on the LMC website thanks to Mrs. Lynch.

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