Why Did I Have To Learn So Many Useless Things In School?

[Batcat]

I wasn't gonna say that, but I'll accept the compliment.

Which proves how intelligent you are.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

So if you learn too much you turn stupid?

That makes no sense whatsoever. I never said it did.

 

[toobfreak]

That I never even use in my lifetime anyways? Like I remember some of the US presidents, but how is that going to help me get a job or anything?

Part of the problem Rilly is in how most teacher's teach. It is based on short term recall in order to meet a pre-ordained curriculum. So rather than getting a layered floret of learning, one built upon the other in a RELATABLE way, since the random dates of when and where Magellan sailed never soon come up again in your life, the brain relegates most of what you learn into an area of your brain where it may never be brought up into the fore again in your life, other than in a general sense.

Other things are taught not because most people will need to use polynomials or calculus and things in their lives, but because some of these things teach thinking and higher reasoning as well in using them and even if you don't use or remember them later on, most people still benefit from the exercise in helping to map out a more developed brain.

Seriously though, quite frankly, I've often thought that if I just focused on those things most people really need to know and use in their everyday lives, I could teach a normal person assuming they could read and write in about TWO YEARS, totally embarrassing our government-run school system and end up with a better, smarter person as well.

 

[Batcat]

That makes no sense whatsoever. I never said it did.

You said in post #110 …

Maybe they were all just stupid because all of that information was taught.

So logically you were saying if all that information was not taught they would not be stupid.

Which is why I asked you in post #111 …

So if you learn too much you turn stupid?

If teachers believe that teaching too much turns children's brains to mush then we can understand why our kids today can’t read. do math or know much about history.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

You said in post #110 …



So logically you were saying if all that information was not taught they would not be stupid.

Which is why I asked you in post #111 …



If teachers believe that teaching too much turns children's brains to mush then we can understand why our kids today can’t read. do math or know much about history.

You need a good course in logic because you missed the intent of my post by a few AUs. You assume the converse of my statement is true, but there is no support for that in your post.

 

[meaner gene]

Seriously though, quite frankly, I've often thought that if I just focused on those things most people really need to know and use in their everyday lives, I could teach a normal person assuming they could read and write in about TWO YEARS, totally embarrassing our government-run school system and end up with a better, smarter person as well.

the problem is that life can be like Jeopardy. You never know what facts or skills you'll need, until you're called upon to use or recall them. One example is using trivia to calculate ballpark estimates of "facts" people post. One person was famous for claiming a government conspiracy of "heavy metal" jet contrails.

 

[meaner gene]

So if you learn too much you turn stupid?

That makes no sense whatsoever. I never said it did.

It's also the plot of a "married with children" episode. The theory was that Kelly Bundys brain had finite capacity, and after studying for a sports quiz show, once full, every fact she learned after that, had to displace a previously learned fact.

 

[Captain Caveman]

i hate algebra. i simply cannot understand why numbers AND letters need to go together. at all in math. letters are for spelling & numbers are for math. i'm really good at arithmetic & enjoy do that kinda math - i'm good with fractions & figuring out percentages, too but that's it. & never needed algrebra in my life at all.

You think you hate algebra, but you use it everyday, from your morning routine to working out the cooking time for a turkey. It's just teachers couldn't talk in laymen's terms, just the speak out of text books. If they used hours, minutes, lbs, temp etc.. for a turkey instead of w,x,y,z etc.. then it would have made sense.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I mean I know a lot of things in school like math and English you need but most of it was a waste of time.

Parts of maths was to try and get your brain to solve problems, determine patterns etc.. to allow you to problem solve on the future, as opposed to use that specific part of maths in real life. I'm lead to believe one such example was quadratic equations but I was only told this much later in life.

 

[meaner gene]

You think you hate algebra, but you use it everyday, from your morning routine to working out the cooking time for a turkey. It's just teachers couldn't talk in laymen's terms, just the speak out of text books. If they used hours, minutes, lbs, temp etc.. for a turkey instead of w,x,y,z etc.. then it would have made sense.

I caught an interesting video on the origin of imaginary numbers. It seems that hundreds of years ago, algebra wasn't written as formulas as it is today, but as word explanations of how to solve equations. Where they used 2-D and 3-D shapes to represent the equations they were trying to solve. So concepts like negative area made problems unsolvable until they could square root a negative area.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I caught an interesting video on the origin of imaginary numbers. It seems that hundreds of years ago, algebra wasn't written as formulas as it is today, but as word explanations of how to solve equations. Where they used 2-D and 3-D shapes to represent the equations they were trying to solve. So concepts like negative area made problems unsolvable until they could square root a negative area.

Stating Stock + Orders - Sales = Closing Stock

A + B - C = D

C + D = A + B

etc..

 

[meaner gene]

Parts of maths was to try and get your brain to solve problems, determine patterns etc.. to allow you to problem solve on the future, as opposed to use that specific part of maths in real life. I'm lead to believe one such example was quadratic equations but I was only told this much later in life.

Problem solving becomes a lot easier once you learn calculus. Instead of memorizing formulas for area, or volume, or kinetic movement, you can derive them through integration and differentiation.

 

[Batcat]

It's also the plot of a "married with children" episode. The theory was that Kelly Bundys brain had finite capacity, and after studying for a sports quiz show, once full, every fact she learned after that, had to displace a previously learned fact.

I remember watching that show. It was one of the best in the series.

 

[meaner gene]

Stating Stock + Orders - Sales = Closing Stock

A + B - C = D

C + D = A + B

etc..

That's simple arithmetic. But people start breaking down when they start working with percentages. Such as if you take your sales, and are told they went up 50% the first year, and then went down 50% the next year. After the dust settles, are you doing better, worse, or the same as where you started?

 

[Captain Caveman]

Problem solving becomes a lot easier once you learn calculus. Instead of memorizing formulas for area, or volume, or kinetic movement, you can derive them through integration and differentiation.

By using laymen terms, the wording that the vast majority speak. My son asked, "What's linear sequences?". I said, "Numbers that go up or down in a pattern. For example, house numbers in a street go up in two's. So the first house is 2 then 4 then six and so on". So he asked why didn't the teacher just have said that. "Because son, teachers teach and educators educate, you learn from educators".

 

[Captain Caveman]

That's simple arithmetic. But people start breaking down when they start working with percentages. Such as if you take your sales, and are told they went up 50% the first year, and then went down 50% the next year. After the dust settles, are you doing better, worse, or the same as where you started?

What it is, kids use simple words, they understand simple words and to some extent, more ready to work with numbers. Their world around them throws numbers at them, counting socks, toys etc.. Then eventually, they feel you have to count in letters etc.. later in school years, which is alien to them.The WORST thing you can do to the majority of kids is to rabbit off the maths speak Algebra, Tangent, Calculus etc.. As soon as you do that, forget it, you've lost and bamboozled a whole bunch of kids despite trying to explain what they mean.

How do I know, years ago with my own kids and their friends, they would say they learnt more off me in one day than from school in a whole month. I just simply taught them trigonometry but I just made sure I didn't use the words Adjacent, Opposite, Sine, Tangent etc.. I just simply used a real life example and used the words they knew and say, for example, Lawn and Wall (Instead of Adjacent and Opposite). They grasped trigonometry really quick and when they came back from school, they said, "Why didn't the teacher say from the start that Tangent was just Wall divided by Lawn?". Because teachers teach and they don't understand kids. So my boys and their friends learnt trigonometry from me in a fraction of the time, and then understood what on earth their maths teacher was rabbiting on about.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I taught my girlfriend Algebra in 5 minutes, she burst into tears because she said, "My maths teacher made me stand up in maths because I didn't know what algebra was, I was told I was stupid".

How did I do it? First, never use letters, you must use words. Which words? The ones Joe public uses. So we picked a shoe shop and I told her we need to manage it. So we had such things as sales of shoes, number of employees, stock of shoes, and so on. Then I told her to manage the shop, we need to know certain things so we need various formulas by using sales of shoes + orders of shoes etc.. so she understood that. So we had several "long winded" formulas written down. I told her two things, we don't know the values yet for stock of shoes etc.. and we can't keep writing down all these long words. So why don't we substitute "sales of shoes" with X.

That's when she burst into tears because in that split moment, she understood X, y, z etc.. but more importantly, the use and meaning of formulas and who to simplify them etc.. And again, she said, "Why didn't the teacher just say that at school". Because teachers teach, educators educate.

 

[surada]

I mean I know a lot of things in school like math and English you need but most of it was a waste of time.

What sort of work do you do?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

What it is, kids use simple words, they understand simple words and to some extent, more ready to work with numbers. Their world around them throws numbers at them, counting socks, toys etc.. Then eventually, they feel you have to count in letters etc.. later in school years, which is alien to them.The WORST thing you can do to the majority of kids is to rabbit off the maths speak Algebra, Tangent, Calculus etc.. As soon as you do that, forget it, you've lost and bamboozled a whole bunch of kids despite trying to explain what they mean.

How do I know, years ago with my own kids and their friends, they would say they learnt more off me in one day than from school in a whole month. I just simply taught them trigonometry but I just made sure I didn't use the words Adjacent, Opposite, Sine, Tangent etc.. I just simply used a real life example and used the words they knew and say, for example, Lawn and Wall (Instead of Adjacent and Opposite). They grasped trigonometry really quick and when they came back from school, they said, "Why didn't the teacher say from the start that Tangent was just Wall divided by Lawn?". Because teachers teach and they don't understand kids. So my boys and their friends learnt trigonometry from me in a fraction of the time, and then understood what on earth their maths teacher was rabbiting on about.

I am sure they "learnt" a great deal, considering that is not a word.

Also, WTF is a "maths" teacher?

 

[Unkotare]

I taught my girlfriend Algebra in 5 minutes,...

No, you didn't.