declines
math and logic matter, folks
I said from the beginning in late 2022 this column would cover “politix, trials, tribulations, and gratitude” as a means to understanding we are not helpless but our actions—collective or individual—have consequences, often unbeknownst to us for decades.
My gratitude for the help of many of YOU, the readers, over the past 25 months is immense. Just this morning, a subscriber told me why my previous preparations to prevent the dreaded holes in my woolens were inadequate. Not only a former Foreign Service Officer who survived the dreaded events in Mogadishu in the early 1990s, she is a weaver, a real weaver. Her explanation of my malassumption about our beloved cedar chest not only explained the bloody holes (we have found half a dozen in the past 6 days so sadly, we likely have many more) but what we should do to avoid this diabolical destruction in the future. Thank you, Karen!
I have also had help on the squirrels stealing bulbs, various cooking ideas, and other useful feedback. When I say I don’t have all of the answers, I am not merely reflecting on my personal inability to find global peace; turns out I know lots of stuff but it’s not always the stuff I need at home day-to-day so I rely on you the readers to chime in on any and everything. No shortage of need here for better solutions and absolutely no shortage of knowledge in this readership, regardless who it is!
On the other hand, today’s Wall Street Journal has a sobering story that backs up a frustrated conversation I had with a late 20-something only Thanksgiving weekend. The story, entitled “In a Test of Adult Know-How, America comes up Short”, focusing on the inability or unwillingness (not sure nor am I willing to cast aspersions) to learn the technology that now rules our lives. The gist of the article is that the least-educated among us between ages 16 and 65 are less able to do some basic tasks of modern life (infer something from an article, read a thermometer, manipulate fractions, or apply some logic to establishing a complicated itinerary—than we ever, falling decidedly behind those in other developed economies. Put another way, despite hopes we could recover from downturn associated with the pandemic education (another story in the last few days repeated that 4th and 8th grade math skills are not recovering as expected from the same phenomenon), those on the lower rungs of the educational experiences are falling further behind our peers. I extrapolate this is only more so the case regarding the technology and logic continuing to drive our economic expansion. I would also extrapolate these lagging are many of the same folks most disillusioned with our current economic and political system because, unsurprisingly, they feel abandoned.
My conversation with a 20-something a couple of weeks back focused on older folks, like me, who seem unwilling to learn basic technologies, relying instead on young folks entirely comfortable with these new logic systems yet simultaneously carrying on other duties that don’t include remedial education for Boomers (we are probably worse than the folks in the story I cite because many of us do in fact have quite a bit of education over our longer lives). I suppose that is less surprising since we more seasoned folks often do throw up our hands in frustration (ok, so I am hoping you will join me here but probably won’t because you’re not as inept as I am. My former Associate Dean would laugh at how many times he had to help me with one particular basic online form I kept forgetting in between intermittent uses. I did, miraculously, master it about two months before retiring—natch) when can’t get something to work. Or, possibly we are at our worst when we (hoping this is the Royal We here) are too lazy or impatient to learn something new because we retain the scars of the 1980s refrain “Did you look at the manual?” But this woman’s frustration was boiling over at how often she had to stop her normal work to fix some Boomer’s inability to do a basic thing—and the folks she was referring to are not dumb people, either.
The WSJ article is particularly troubling for two reasons. These functions cited are indeed pretty common for daily life a quarter of the way into the 21st century. Sure the story said our highest math minds, like my son who relishes and thrives in Big Data as a statistical demographer, are only proving better than ever in their mastery but the article says that pertains only to the top 2% of those taking assessments in this field.
Instead, the idea that test-taking in math and logic (combined, not just math) shows failure for fully 34% of those who took the test, regardless of age, means that people can’t make a logical argument. They can’t see how step A, leads to B, leads ultimately to J. Instead, people likely hear a single data point, then stop thinking beyond that. Toss in the dubious sources from which many people get their data and you see why one of the reasons we are so divided. Class, education, and all sorts of other fractures come into play without a happy ending.
Second, this has profound implications for the military as it becomes ever more dependent on highly sophisticated technology. We used to say in the late 1990s that the PLA, on the other pole, was probably a force where uneducated or at least undereducated enlisted personnel would struggle with modernization in China. The PLA took on the challenge and began to focus on drawing more selectively on educated personnel, likely improving their overall capability (of course this is all hypothesis since we thankfully have had no major conflict testing the PLA, our thinking, or anyone else since 1979).
But this is now a question for our personnel. Please do not misunderstand: I am not implying that only lesser successful math or science personnel go into the military but I am confident there is likely a correlation between recruiting problems and the people we are finding we cannot recruit because they don’t make the cut if this article’s numbers are accurate. People with higher skills may well be going into better-paid business positions rather than the national service, although just yesterday we read that enlisted personnel pay is going up substantially next year but I doubt that will deter too many companies from poaching some amazing logical thinkers for the private sector. You’ll recall I talked about recruiting challenges for the U.S. military, except the Marine Corps, several times over the past six months.
If our trajectory continues lagging, if not declining, these are indeed worrisome concerns. Americans tend to say yes, but we have more Nobel Laureates than the rest of the world so we must be doing ok. Well, there is a lag in that data. What people are testing today in their teens will play out later in their lives and careers.
We aren’t making math and science sexy, among a raft of things. But, how to do that since we have been trying for decades.
I don’t have any answer. I know STEM gets under a lot of people’s skin because so many organizations, such as the service academies, harp on it. But there is a reason. It’s the logic that we are really going to miss.
Logic is the ability to reason through steps, preferably replicable for others to test.
Right now it’s not going well. I have no idea whether dissolving federal mandates, promoted most assiduously under the George Bush 43 administration, will hurt or help as education has traditionally been a local topic. I do know that we are falling behind in ways hurting a substantial portion of our nation. Not good, not good at all.
Thoughts on this topic are most welcome. We are at a point where we clearly need some major fix for the diverging ability to reason the most basic acts in our lives, much less our country. I hope you will offer your thoughts as they are as valid as anyone else’s.
Thank you for taking time to read Actions today. I think the consequences of what we are discussing are too abundantly clear as tribulations for this country in decades to come. I especially thank the subscribers, such as Karen, who support this writing every single day. Have you considered becoming a subscriber to Actions create consequences?
On bone cold days, I crave the color of flowers to fuel every day getting us closer to spring.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Douglas Belkin, “In a Test of Adult Know-How, Americans come up Short”, WSJ.com, , 10 December 2024, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/america-us-math-proficiency-falling-1b5ac73c?mod=wknd_pos1
Rebecca Kheel, “Compromise Defense Bill Would Give Junior Troops 14.5% Pay Raise in 2025“, Military.com, 9 December 2024, retrieved at https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/12/09/145-pay-raise-junior-enlisted-troops-2025-included-negotiated-defense-bill.html
National Center for Education Statistics, “Mathematical scores of U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders decline on international mathematics and science assessment”, NCES.ed.gov, 4 December 2024, retrieved at https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/12_4_2024.asp