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[-] Kefla@hexbear.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

I've used algebra in programming, but I'm pretty sure I've never used geometry outside a classroom in my entire life.

[-] UmmmCheckPlease@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Not explicitly- but you like apply geometric concepts into every day activities (eg parking a car, tossing paper into a bin, cutting a pizza) or algebra which forms the basis of logical arguments/reasoning.

IMO teachers don’t do enough real-world examples of concepts, which is why students don’t engage with the topics. Idk I’m an engineer and a scootch on the spectrum so I can’t help but observe things everywhere lmao. I understand that school “needs” assessments of some sort - but the pacing of learning and refusal to meet people where they’re at frustrates me to no end. It creates the illusion that the knowledge is trapped in an ivory tower and not present in phenomena we interact with daily.

Honestly I have the same beef with most engineering curriculum (physics, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, statics and dynamics, etc) which again are things an everyday person has knowledge of (eg water flowing in a stream or gutter, ice melting, dissolving sugar into tea) but are taught that that knowledge is worthless.

I’ve found most people enjoy logic/math/engineering but are taught from a young age that they CAN’T if it doesn’t immediately click, and taught to internalize that CAN’T for the remainder of their lives. Hence Stephen Gould quote, “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

[-] Kefla@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Eh, I just don't see it. There's a difference between using knowledge of geometry and doing something that could only be explained with knowledge of geometry. I'm not calculating anything when I throw something. It's muscle memory.

[-] UmmmCheckPlease@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Fair. It’s interesting how fine of a line there is between those anyway. I’ve recently been exposed to Indigenous knowledge systems and teachers in the environmental field - and it’s depressing how much the “one size fits all” approach to education and knowledge has been used as a tool of oppression - when there are myriad ways to learn, teach, and apply knowledge

this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025
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