School spends a long time “wasting” our time but learning things is a great way to learn how to interpret information and make actual informed decisions
Unless your educational system inhibits creativity and encourages memorization without understanding.
Back in high school in the 70s, I had a long-haired subversive English teacher, never wore a tie, bell bottoms, etc. He was a great teacher, and I made sure to take one of his English classes in grades 10/11/12, including Shakespeare 1 and 2.
He had a unique, very Socratic teaching style, that required us to make choices, and then defend them, and more importantly, recognize when someone else’s idea is better, and put ego aside to embrace the better concept. After three years of that class, I could write, communicate, and debate effectively, far beyond my years.
Years later, I started listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and wondered why I wasn’t being seduced by his rhetoric, like so many of his listeners. I realized it was because I had good Critical Thinking Skills, and wasn’t buying his bullshit.
When I asked myself how I got those skills, I realized that it was entirely due to Mr. Clark, and I loved him all the more for it. He was teaching English and Shakespeare, but he had an ulterior motive, and used those subjects to actually teach Critical Thinking Skills, and give us the confidence to defend our positions. He knew what he was doing, but NOBODY else did, including the school system, whose curriculum he gleefully subverted.
I tried to look him up, but he had died a few years earlier. I wish I could have told him that I was on to him, and he gave me the most important educational gift of my life.
Thanks, Mr. Clark, you were the greatest teacher of my life, and the lives of many others.
Yep. We don’t teach kids math so they can learn to do math. We do it so they can develop an intuition for abstract reasoning.
Also sometimes it actually just is good to know maths. Engineers, researchers, actuaries, accountants…there’s a huge range of practical applications for maths that’s more complicated than basic arithmetic in a very direct fashion, before you even get into jobs that more indirectly use abstract reasoning learnt through high school maths.
Sure. And for the 90% of kids who correctly say they won’t use math, it doesn’t matter. We are doing math so they can learn to navigate formal systems of reasoning. We could honestly teach deductive logic instead, or set theory, or group theory, or finite field topology. It doesn’t have to be algebra or anything remotely practical.
Who doesn’t use maths on a day to day basis?
Beyond the simplest arithmetic? Lol sure bro.
Youd be supriced how much simple everyday things use maths and you dont even notice. When you look at the speedometer and calculate im your head how long its going to take to arrive you are doing supricingly complex math. Add how much it will use gas and how far you can get with full tank.
Same when you compare two different sized packages of the same product and try to asses which one is more bang for your buck.
Or if you are trying to calculate is it legal to drive after night out now or should you wait for an hour.
After a weekend trip with your friends when you start to tally who brought what stuff and how expensive it was and who is the vegan who did not eat the steak but brought case of wine that everybody was drinking exept Steve who was the dedicated driver. Then there was Sarah who was only one night at the rented house while everybody else was there two nights, but she bought the steaks and other meat that the rest of the crew (not counting the vegan) ate the whole weekend.
Also almost anything done with building or renovations.
More closely you understand the calculations the less it becomes math and more to just how things work. Math is funny like that.
Yes and No. School really lacks a sort of “general knowledge” class, to get a general overview of lots of varied things.
It’s always been incredibly strange to me how you’re supposed to pick your career after high school (more or less) when you usually know about less than 10% of the jobs that exist.
PICK YOUR CAREER RIGHT NOW, GO TO COLLEGE IT’S OK TAKE OUT A LOAN YOU’RE GOOD FOR IT WHEN YOU GET THAT JOB YOU JUST PICKED
if you don’t do that you’ll FLIP BURGERS! Do you wanna be a greasy shithead for the rest of your life?! NO GO TO COLLEGE RIGHT NOW.
tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and a degree I will never use later, I went back to trade school and am in fact a greasy shithead. Fuckin best thing I ever did. Fuck you college salesman guy. You gave me a bad advice
For those of us who live in functional countries, college is usually a good idea. Worst case, you’re out a few hundred euros, which AFAIK isn’t an issue for the overwhelming majority of the population.
However, I do think there is a huge problem of undervaluing the trades, in close to every western country. Add to that the fact almost every new building nowadays is cheap trash that will fall apart in under a century, the building trades are especially affected.
