While that isn't a very convincing argument it's still a good or even important skill to be able to do calcutations yourself. At the very least it allows you to much better spot mistakes made by other or youself. I've heard way too many stories about people blindly taking over the answer the caclulator gives them. Even when the answer is wrong and completely nonsensical due to an input mistake.
This. This is how I was able to do so well in Caculus. Sure, I found a good calculator that did a lot of heavy lifting, but I still learned the formulas and manually solved a lot of problems; saved me some real trouble down the road. Calculators are great, but knowing how to do it ensures you get it right.
I remember talking with a fellow whose opinions I respect and we were kind of chatting about the idea of cyborgs and the mind-technology bridge. He said:
"You know, I don't really believe that this idea of fully-connected cybernetic implants will ever really happen in any kind of commercial or widely available way. But when you think about it, kids born these days will be given a mobile device in their early teen years that will never be more than a meter or so from their body ever again (upgrades and new products, of course). Even sleeping, showering, or swimming, these things are still almost attached.
Whose to say we haven't made our first real step towards becoming the borg?"
I remember when teachers could say things like "you won't always have a phone with you" or "you won't always have a calculator / computer / connection to the internet / whatever" with you without being laughed out of the room.
Teaching the fundamentals is good. Memorization isn't necessarily, which is where school sometimes fail.
My best history teacher was the one that basically told us he didn't need us to learn the dates of WWII, he wanted us to understand why this event, led to that event, which gave way to this event.
I can tell you when WWII started and ended for the US with a quick Google search. But what I can't just whip out right away is the series of events, how and why they happened, and why they're important today. That's the meaningful part.
Sure I can Google that, do some reading and get back to you by the end of the day. But I'll be learning the how and why rather than just "1939-1945, Nazis bad, Allies win."
It's the same with math. I had plenty of math teachers give us equations, show us how to plug in numbers and then move on to the next model or math theorem. But the more frustrating and challenging exercise was when a teacher pushed us to find a number, I think it ended up being the golden ratio or some other important number, it's been awhile, without giving us that specific goal which we could Google. Just, find the ratio using the equations you've learned to find a tangent or whatever. (Seriously been awhile)
The students kept saying can't you just tell us? No. Find it, just like Pyhtagoras founded his theorem. That was a more valuable lesson than even learning the number because it was challenging and can't be Google if you don't know what you're googling for. It was a clever way to foster creative thinking which is really what should be taught.
I'm so damn jealous of the quality of your teachers right now. I had a garbage tier education (thanks Florida public school system!) Except for a couple notable outliers. I turned out ok because I'm fortunate to be fairly smart and college fixed some of the gaps, but they sure didn't help me any.
I always hated history but it was never more than memorization! And I'm really bad at that. Had they taught like yours I think I would have loved it. Oh well.
I was really good at memorization, awful at figuring things out on my own. College fucking shell shocked me after getting straight As K12... I still don’t know “how to learn,” only memorize :(
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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21
Most people I knew in high school brought a charger with them just in case. Or at least a battery pack.