I have to wonder where this person’s school circumstances.
For example, why was the triangle area formula only memorized and not demonstrated to them? I thought this should be standard everywhere in the world? Maybe they just don’t remember, it happens early (age 11-12 for me IIRC).
Similarly, and this is from two decades ago at this point, some basics of gene expression and cell differentiation were covered in my later biology classes, including some of the evolutionary steps. Details are of course fuzzy now. But I clearly remember that learning we share so many genes and so much cell chemistry with even basic bacteria threw me into a bit of an existential crisis when I was 17 — making me question what if anything is so special about humans.
When they were students, some people were simply unwilling to follow any train of thought that was unlikely to be test-relevant. The author almost admits as much: “Someone probably told me that every cell in my body has the same DNA. But no one shook me by the shoulders, saying how crazy that was.” That’s a perfectly fine way to approach school, I’m not judging. But then maybe don’t complain that you didn’t learn anything?
I interpret the article quite differently. The triangle example (which as the author writes is actually an example from “Lockhart’s Lament” on American math education) isn’t about whether triangle-area-formula was ever justified to students. It’s that students aren’t given the chance to really ask the question themselves - a chance to approach math, or biology, in the way that a mathematician or biologist does in reality: trying to work it out for themselves, and being invited to wonder at just how improbable textbook biological facts are etc.
I agree with your point that some students will be more inquisitive, and will need less prompting to do the above thinking themselves. But many (most?) students are not like this, and it’s a shame that many of these students could enjoy a subject that they instead come to loathe.
For example, why was the triangle area formula only memorized and not demonstrated to them? I thought this should be standard everywhere in the world? Maybe they just don’t remember, it happens early (age 11-12 for me IIRC).
Similarly, and this is from two decades ago at this point, some basics of gene expression and cell differentiation were covered in my later biology classes, including some of the evolutionary steps. Details are of course fuzzy now. But I clearly remember that learning we share so many genes and so much cell chemistry with even basic bacteria threw me into a bit of an existential crisis when I was 17 — making me question what if anything is so special about humans.
When they were students, some people were simply unwilling to follow any train of thought that was unlikely to be test-relevant. The author almost admits as much: “Someone probably told me that every cell in my body has the same DNA. But no one shook me by the shoulders, saying how crazy that was.” That’s a perfectly fine way to approach school, I’m not judging. But then maybe don’t complain that you didn’t learn anything?