Yeah this doesn’t have much to do with anime, dogs or kendo but I’m posting it anyway.
I was recently reminded of a question I’ve had to answer many times during my college years tutoring math. In the middle of yet another explanation of how to solve “train A leaves a station in new York at 3:20 pm …” and the frustrated student’s eyes start rolling in his head and you can see the eruption coming. “Argh! Why do we need to know this math stuff, when will I ever use it in life!”
The answer is, frequently, if you want to be successful in your career. No, you’ll probably never have to solve a train problem again (unless your a crash investigator) but that isn’t the main point of math. That’s just one application of the theory. The goal is to learn how to think, to analyze, to solve problems requiring more than 1 or 2 steps. This skill, which math is attempting to develop in you, is useful in every career.
Lawyers need to be able to prepare arguments for their case by analyzing the weakness that the opposing lawyer will try to attack and forestalling those attacks. If you can think multiple steps ahead, like a chess player, you have a much better chance of winning your case. Programmers need to write code being able to deal with multiple possible outcomes of data input, they need to account for possibilities of bad data and how to deal with it. Business managers need to anticipate the needs of their employees and purchase materials/training that help them get their tasks done without negatively impacting the company’s ability to serve it’s market.
Math isn’t the only way to learn critical thinking skills, it’s just one more option in the bag of teaching tools. Approach your study with the idea that you should be learning the strategy of how to solve problems, rather than just learning when two trains will meet.
