You know the kind where you start to question your own being? The kind of questions that make you try to reevaluate life? My question... that one question that burns at my brain... Is why... is math a mandatory subject!
I've heard it said day in and day out that math is everywhere, yet I have yet to go through a day where I need to evaluate an exponential rational trigonometric... friggen square rooted asymptotic... or whatever.
Math doesn't click with me... It doesn't ring loud and clear, which is weird because I can normally figure things out. Give me an essay. Give me a video to shoot. Tell me to make an advertising banner. Make me run a slo-pitch practice. Just for the love of god don't ask me what X equals...
Now, I understand this is a pretty standard gripe for a high school student... I get that. I mean, with math comes homework, with homework comes angst... but this isn't an an angst spurning from a want for less work... I like work. I burn when I'm not working, and find myself happy when I'm accomplishing things.
But I don't understand why waste my time with math, since it is so sparsely related to any of my other skill sets. It isn't helping advance my more prominent skill sets to the point where I feel I'm stagnating, wasting time where I could be authentically bettering myself.
I've heard tell that math is good for the development of logical and methodical thinking skills... where formulas and structure triumph over creativity and individuality.
So with that in mind... lets evaluate (lol) the following. I like to write, i like media production, I like leading events, and I like public speaking. These skills stretch my creative abilities to connect with people, and such skills are not things you can assign values to, express with variables, or define with an exact answer.
As such, math class is essentially stagnation for me: I'm currently in grade eleven advanced functions... So for someone who wants to go to school for slinging words and interacting with people... knowing the velocity of a projectile fired up wards of an angle blah blah blah... is irrelevant.
So why is this such an issue for me? Why am I freaking on math so hard? Math is mandatory...
I cannot begin to describe the amount of times that I graced my guidance Councillor with comments along the lines of "PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME USE THESE PAGAN NUMBERS"...
Yet dispute all that... I get to sit here every day, poking pencil to paper and wonder how and why the education system can be so degenerative so as to authentically limit the extension of talent for the sake of the betterment of linear, cut and dry, black and white regurgatative mind washing.
Harsh words? Perhaps.
I mean, I suppose a class where one is drilled to think a specific way could be necessary. But why study imaginary numbers (imaginary numbers... I find it ironic that the subject dealing with absolutes, the subject that quantifies life, is the only subject that definitively deals with things that are... imaginary.) when we can study the very real skills need to succeed in life. Why drill me with exponent laws, when you can drill me with budget balancing? Why harang me to learn quadratic formulas when you can expect life skills such as punctuality?
They say were a part of an education system... A system is supposed to yeild results of a positive nature... While being able to regurgitate theorems is awesome, I feel a system that does not excersize, and educate us on how to use our skills, while mandating our exposure to subjects that will not benefit the development of our talents... is in effect a failure.
You can't graph talent, or express it with a curve.
You can't force square pegs through round holes.
And you certainly can't expect the youth of tomorrow to be inherently better if the people responsible for writing the curriculum that governs our education continue to neglect the cultivation of our passions and talent...
the system is flawed; math teaches to find one right answer... unfortunately there is no answer to passion and talent, and the people that claim there is need to shake their head of their imaginary numbers, quadratic formulas, and stead fast, archaic, narrow views on education, and perhaps focus more on developing the skills of the individual, rather than expecting the perfect regurgitation of formulas, lessons, and subject matter that quells inherent skill sets.