• tiredofsametab@fedia.io
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    3 hours ago

    I struggled like hell with a lot of geometry. Algebra, trig, etc. was no problem at all for me. I suspect it has something to do with me not being a visual learner/thinker (and I have aphantasia), but I don’t know.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      i think that’s fair. it also seems like geometry isn’t taught in the most helpful way in schools, with too much emphasis on memorizing formulas and not enough emphasis on just playing around and seeing what happens. a lot of the geometric formulas come from pretty creative ideas like “what if i cut up this shape in a few different ways and try to piece it back together in a new way”, and that’s not really reflected in most curriculums (in my experience anyway).

      and there’s also a pretty deep connection between geometry and algebra, but that doesn’t really get properly mentioned until way later.

      i think at the end of the day, in my experience, the problem might be that geometry is just pretty hard in general. most of the time geometric problems get solved by translating them into non-geometric problems and then solving those problems instead. but that practice isn’t very well respected in the way it’s taught. that being said, i still think that playing around with shapes can be kind of cool.