In school we are taught Maths and numbers because we’re told that they are necessary to navigate through life. I always think about the last time simultaneous equations or Pythagoras’s theorem was used in my life outside school; the answer is never. However, the skills that I learnt from Maths, such as problem solving, I use every day.
Maths and numbers are in our everyday, just not in the ways I expected them to be. From the moment I wake up, I’m using maths by checking the time and grumbling at having to get up so early. To the time I spend eating breakfast, constantly watching the clock to see if I’m running late. To calculating my walk to the station and then to work. For me, I’m always on a budget so every time I spend money, I have to do some mental maths and calculate how that affects the whole budget. Even buying a cup of tea at work, I have to make sure I’m not ruining my budget from just one cup.
Numbers are such a crucial part of our day to day lives, not just for telling the time and budgeting, but it’s in everything, the architecture of a building, to the price of a dress, to the design of your iPhone. Maths is used in all of these and so much more. So let’s stop grumbling at having to learn Maths and embrace it and all the good its bought into our lives.
Thank you for reading.