Now, if President Obama invited me to be the next Czar of Mathematics, then I would have a suggestion for him that I think would vastly improve the mathematics education in this country. And it would be easy to implement and inexpensive.
Ako bi me predsednik Obama pozvao da budem naredni Car Matematike, imao bih predlog za njega, za koji mislim da bi značajno poboljšao matematičku obrazovanost u ovoj zemlji. Takođe, implementacija bi bila laka i jeftina.
The mathematics curriculum that we have is based on a foundation of arithmetic and algebra. And everything we learn after that is building up towards one subject. And at top of that pyramid, it's calculus. And I'm here to say that I think that that is the wrong summit of the pyramid ... that the correct summit -- that all of our students, every high school graduate should know -- should be statistics: probability and statistics. (Applause)
Nastavni program matematike koji imamo je baziran na osnovi sačinjenoj od aritmetike i algebre. Sve što naučimo posle toga nas priprema prema jednoj oblasti. Na vrhu te piramide je matematička analiza (izvodi i integrali). Ovde sam da bih vam rekao da mislim da je to pogrešan izbor za vrh piramide... da bi pravi vrh -- onaj koji bi svi naši učenici, svi svršeni srednjoškolci trebali da znaju -- trebala biti statistika, verovatnoća i statistika. (Aplauz)
I mean, don't get me wrong. Calculus is an important subject. It's one of the great products of the human mind. The laws of nature are written in the language of calculus. And every student who studies math, science, engineering, economics, they should definitely learn calculus by the end of their freshman year of college. But I'm here to say, as a professor of mathematics, that very few people actually use calculus in a conscious, meaningful way, in their day-to-day lives. On the other hand, statistics -- that's a subject that you could, and should, use on daily basis. Right? It's risk. It's reward. It's randomness. It's understanding data.
Nemojte me shvatiti pogrešno. Analiza je bitna oblast matematike. Ona predstavlja fantastičan proizvod ljudskog uma. Zakoni prirode su ispisani jezikom matematičke analize. I svaki student koji studira matematiku, prirodne nauke, inženjerstvo, ekonomiju mora naučiti analizu do kraja prve godine fakulteta. Ali ovom prilikom bih theo da kažem, kao profesor matematike, da veoma mali broj ljudi zapravo koristi analizu na svestan i smislen način, u svakodnevnom životu. Sa druge strane, statistika je oblast koju možete i treba da koristite u svakodnevnom životu, zar ne? Proučavanje rizika, mogućnost dobitka, nasumične pojave, razumevanje podataka - to je statistika.
I think if our students, if our high school students -- if all of the American citizens -- knew about probability and statistics, we wouldn't be in the economic mess that we're in today. (Laughter) (Applause) Not only -- thank you -- not only that ... but if it's taught properly, it can be a lot of fun. I mean, probability and statistics, it's the mathematics of games and gambling. It's analyzing trends. It's predicting the future. Look, the world has changed from analog to digital. And it's time for our mathematics curriculum to change from analog to digital, from the more classical, continuous mathematics, to the more modern, discrete mathematics -- the mathematics of uncertainty, of randomness, of data -- that being probability and statistics.
Mislim da kada bi naši učenici, naši srednjoškolci -- kada bi svi građani Amerike -- znali osnove verovatnoće i statistike, ne bismo bili u ovoj ekonomskoj zbrci u kojoj smo danas. Ne samo -- hvala vam -- ne samo to, već ako se predaju na pravi način, može biti veoma zabavno. Verovatnoća i statistika, one predstavljaju matematiku igara i kockanja, analiziranja trendova, predviđanja budućnosti. Vidite, svet se promenio iz analognog u digitalni. Vreme je da se naš nastavni program matematike promeni iz analognog u digitalni. Sa više klasične, kontinualne matematike, u preovlađujuće modernu, diskretnu matematiku. Matematiku neodređenosti, nasumičnih događaja, podataka -- a sve to je verovatnoća i statistika.
In summary, instead of our students learning about the techniques of calculus, I think it would be far more significant if all of them knew what two standard deviations from the mean means. And I mean it. Thank you very much. (Applause)
Sve u svemu, umesto da naši učenici uče o tehnikama matematičke analize, mislim da bi mnogo značajnije bilo kada bi svi oni znali šta odstupanje od dve standardne devijacije od srednje vrednosti označava. Zaista sam ubeđen u to. Hvala vam puno. (Aplauz)