This short 3 minute TED talk by Arthur Benjamin makes a simple but very perceptive point, that the teaching of mathematics is now out of step with the modern world. Moving beyond the foundations created by arithmetic and algebra, Benjamin suggests that as the world moves from analogue to digital the curriculum should move with it and embrace the more modern, discrete mathematics of randomness, uncertainty and data, and that the 'summit' of the subject should change from calculus, to statistics and probablility.
If the subject was more aligned with the changing world, Benjamin argues, maybe more people would find it relevant and interesting and maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't be in the economic mess we are in today. It's such a compelling point it makes me wonder how many other 'wrong summits' we're still aiming for.
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