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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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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.