Tenth Grade Math

One of my running buddies is, by any objective measure, absurdly successful. He is blissfully happy in his personal life with a supportive, accomplished, well-spoken wife. They are that rare couple who met young, fell hopelessly in love, have been happily married forever, and now have three adolescent children whom they adore. Professionally, Ben is the CEO of a company with over a hundred stores across the country. As a boss, he is capable, thoughtful, and insightful. Ben’s employees worship him; his board of directors likes him; his competitors admire him. He has wicked business skills–he can read a balance sheet from across the room; he knows when to open a new store and when to close one; he has enough knowledge and information to sense incipient trends in his industry before they happen.

But he can’t do tenth grade math.

I’m not saying that Ben is in some way deficient because he can’t do tenth grade math. I’m not being condescending in that I, the Great David Altshuler, CAN do tenth grade math. To the contrary, I am suggesting that Ben doesn’t need to know tenth grade math. How can you argue that if he did know tenth grade math he would be better off in any way?

For example, would you have the unmitigated temerity to suggest that Ben would have TWO HUNDRED stores across the country if he knew tenth grade math?

I didn’t think so.

***

I chatted recently with one of my old colleagues, a science teacher. I acknowledged that under no circumstances could I pass the first quiz from the first week of his tenth grade Chemistry class. My buddy cheerfully admitted that he could not get many questions right on a test that I gave in tenth grade math class.

Yes, I have a graduate degree; no, I am not smarter than an tenth grader.

There’s nothing wrong with our curriculum. But there’s nothing divinely inspired about it either.

Ben and his family were over at the house the other Saturday and I watched his middle son play Parcheesi with another family friend also in the tenth grade. It was clear from their playing that neither child had the first clue about simple probability. Ben’s son didn’t position his pieces at the ideal striking distance* to capture his opponent’s pawns. I felt about this the same way that you might feel about a young man who took his life savings out of the bank in cash and walked down Flagler Street throwing hundred dollar bills in the air shouting, “Come back to me, Mama Hundreds!” However, having read my own columns about keeping my mouth shut, I said nothing to the young men huddled over the Parcheesi board. They seemed to enjoy themselves pretty well. They were obviously content to go through their 16-year-old lives oblivious to my great insights about probabilities and strategy in Parcheesi.

Competence in core subjects in critical. I don’t see how people could get through the day without fifth grade math–the ability to add and subtract and make budgets, for example. Excellence in your desired field is critical. You have to know all there is to know about your profession. Otherwise you won’t be competent or successful. Knowing as much as you can about as many different topics is a bonus. All educated people pride themselves about knowing about disparate topics.

But not every successful, contented person has to know math at the tenth grade level.

Maybe Ben is so accomplished not in spite of the fact that he doesn’t know tenth grade math, but because he doesn’t. Maybe Ben is able to take appropriate risks where I sit back over-analyzing with the Expected Value Theorem. (The EVT helps measure risk and reward. I use the EVT to play Parcheesi. Maybe that’s why I can usually beat Ben’s kids.) Maybe Ben’s skill set–eloquence, business savvy, charisma, risk taking–are exactly those abilities that aren’t taught in tenth grade math.

Maybe those skills–the most critical components of Ben’s success–aren’t taught in school at all.

Remember this quote about law school? “The A students become law professors; the B students become judges; the C students become wealthy attorneys.”

What’s the message here? Am I advocating for mediocrity and ignorance? Of course not. A little knowledge is always good and a lot of knowledge is always better. But next time your son comes home with a C in tenth grade math, consider whether or not he has the skills to marry the woman of his dreams, have three adorable children, and be the CEO of a successful chain of a hundred stores.

Then take out the Parcheesi board and have some fun. If your kid learns enough probability to have a solid grounding for an undergraduate statistics course, that’s good too. But don’t believe for a minute that tenth grade math skills are the only ones necessary for success.

* extra credit: given a random role of two dice and ignoring any specifics about Parcheesi rules, what is the most likely role and why? In other words, when Ben’s son roles two dice, what number is most likely to come up and why?