There was a professor of mine in college who used to preach a lesson that did not sit well in the days when cries of "relevance" drowned out all others in the educational realm.
This man said that one purpose of an education was to let the students know that sometimes they had to do things that they didn't want to do -- and do them well. Hindsight, of course, proves that to be a very relevant lesson.
For many, that is the only purpose of learning mathematics. As with calisthenics in 90-degree August heat under the direction of a football coach, you struggle with sines and cosines and functions and integers in the hope that these exercises will make your brain more nimble and supple when the real game comes along.
"Math . . . Who Needs It?" an energetic PBS hour that will be on Maryland Public Television, channels 22 and 67, tonight at 8 o'clock, tries to persuade the skeptical that math is an important part of the real game.
Jaime Escalante, the Los Angeles public school teacher who was the centerpiece of the movie "Stand and Deliver" is the featured attraction, and his teaching of the subject to a class provides the thematic structure throughout the hour.
In between are various segments, many featuring celebrities talking about their math deficiencies and how much they realize that they really do need to know this subject. Bill Cosby, Teri Garr, Joe Piscopo, Paula Poundstone, Marla Gibbs and Paul Rodriguez are among those to appear. Comedian Jeff Altman does a routine about his first math class at Johns Hopkins.
And then there are brief feature segments designed to show how important math is to everything from building a bridge to designing a skateboard; from figuring out the biomechanical requirements for Nike shoes to sculpting the sound for Clarence Clemons at the Hollywood Bowl; from calculating the profit and loss of a retail clothing store to understanding the G-forces that a roller coaster will withstand; from engineering a race car to knowing a quarter note from a half note.
Escalante, a Bolivian native who seeks to instill in his students a special combination of pride and desire he calls "ganas," comes off as one of those dream teachers. He's a natural comedian, a born entertainer, who clearly keeps his classes lively and his students awake. He displays all sorts of tricks and riffs and seems to know when to beat the kids with shtick and when to throw stones. The segments are clearly staged -- and a bit stagy -- but the point is well made.
