Down with Fractions!
Dennis DeTurck
Evan C Thompson Endowed Term Professor for Excellence in
Teaching
Math educators at Penn, Rutgers and the City University of New York have recently joined together to found something called “Metro Math,” which is a project funded by the National Science Foundation. One focus of the group is to study how schoolchildren cope with the arithmetic of fractions and to seek and test new ways of teaching fractions. Well, I have a simple suggestion when it comes to teaching fractions in elementary school. Don’t.
Now, it’s difficult for me as a mathematician to entertain the notion that fractions, or “rational numbers,” as they’re known in the math biz, should be eliminated, not only from the curriculum but from polite society as well. But I’d argue that imposing the study of fractions on kids does much more harm than good by replacing confidence and understanding with confusion and memorization, and by using up time that could be better spent understanding about more about decimals and other things. It’s not that writing ratios like 385 over 23 should be banned. But such expressions should simply no longer be considered to be numbers. After all, what kind of answer is “385 over 23,” when “about 16.7” conveys the same information so much more directly?
Fractions have had their day, being useful for by-hand calculation of non-integers. But in this digital age, they’re obsolete as Roman numerals are. And there’s nothing so rational about rational numbers anyway. You have different representations for the same number, like three-sixths and four-eights. Fractions are harder to add than to multiply. What’s with that? And you have all the jargon, like “improper fraction” and “mixed number.” My gosh, if Tom DeLay hears about this, he’ll be proposing a constitutional amendment to ban it.
Despite the fact that great historical and theoretical significance has been imported to fractions and rational numbers, its study should be deferred until it’s really needed and can be appreciated, which may not be until after somebody learns calculus. Premature emphasis on rational numbers is of little practical use and turns kids off to further mathematical study because it’s so confusing. So I say, “Down with Fractions.” Thanks.