I'm up in Northern Minnesota with my family on vacation right now, so this week's episode

is a little different. It's an episode I initially created for Freakonomics Radio, and actually

not just any episode, but my very first try at hosting. Welcome to People I Mostly Admire,

with Steve Levitt. If you're a regular listener, then you know how frustrated I am with the current

educational system. Today's episode, which first aired about two years ago, marked my transition

from someone who only complains about a problem to someone who's trying to do something about it.

So here's my question to you. Try to guess what was the reaction when the first aired? Did

you despair people into action, made people angry, or was it just completely ignored? I'll tell

you the answer at the end. Rationalize the denominator in the equation 3 over the square root of x minus 7.

That's my daughter, Sophie Levitt. I'm going to be a sophomore in high school at the University of Chicago

Lab Schools. These are the kinds of questions she's working on in her math classes. The questions

that I'm responsible for helping her with. Rationalize the denominator in the equation 3 over the

square root of x minus 7. Find the imaginary zeros of the equation f of x equals 4x to the 4th plus

35x squared minus 9. Can you tell us what an imaginary zero is? No. I have 14 eaters. I spent a lot

of time working with them on their math homework. More often than not, after helping them answer

whatever questions are assigned that day, I'm left with questions of my own. Questions that I

can't find good answers to. Like, why are we teaching kids these things? Does anyone actually use

some math we're teaching in their daily life? Is there any benefit at all to learning this stuff?

And are there not more interesting and useful things that we could be teaching them?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-math. I use mathematical thinking, statistics, and data

analysis constantly, whether I'm writing economics papers, trying to get better at golf,

or hoping to pick winners at the racetrack. But here's the thing. The math tools I actually use,

...