Good thing they didn’t teach me how to think in school, who needs that with AIs anyway? /s
The contempt for education is mind-boggling even on Lemmy.
one time the state of Indiana almost made pi equal to 3.2. This is the dumb shit that happens when you aren’t introduced to these topics in school. Please don’t return us to dark times.
Useless to you. I extremely need to know the Pythagorean Theorem for my work. Actually, absolutely everything I have ever been taught in math class ever, literally all of it and so much more, I have used. But I’m starting a PhD in electrical engineering in the fall, so I’m a bit biased 😆.
For me personally, dissecting frogs (well actually I dissected a clam) was probably a waste of time, but for at least some of my classmates it was probably helpful. Long division is important because it stimulates algorithmic thinking, which is important for living in a computerized world. Area of a trapezoid is important because… sometimes trapezoids show up, or you can approximate a more complicated shape with a trapezoid whose properties are well understood.
It’s also important for people who will never use it again. Learning algebra and geometry teaches you how to think critically and logically. So yeah, the gas station attendant over here may never use the cone area formula ever again, but at least it’s not magic to them.
Another important thing is that there’s no such thing as knowledge that you won’t need or won’t use.
i know several things that are actively detrimental to my own wellbeing
Everything is like… connected, man.
I am telling you the importance of learning and you call me a pothead.
No, I’m actually agreeing with you completely. I can see why you took it that way though. My fault.
Sometimes what they’re teaching you isn’t what they’re teaching you.
Maybe you don’t need to know how to find the exact surface area of a cone ever again, but the idea of unwrapping a cone to measure the surface area leaves an impression of a technique for deconstructing a problem, or that problems can be deconstructed into simpler parts at all. It also leaves you with a feel for roughly what the surface area of different shapes would be.
Using a protractor teaches you how to measure accurately and use tools.
Cursive and recorder teaches hand eye coordination, and music is just fundamental to human beings.
Then again maybe you do need to find the surface area of a cone one day, and you could probably go ahead and work out how that would be done even if you don’t remember exactly.
What’s the counterproposal for a curriculum? I’m genuinely curious here, not trying to jump down anyone’s throat. What would school look like without these things?
Well, concepts come to me easy and then stick with me forever. But memorization? Not at all, thus i’m not fit for the science route.
That’s why in ny opinion it’s criminal that for most high school math stops before calculus. Calculus wraps up so many loose ends and replaces rote memorization techniques with understanding. Why exactly is the area of a ___ = (formula)? Calculus answers that.
The quadratic formula too, calc replaces it. In fact if I had my way with the curriculum we would skip that one entirety in algebra. I’d also throw in a statistics class, which would directly impact just about everyone’s lives, but that’s another matter.
I never learned my times tables either. We don’t teach them anymore anyway.
Advanced calculus is mandatory, eg. for your income statement.
Except special needs, in our daily life is often needed geometry, trigonometry and algebra more than we think, but in the professional use it’s more like this:
I don’t need to find the surface area of a cone to smoke it
When I’m in a complaining about things that are actually good competition and my opponent is crankyrebel
School is meant to introduce you to a wide variety of fields and disciplines to help you choose a career. You might not have had any interest in geometry, but at least some of your classmates did and they may well be architects or engineers by now. Meanwhile, you probably had other things in school you liked but the other kids didn’t, which almost certainly influenced the kinds of jobs you want as an adult.
That listicle in the link includes as 2 of the 13 items using a protractor and knowing the pythagorean theorem.
I have needed both of those things just this summer, and just as part of a hobby! When building things even just knowing the 3-4-5 shortcut for the pythagorean theorem is incredibly handy.
You can lead a horse to water … I get the sentiment though. Schooling is a great idea that is too often poorly executed. I’ve found that educational materials for math and science sometimes have a circlejerk kind of attitude, like the authors are laughing at the thought of students struggling with a problem “left as an exercise to the reader” immediately following a wall of dense, incomprehensible text.
Where can I find examples of otherwise dry subjects taught well? Is there an educational system that’s praised in the same way they praise Scandinavian prisons? Or is the pain of learning just a necessary evil?
Lots of subjects are taught well in video games, intentionally or not
Honestly, i’ve had the need to use half of these things in my work. Of course, if you have a bs job, you dont require to know anything.
