This is the most important part, especially when teaching math to children. The practical aspects of math (beyond arithmetic counting with basic addition and subtraction) are not going to be fully realized until one is an adult, so they aren't going to be a motivator for learning math.

It needs to be fun and engaging for them to want to keep learning and engaging with it.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Having practical applications for higher math makes that shit stick like glue when otherwise it would get forgotten immediately after the test.

Citation needed.

Seriously, though, that's not what the research is showing. Peter Liljedahl's research, for example, supports that a very effective way to teach mathematics is by having students actually think about math, instead of just passively receiving info dumps (as is common in most traditional math classes). See Building Thinking Classrooms for details but, in short, it's a method of getting students playing with math concepts for almost the entire class time every day.

No "practical applications" needed. Counterintuitive, but it's a highly effective practice.

What's core to practical applications working is student motivation, and practical applications are one way to induce motivation. But it's often not the best option, especially for inherently abstract skills.

yes, practical skills change year to year.

what's important is to learn to learn.

I'm genuinely curious why, if this is serious. I feel like adulting badly needs to be taught better. I'm nearing mid twenties and still get so confused at a lot of adult things, especially government shit, because it's just so much to figure out for the first time.

It's definitely important to teach math and science and language, and to teach people how to do their own research, and think, and learn, etc. But are you saying practical skills shouldn't also be taught?

One of my math professors told us that when he started elementary school they tried starting maths classes with logic and combinatorics, because they were most essential maths and in principle could be experienced by children by seeing, feeling etc. He said it was a stupid approach. I say he turned out a math professor, so maybe it worked.

Logic puzzles should be applied in more classrooms. Start with simple problems in elementary school, and progress to more challenging ones as students grow. Critical thinking needs to start early.

Debate me, I guess.

As per your instruction, I shall.

I am a certified flight instructor, I have studied the fundamentals of instruction and can speak with authority on the subject.

it seems that some people think learning is a net negative or neutral for whoever is doing the learning and that one should learn as little as possible.

Learning is an active process. There's a reason for turn of phrases like "spend time" and "pay attention," these actions aren't free. Any act of learning comes with a real cost in time, energy and likely money. It also comes with an opportunity cost. The time and effort a student spends learning could always be spent doing something else; resting, playing, working, caring for family, or learning something else. It is possible for those costs to be so great as to be a genuine net negative for the student. Especially when the reality of formalized school comes into play.

One of Edward Thorndike's six fundamental principles of learning is the Principle of Readiness. This ties into Maslowe's hierarchy of needs. As a teacher, you have to always ask yourself "Where on their pyramid does my lesson fit? Is everything below that on their pyramid of needs well taken care of?" Your students will not be willing to pay attention in algebra class if they're hungry, thirsty, sleepy, freezing or scared, because their needs for homeostasis and security aren't being met well enough for an intellectual lesson such as higher math.

Okay, we got the kids fed, rested and secured. Now they should pay attention right? Nope. That isn't good enough. Where on their pyramid does this lesson fit? What need of theirs will learning this satisfy? Genuine curiosity about the universe and its workings are always always always at the stabby point of the very tippy top of the pyramid, you want to satisfy that need you've got to categorically solve every other need these kids can have from romance to personal prestige. Schools and universities love the image of the career scholar, the men with SI units named after them who conducted experiments for the good of humanity...the reality is the very few extremely privileged people who got to play that game were old money wealthy, they owned land and had servants if not slaves to take care of all their material needs.

When a child asks why they have to go to school, they're told that school is where they learn the skills they need to survive as adults. though Elementary school, you can take this argument seriously. Learning how to add and subtract is necessary for the basic act of paying for things, reading is the most OP skill you can have, reading clocks and calendars is demonstrably important, etc. That argument starts falling apart when you're preventing people from going out and earning money to live so they can generate standardized test scores in pre-calculus algebra, or being told not asked what the symbology of the blue curtains in some novel is.

Because here's another thing about the principle of readiness: It is the teacher's responsibility to inform the students of the value of the lesson to them in their lives. "Someday algebra will save your life" is meaningless; we live in a world with quiz game shows, literally any trivia knowledge can be life changing. You have to be specific and realistic. Otherwise your students aren't going to spend the effort, they'll merely go through the motions, like pretending to be sad at a great aunt's husband's funeral.

Especially on Lemmy I've seen the argument that education shouldn't be mere job training, it should be about ultimate enlightenment. Except we need to achieve a world where everyone can afford rent before we can play that game, Tiffany. And we haven't. Survival skills come before abstract beautiful truths and if we're honest we're doing a piss poor job of both.

You know shit's fucked when The King In Yellow, the very manifestation of the idea that knowledge can kill, is having to defend the value of education.

Every day we stray ~~further from god~~ toward lost Carcosa

I'm always wary of the idea learning should be "practical". You never know when something will matter and there is an intrinsic value in learning for learnings sake.

Learning needs to be tangible, but I'm not sure it necessitates practicality.

Except a lot of those switched to antiscience antivaxers, and some bridged from there to facists. While I do also prefer hippies, antiknowledge and antiscience types scare me.

What about feckless hippies that sold out to the neoliberals?

Isn't this just resigning ourselves to shitty religious "charter schools" in like half the states? Feels like it'd be a massive assault on public education, in practice.

So your ideal school has no physical activity, no culture, and is filled with memorization of things that don't matter. Wow sounds like you've spent at least 15 seconds thinking about this. Thanks for sharing!