When a “charity” complains about a throwaway line, you do not appease them, for appeasement never, ever works. The beast is never sated, it always comes back for more. So L’Oreal should not have backed down here.
Beauty giant L’Oreal Paris is to change an advert that included a throwaway boast about not being good at maths after a numeracy charity’s challenge.
Recent L’Oreal Paris adverts featured British actress Dame Helen Mirren saying: “Age is just a number. And maths was never my thing.”
National Numeracy tweeted its distaste that the advertising appeared to boast about poor maths skills.
L’Oreal Paris thanked the charity and pledged to change it “right away”.
This was entirely the wrong response. If a response was required, it should have been to remind the “charity” that people have a sense of humour and “maths not being my thing” is a fairly common line. I use it myself. Frequently. It doesn’t mean I’m innumerate – numbers just aren’t my thing. Grow up and get a sense of proportion and while you are at it, a sense of humour.
Twitter really has become a stain on our society.
Oh, and maths really isn’t my thing.
It just doesn’t add up, these people are multiplying while they divide the rest of us, they can only subtract the best of British leaving no final solution.
Plain English is not my thing.
I struggle with numbers myself. It took me over a year to learn my current phone number. (I still occasionally blank on it and have to look it up.)
Thing is, this didn’t stop me making a living as a programmer. Despite taking my Pure & Applied Maths A Level three times (and getting a lower grade on each attempt), I still can’t do long division.
Doesn’t matter though: we’re tool-using creatures and it turns out we’ve invented these things called ‘calculators’ and ‘computers’. Turns out they’re rather good at doing complicated sums.
There is little benefit in teaching our kids how to do maths the hard way. It’s 2015, not 1915. We’ve invented machines that can do maths for us wholesale. Nobody explains writing to kids by telling them to pick up their wooden stylus and wax tablets and start writing in cuneiform.
Yeah, but. I do believe that learning Latin can help people to order their thoughts so as to be able to communicate with some precision. Similarly, I contend that pre-metric weights, measures and currency by their mixing of base twelve with base twenty forced people to think at all times. The tools really only come into their own in the hands of those who can best use them, rather than those who most need them. Sean, you are evidently better at mathematics than me, my grade 3 CSE represented my limits. As for Latin; I wish.
The ability to recognise that the calculator is giving a wrong result helps. Latin certainly helps with following the romantic languages as you can see the roots. I got a grade 1 at GSE in Maths and likewise in English language. Bits and pieces of Latin are self taught.
True, but that’s just basic arithmetic, not algebra or differential calculus. I was taught all the ‘maths’ I’ve ever actually used in my working life in primary school. Nothing I was taught after that has ever been of any earthly use to me.
None of my teachers ever thought to explain *why* I needed to understand polar coordinates, or surds. (I still haven’t a clue what surds are used for. All I can remember about them now is the name and that they have something to do with imaginary numbers.) It wasn’t until I started teaching *myself* about this stuff that I began to understand the concepts behind them.
I’ve since written programming manuals for major 3D computer graphics engines used in successful video games. I know *why* I might need to calculate the normal of a vector. I can even write program code to do just that. But if you asked me to do it myself, my brain would show me a TV test card, play a high pitched tone, and shut itself down for the night. I have absolutely no idea how to even begin doing that by hand.
And you know what? I’ve never needed to. Ever. Despite spending over a decade as a professional programmer. Because—and I cannot repeat this often enough—that’s the bloody *computer’s* job, not mine.
If it should come to pass that civilisation collapses and we need to start doing all this stuff the hard way, I’d like to bring the honourable pessimists’ attention to the existence of (a) books, which are surprisingly difficult to destroy completely, (b) universities full of clever people with the beards to prove it, and (c) the remaining survivors, at least one of whom is statistically likely to have been a maths teacher.
There is absolutely no excuse for teaching subjects like maths the way we do today. None. It would be far more constructive to explain the *concepts* behind them, and *what they’re used for*. If your future career plans don’t intersect with those use cases, you can safely ignore them. If you should ever need to learn about them, there’s this thing called “The Internet”, which seems unlikely to disappear up its own fundament any time soon.
(Deep breath… aaaaand relax!)
Point taken.
Makes you wonder my they bother to pander to these silly people.
That they do is the problem.
L’oreal need me and my mathematical Dyspraxia to do an ad for them then, see how the fucking numeracy charity like them onions.
Bunch of twatting bastards.
Please excuse my language but I do so detest this pious bollocks from these so called “charities”
WHAT in god’s name is wrong with people.
Maybe the correct response would have been “We’d like to say we’re sorry, but apologies were never our thing”.
If ‘maths’ was never Dame Helen’s ‘thing’ how can she calculate if she is ‘worth it’?
I think one should differentiate knowing how to do something (well enough to depend on it for one’s job) from knowing that it is a useful skill, even essential to the modern world (though through others). And if you don’t know the sorts of things that that particular skill-set actually contributes, you are much much weaker in understanding the needs of civilisation and the value of anything. If your teachers don’t teach you why, why not ask them, or your parents, or friends with a better grasp of the subject? After all, the biggest lesson in education is learning how to learn.
Next, how are we to obtain mathematicians (or those with other skills where numeracy is essential, eg science and engineering) if we do not teach the basics to everyone, and let them each decide the level of their future interest? And how, on this, is maths different from any other school subject?
If you have time, try the discussion What Use is Maths? from Samizdata in 2008.
On advertisements, I can remember being mildly irritated, several years ago, by Saab advertising their most excellent cars as suitable getaway vehicles from jewellery theft. And, in the make-up advert, is there not just a hint of sexism: pretty ladies (or those who need help looking pretty) don’t need to know about more serious things?
Criminals and stupid people use our products: so they’re just right for you.
How’s that for humour!
Best regards
One of my schools was this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints_Catholic_School,_West_Wickham
(I was there during the 1980s. Colleen McCabe may have been the final nail in its coffin, but it never had a good reputation, and deservedly so. Even at that time, moving to Catford Boy’s School in 1988 was a distinct step *up*.)
I built my careers _despite_ the best efforts of my schools to pound all the joy of learning out of me and my peers. I do love learning. I’ve had a long and varied career so far and I’m still enjoying finding out new things.
As I pointed out in my post above, everything I know about mathematics today, I taught *myself*. But nothing I’ve ever tried has helped me get comfortable with numbers. I can do basic sums, but not very quickly, and certainly not very accurately. No amount of carrots or sticks will change that. I’m much, much more comfortable with languages.
Still, life would be very dull indeed if we were all equally good (or bad) at everything. Vive la difference!
I don’t think it’s Twitter’s fault. If it hadn’t been this medium, it’d be FaceBook, or WhatsApp, or Tumbler, or whatever’s the ‘in’ social media app with the kiddies these days.
The fault’s in the idiot taking offence, and that’s compounded by the idiot acquiescing to them.
“The fault’s in the idiot taking offence, and that’s compounded by the idiot acquiescing to them.”
I agree with the latter but the former isn’t taking offence, they’re bandwaggoning for the publicity.
Offended by proxy, it’s the latest disease and it’s in epidemic proportions. “How good am I being offended by this”
I imagine that all who visit this place would be slow to be offended by either the lead article or comments. Likewise, most of us would agree on most things. There are things where we would disagree, small things, yet enough to stop us climbing into metaphorical beds with each other. Is it the case that revolution is postponed while we iron out a few difficulties? LR is a cyclist and a cat lover, some visitors may take a rather different point of view on these matters. It will be such piddling differences which make revolution impossible.