Though Hacker honors mathematics as a calling (he has been a professor of mathematics) and extols its glories and its goals, he shows how mandating it for everyone prevents other talents from being developed and acts as an irrational barrier to graduation and careers. He proposes alternatives, including teaching facility with figures, quantitative reasoning, and utilizing statistics.

Professor Hacker has been invited by LiteracyStudies@OSU to give a talk that raises questions about the emphasis on STEM. His visit is co-sponsored by the Department of Mathematics and the College of Education and Human Ecology.