What math will Joe Plumber use? What he does might just as well be called "Spreadsheet Skills" instead of math.
The closest thing I can think of to doing math is he might divide hours by number of fittings to see how long it took him to do one joint, then multiply that to find how long he thinks it will take now to do N.
I'd still call that spreadsheet and calculator skills rather than anything that actually requires being able to do math, because someone with zero algebra training can figure out those steps and do them.
Whatever the reason is to learn math, it's gotta be something more than just doing what we can already do with free software and $100 used laptops, unless we expect to have to do without tech.
But in that case, there are probably way more important skills one would need if they expect to survive in a tech free world, and I don't know enough to even start commenting on that.
The closest thing I can think of to doing math is he might divide hours by number of fittings to see how long it took him to do one joint, then multiply that to find how long he thinks it will take now to do N.
I'd still call that spreadsheet and calculator skills rather than anything that actually requires being able to do math, because someone with zero algebra training can figure out those steps and do them.
Whatever the reason is to learn math, it's gotta be something more than just doing what we can already do with free software and $100 used laptops, unless we expect to have to do without tech.
But in that case, there are probably way more important skills one would need if they expect to survive in a tech free world, and I don't know enough to even start commenting on that.