As an English major and teacher, I hear a lot of negativity
about mathematics: “We’re English teachers—we can’t/don’t do math.” “Math can
stay over there.” “Ugh. Math.” “You like math?” “I’m good at English, but not
math.” To which I say, “Really?” I don’t believe that math and English are as
disparate as some people make them out to be. So, with only a slight
confirmation bias, I went to the internet to prove my claim that math and
English are not opposing ends of a subject-spectrum.
One observation I have made in my teaching career is that
students that do very well in English usually also do very well in math.
Actually, the grades that students get in English are usually very similar to
their math grades, even when they tell me that they are very good in English,
but not very good at math (which in itself is an interesting perception). For
this blog post, I wanted some objective evidence to validate my observations,
and I found one
interesting infographic based on SAT statistics that suggests that math and
verbal scores on the SAT are comparable. According to the stats presented here,
very few students had completely divergent scores in math and language.
The idea that math skills and English skills are divergent
seems to relate to the Left Brain/Right Brain myth. People fall back on the
right brain/left brain theory as if we simply work with one side of our brain
when tackling certain subject areas. And then, to add insult to injury, some
decide that math is associated with left brain thinking and language arts with
right brain thinking. It’s absurd to think that math does not incorporate
creativity or English class does not endorse logical, analytical thinking. Luckily, the right brain/left brain theory is
simply
a myth that we simply like to believe because it lets us easily categorize
our skills (and sometimes, I think, excuse our perceived weaknesses).
I actually see math and English as having a fair bit in
common. Math is a language after all. In both math and writing, we abide by
rules, order, structures, and symbols. We must interpret and analyse the
information in front of us. We use numbers, rhythms, and patterns in writing
just as we look for in mathematics. The skills we use in both subject areas are
not divergent, but rather interconnected. For another perspective on this, I
direct you to an article by Melanie Carbine, “Math
and English: More in Common than Different”. She too notes the connection
between math and English language.
Probably the best piece of information I came across is that
having a strong English teacher actually makes students stronger in
mathematics. Stanford researchers determined that “students of good language
arts teachers had higher than expected math scores in subsequent years” (“Stanford
research shows long-run benefit of English instruction”). I would think,
then, that being strong in English also leads to stronger skills in
mathematics—which can also be seen in the SAT stats as well since so few
students who scored well in verbal did poorly in math. Therefore, with regards
to all my English major math-naysayers who claim they are math-impaired, I say
they are actually well-equipped to tackle mathematics (so stop dissing it!)
