More on Babylonian Word Problems

The first thing that made me stop was learning that clay tablets with "problem texts" date back to 2000 to 1600 B.C. This surprised me because I didn’t think word problems went that far back. I always thought they were just an extra activity and not the main part. But thinking back to my own schooling, I remember they showed up early, like when I first learned addition and subtraction, and they’ve been a part of math ever since. The second thing that made me pause was the statement, "The impractical nature of these stories calls into question their referentiality in pointing to 'real world' situations and casts doubt upon the serious practicality of even those more plausible problems." This stood out to me because I used to think word problems made math more relevant. However, as we discussed in class, in real life there is often an easier way, like using a measuring tape instead of a formula. I learned that the point of word problems is not the scenario, but to practice a specific concept. The last thing that made me pause was the statement, "Høyrup's distinction is between Babylonian scribal school mathematics, which aimed to train students in methods available at hand rather than in an understanding of these methods, and Greek mathematics, which aimed to solve problems by extending mathematics and devising new methods." This made me question what we are currently doing in schools. As Skemp's article points out, we mostly teach instrumentally rather than relationally, and a change is needed, but it will take time.