useful for analyzing the problem and proposing solutions.
But complex, real-world problems often have just as much
to do with the deep-down issues of our humanness as they
do with quantifying and modeling with math.
Consider the first opener in the book. Lesson 1.1 begins
with a discussion of patterns—particularly, the pattern we
see in the family tree of a male drone bee: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,
etc. “What makes this particular pattern fascinating,” the
authors explain, “is that it seems to appear everywhere!
This pattern is called the Fibonacci Sequence, and you can
find it in flowers, seashells, pineapples, art, architecture,
and even in your DNA!” 4 Fascinating indeed! Why do we
live in a world of such surprising order? The authors never
raise that question.
Only a few openers relate to the marvels of creation.
Usually, they focus on problems that raise important moral
questions. And, once again, God never comes up. Students
are left with the impression that the really hard questions in
life are the math ones. The moral questions are more or less
obvious. But are they?
Consider the opener for Lesson 5.1. Here the focus is on
income inequality in the United States. These are the final
two paragraphs:
“Since the 1970s, the United States has become a nation
with much more income inequality. Wages in the middle
and lower classes have remained fairly stagnant while the
wealth of the top 1% has increased from 9% in the 1970s to
nearly 25% today.”
“Why do you think the income inequality changed after
the 1970s? Do you think this trend will continue for the
foreseeable future? What factors play a part in determining
wealthy and non-wealthy classes?” 5
How would you respond? How do you think a teenager
should respond? I believe a student cannot respond correct-
ly unless he bases his thinking on biblical teaching—what
God says about wealth, justice, and generosity. The student,
however, will not be able to respond in that way unless he
is taught to do so. Students taking this course will be led to
think about problems as though God did not exist, and thus
they will be misled.
CONCLUSION
When young people are taught math in a godless way, what
kind of world do we create? We make a world where math
replaces sound judgment, especially moral judgment. We
make a world in which big data combines with complex
algorithms to become a force that invisibly disrupts and
degrades people’s lives. We make a world where people
highly value statistical analyses (even if they can’t under-
stand them) but dismiss any argument that smacks of reli-
gion. In short, we create the world we are living in. 6 This may
be the world we are living in, but this is not the world I want
28
living in my children. I want them to see God at the center
of everything, and I hope that as they do this, they will make
a difference in this world. But if I am going to accomplish
this—if we are going to accomplish this—a better way must
be sought, even in math class.
What will that better way look like? It will start with being
unafraid to mention God and to make Him central to the
instruction. It will demonstrate that much of what we study
in math doesn’t make sense until we look at the world from
the perspective of who God is and what He has done. It will
present the elegance of our universe as the result of God’s
work of creation. It will show students how befuddled secu-
lar mathematicians are when confronted with the order-
liness of our world. But, of course, it will do more. It will
show students that math is a powerful tool for modeling
our world, but it is only a tool. It can predict the path of a
ballistic missile, but it cannot tell us if we should use that
knowledge. It can tell us what Americans think about love
and marriage, but it cannot tell us if they are right. It can tell
us the leading risk factors for a certain disease, but it cannot
show us the way to eternal life. For math instruction to lead
to wisdom, it must be integrated with the teachings of Scrip-
ture. This is what Christian education can do. This is what
Christian education must do. ■
Dr. Bryan Smith has worked in Christian education for over twenty years. He has been a
classroom teacher as well as a textbook author. Currently, he serves at BJU Press as the Bible
Integration Senior Manager. In this position, he assists authors and teachers in the work
of integrating faith and learning in the classroom. Bryan holds a Ph.D. in Old Testament
Interpretation. He and his wife, Becky, have six children.
ENDNOTES
1. David Dengler et al., Carnegie Learning Algebra II, 3rd ed., Vol. 1 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie
Learning, 2014), FM-31.
2. Juli K. Dixon et al., Go Math! (Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
2015).
3. Some people may push back against this evaluation, claiming the story problems stu-
dents read in math class have little to no effect on their worldview. I disagree, and I think
Betsy Levy Paluck would as well. She’s a psychologist at Princeton University. Paluck has
done research on how stories change the way people perceive reality. In 2004, she studied
the effects of a radio soap opera in Rwanda. The show focused on different ethnicities
being tolerant of one another. Paluck found that the soap opera did not change people’s
beliefs, but it did change how people perceived norms for society. In particular, they came
to accept that peaceful coexistence with other ethnicities was normal. This particular
instance of storytelling led to a good outcome—people being more civil to one another.
My concern is that a secular approach to math instruction will—over many years—lead
students to conclude that problem-solving without God is normal. See E. L. Paluck, “Re-
ducing Intergroup Prejudice and Conflict Using the Media: A Field Experiment in Rwanda,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 96, No. 3 (2009): 574–87.
4. David Dengler et al., Carnegie Learning Algebra II, 3rd ed., Vol. 1 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie
Learning, 2014), 3.
5. David Dengler et al., Carnegie Learning Algebra II, 3rd ed., Vol. 1 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie
Learning, 2014), 405.
6. For a good overview of how an unduly high view of math can produce these negative
effects, see Jerry Z. Miller, The Tyranny of Metrics (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2018) and Cathy O’Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases
Inequality and Threatens Democracy (New York: Crown, 2016). Here’s a snippet from
O’Neil’s introduction: “Data scientists all too often lose sight of the folks on the receiving
end of the transaction. They certainly understand that a data-crunching program is bound
to misinterpret people a certain percentage of the time, putting them in the wrong
groups and denying them a job or a chance at their dream house. But as a rule, the people
running the [algorithms] don’t dwell on those errors. Their feedback is money, which is
also their incentive” (pp. 12–13). Again, we see a reminder that math is about more than
numbers. It is also about our humanness and what it means to live well in God’s world.
Without that emphasis in textbooks, our math education will likely produce clever devils,
not wise image-bearers of God.