I wish I could start by saying this is an age-old question.  I have no clue, especially because I don’t recall ever having said this aloud when I was in school.  In fact, I don’t ever recall even thinking it.  I’m hearing it more and more these days, however…especially in math, when concepts sometimes seem so abstract that students can’t connect the information presented with anything they currently encounter or might encounter someday.

As a normal everyday person, I certainly understand the frustration.  I mean, what does solving for a variable really do for me?  How will knowing the quadratic formula help me achieve my dream of becoming a mortician?  No joke: I had a student once whose dream was to become a mortician.  These are basic algebraic concepts, but we can easily extend this into other mathematical areas beyond algebra.   Some students are content with the knowledge that completing one level of math helps them gain insights into the next level.  For some savvy kids, knowing this isn’t good enough, and the standard answers don’t seem to particularly motivate them.  Many of these kids are in special education, and may very well be the ones to raise their hand (or not) and ask the question in the middle of your lecture.

As a math teacher, my job is to go there.  The question needs to be addressed in some manner, and it needs to be done without taking too much time out from what you are trying to accomplish.  Heaven forbid you ever get behind in your curriculum!  Many of my previous answers have included the standard tried and true responses, the stock answers that I have heard math teachers say many times before.  I could list the jobs that might require one to use Algebra, or even easier, Geometry.  I could mention that math is a universal language that we all use everyday, sometimes without even knowing it.  I could say that algebraic thinking is problem-solving …I mean, aren’t you solving for X whenever you try and figure out something, given a seemingly limited amount of information?  I could skate around the question by conveniently mentioning that, at the very least, passing Algebra and Geometry are required for graduation.  All these answers, plus many more I have neglected to mention, can be sufficient to pacify the student, but they don’t really answer the question for some.

A student named E. asked this question one morning last year in an inclusion Algebra class that I was co-teaching.  I believe the topic that day had to do with graphing absolute value formulas, and may have had some fractions thrown in for further confusion.  E. was getting frustrated, and had been mumbling things in that barely audible tone that every student in the room can hear, but that the teacher can only guess at, for a few minutes, before I asked, “Do you have a question, E.?”

Over the next couple of months E. asked this question with increasing frequency, always when frustration levels were reached, or when the material became abstract and/or involved.  Other students, feeling emboldened by E.’s pertinent, albeit ill-timed queries, began asking as well, audibly and barely audibly.  I had been thinking about how I could answer E.’s question without giving him one of the aforementioned standard responses.  None of those were working anyway.  He wanted an answer, so I told my co-teacher that I wanted to address the question in front of the class.

The best way to do this is when it happens, right when the question is asked.  I am not kidding when I say that this was next to impossible to do in this particular Algebra class.  The pace of the class was such that slowing down, or pausing to go into more depth within a certain topic was out of the question.  You were seriously inconvenienced, maybe even outright screwed, if you happened to miss a day.  I was not the content expert in this particular co-teaching relationship, so I followed along with what was planned.  I loved it, but this is the adult me talking.  My head may have literally exploded if I’d taken this class in high school.  Needless to say, we agreed that I would take a few minutes to give the question a thoughtful response.

I didn’t really do a very good job.  E. was certainly unimpressed.  I need to write it down here so that at least someone knows there is another way to respond to the question, and also when I have time to address it I can give a more complete answer.  The answer comes from my own life, as all true answers must.

“When am I ever gonna use this?”

The answer is: you might not, but you never know.

Part One of the answer has to do with the path a life takes, and all the trials and tribulations you endure to be at the point you are now.  I never in a million years thought I would be a teacher, much less a math teacher.  Math was never my thing, and it got worse in high school.  I did fine in Algebra, but Geometry killed me.  Some things I just didn’t get.  Theorems, postulates, proofs, angles – it is all a blur.  I was struggling, and asked my teacher for help.  He agreed to meet with me before school everyday so that I could get extra help, and that’s the only reason I was able to scratch out a “C”.  The kindness of a teacher, and the time and attention he took.  With me.  I took my three years of math, graduated, and took math again in college.  I was an English major, but decided there was only one profession to go into upon earning a degree in English, and that was teaching.  Something I vowed never to do.  My father had been a teacher, and he came home looking miserable and grumpy everyday, so why would I want to do that?  I switched to Business and had to take a Calculus class.   Calculus-Lite, I call it, but easily the most difficult math class I had ever taken.  Again, I had a teacher who cared enough about me, and about me learning the material, to get me through it – this time with better than a “C”.  I graduated with a Business degree and decided that the only thing worse than teaching was my 22-year old version of what being in business was like.

“When am I ever gonna use this?”

You might not, but you never know.  I was adamant about NOT being a teacher.  The pay is crappy, students are a pain, you have to grade papers, and you get to come home miserable and grumpy.  My (limited) experience with the business world had taught me that I at least needed to do something that involved some degree of excitement.  I took an introductory Education class, just to check it out.  The only thing I remember about the class was that we needed to do observations of different classes at schools in the local community.  For some reason I chose a middle school, and for the first time in a long time felt like maybe I belonged there.  It was fun.  Could being a teacher really be fun?

You never know.  Remember: I was adamant about NOT being a teacher.  It was a rocky start, and nearly didn’t happen, yet here I am.

So E., my savvy, street-smart student.  You never know.  Right now you are so adamant that there is no way in hell that a situation exists where you might use this.  Your life will take so many cool twists and turns that it will make your head spin, especially after you land wherever you’re supposed to land.  I don’t really care if you truly believe me or not, because there is a huge probability that I’m incorrect.  But I could be, so keep an open mind and graph those absolute value equations.