One of my running buddies has some advice for his math students at the university where he has taught for the past several decades. “You gotta love it,” he tells them. “It’s not enough just to want it, to be willing to put in the time. It’s not enough to be good at it, to solve problems faster and more efficiently than the average bear. It’s not enough to have the proofs ‘just come to you.’ It’s not enough to be the best student in your third-semester calculus class.”
You gotta love it. You gotta love math, you gotta love solving problems, you gotta love understanding proofs, you gotta love the homework and the lectures and the symposia. You gotta miss it when you’re not doing it. Math has got to be what gives you that dopamine hit, that “Eureka” moment, that feeling that makes you want to run around the palace naked telling everyone what you have discovered. Math educators have to love explaining, math educators have to love seeing the light go on in the faces of their students when they too “get it.” Pure mathematicians have to love working on problems the solving of which is only the cherry on top of the sundae. Mathematicians gotta love not only the math, but the process of doing math.
My buddy got his PhD in math when I was an undergraduate math major so he has a full half century of doing math and teaching math and living and breathing math. He is active in the National Association of Teachers of Mathematics and is friends with and has collaborated with a bunch of wonderful mathematicians here and abroad. When his students ask him if they should pursue a PhD in math, my buddy doesn’t ask them about their grades or their test scores or their ability or whether they want to go into teaching or research. He asks potential math PhDs if they love math.
The do you love it? questions should be applied to every extracurricular choice. Sure there can be other criteria beside love. Young men used to sign up for art history classes so they could sit next to and form study groups with young women. But before our kids commit to music, chess, dance, writing, community service, swimming, singing, publishing, cross country running, or debate, they should realize that they are looking for love, that they want to swipe right on that activity, commit long term.
And of course there are other reasons to learn music. There are whole courses in “music appreciation.” But loving parents should let go of the idea that looking for anything beyond enjoyment is ill advised. It is often said that you can make a life in music; you just can’t make a living.
It can be argued that everyone should learn enough math to acquire functional skills. Life will sock you in pretty hard in your wallet if you don’t have at least a rudimentary knowledge of investments, percents, compound interest, budgeting, and mortgage rates. But these topics are arithmetic, accounting, and household management. Math is something else completely. You don’t have to love balancing your checkbook. But you do have to love math if you want to get a PhD in math.
Can you imagine spending your life dancing if you don’t like dance? As the proud possessor of at least three left feet, I can tell you dancing sounds something out of Dante. Can you imagine being forced to study chess if the game does nothing for you? Remember the Orson Wells film when Charles Kane’s wife is described as a “singer” with those insulting quotation marks in the headline? That affair doesn’t end well. And you all know someone whose career didn’t match their inclinations, passions, and predilections. No one on their death bed ever said, I wish I had spent my life doing what I didn’t enjoy and wasn’t good at.
Speaking of arithmetic, here’s a simple calculation: the likelihood that your child’s excursions into football, acting, dance, chess, swimming, soccer, singing, or debate will lead to a college scholarship never mind a career are vanishingly small. The ratio of the number of high school quarterbacks compared to the number of NFL quarterbacks is effectively zero. The ratio of high school trombone players to the number of trombone players in symphonies is also zero. The number of star high school actors compared to the number of actors making a living from their craft is less than zero. (“Probability less than zero.” Math joke. Sorry.)
If your kid loves lacrosse, encourage them to play lacrosse; if your child enjoys trombone, by all means inspire them to learn music; if your child is enthralled by dance, reinforce their desire to learn ballet or tap or hip hop. But don’t think that they’re going to get a scholarship to college based on their ability to play soccer. The point of being involved in all those activities is, again, love. You gotta love it. Or you’d be better off committing your youth, exuberance, and treasure to some other pursuit.
Next time you think about forcing your child to learn trombone–a.k.a. the “scholarship instrument”—think about doing math your whole life if you don’t truly love math. When you stop shuddering, allow your child some other choices, choices that they can love.
