To think the school system is ridiculous

[Suflan]

This post is talking about the school system in the republic of Ireland, but I know that the school system in the UK has some similiatites, so this is also relevant to people in the UK.

I went to school in Ireland a long time ago, 20 years ago.

My younger cousins are just sitting their school leaving certificate (irish equivalent to a levels) this year and they and their friends have been posting about the exams, after it happened, on social media.

I was just thinking what they learn and do exams on is such a load of shite. Like how is it relevant or necessary in todays world at all.

They posted about their maths paper, all the quadratic equations, prove that point 5,1 is on the line etc etc, extremely complicated equations, and algebra.

Like what do you need that for in life? Its so totally pointless. And maths is mandatory to do, so they need points from maths to get into University.

Like what is the point of learning these things. Surely they should be learning something useful. My cousins have said to me that they think that a lot of what they learn is totally pointless too

As a child you don't know what you will need in the future - teachers have no way of knowing whether the kids in their class will go into career where this knowledge is essential, so have to give them the opportunity to learn it, just in case.

Without exposure to everything, how will a child learn where their true interests and abilities lie?

Agree with PP. But it's also about the learning process itself, rather than the subject matter.

But maths in particular. The curriculum looks like it was desigbed 100 years ago.

Algebra is so completely irrelevant in this day and age.

Can you not think of any careers where a really good understanding of maths is important? Because there are many

It depends what you regard as useful and that will vary from person to person. I should imagine that understanding of quadratic equations would be very useful to someone who plans to follow a career based on maths.

What would you say hs been helpful for you to have learned OP? Your post would be more helpful were you to describe what you would do and how, rather than a blanket dismissal of everything taught in schools.

What do you think they should be learning?

Education as a process sets you up for life

It’s either very relevant, if you go into a profession that uses it or it’s so you can smugly sit back and bitch that it was a waste of time and you haven’t used it since leaving school.

Everybody wins😁

What careers use algebra?

For example accountancy requires a basic understanding of maths, but they dont use algebra

It’s about learning how to learn and challenging yourself, building confidence. But yes, in a way you’re right. My dad had 5 years of schooling and did fine. Better mental arithmetic than me!

I thought maths was pointless.

Then l became a pattern cutter. Lots of division geometry and some trig in that.

Well i think the old school system is very old fashioned and out dated.

The whole thing needs an overhaul

Scientists for one.

Algebra has been relevant for literally hundreds of years. Computing is essentially a form of mathematics and in our tech based society these skills are important.

Mathematics is what is used to prove or disprove scientific concepts. Any STEM profession has mathematics at the heart, whether you show it explicitly or not.

Honestly, it sounds like this was written by a fifteen year old. It is so lacking in perspective. Maybe they should have worked harder for their GCSE persuasive essay.

No-one ever became a mathematician (or accountant or banker) without learning, and in exams showing they can learn, reasonably high level maths. There's a more nuanced argument to be made, and that's about young people who struggle time and again to jump through the grade 4 hoop - yes an argument to be made for functional maths.

Maths should have one paper of pure maths and one paper of financial maths for life and work. And I have taught maths in mainstream comprehensive.

50 jobs that use Algebra

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/jobs-that-use-algebra

I strongly believe that a lot of what you learn in school is skills based (e.g. reading long and complex texts and understanding them, consolidating what you've learned, recalling it under stress - all useful life skills).

Algebra is one of the most useful bits of maths (once you understand what numbers actually are through adding up, dividing etc) because it helps you take a real life situation that happens to have some numerical values connected to parts of it and turn it into a sum that you can then solve to find the values that are actually relevant to what you need to do.

In what area? In Some specific areas probably

Because i know a few people who work in the science industry, and they definitely don't use algebra in their jobs

I think OP doesn’t really understands algebra or knows what it is used for.

Have you used it since school?

Engineers use algebra as does IT, the variation of engineers and IT professionals is vast.

Maths could not be more relevant.

From multiplying up food recipes to calculating the amount of cement I will need to repoint my foundations, to running a dept budget, to calculating how much I need to put aside for VAT, maths is needed everywhere.

My best friend is an arable farmer. She needs to calculate how much fertilizer per acre, then factor cost per tonne in to grain prices alongside the cost per tonne of running the grain dryer, per 1% extra moisture.

How, without maths?