"I wish I had learned how to fill out a tax form; how loans and interest work; how to invest. Not just financials, but why is it a priority to teach Geometry and Algebra?"

Recently, I had an argument with someone over the importance of learning subjects like geometry and algebra in high school. We were talking about what we would like to have been taught in school rather than some of the more seemingly trivial things. He said that he had a problem with learning Geometry and Algebra in particular, because he had never used them again once out of school.

Why it is important to study Geometry and Algebra

Firstly, it's a priority to learn these things just because it's hard and requires abstract thinking. The more abstract thinking you develop at school, the better you're able to reason about things, and the better you'll be able to learn how to perform those tasks like filling out tax forms, making investments, etc. well. It's especially important to be pushed to work on hard things, and things that challenge you to solve problems using tools like deduction and reason. Working on hard problems is the most important thing you can invest your time in at school. Many successful entrepreneurs (Pierre Omidyar of eBay, Steve Wozniak of Apple, Paul Graham of Yahoo! Store --> endless) have claimed that one of their most defining features is that they spent their extra time in high school working on solving problems. In Steve Wozniak's autobiography, iWoz, he writes about how he would often buy the latest computer chips and try to reassemble them using fewer components. From this, it may follow that the more time you spend using reason and deduction from principles to solve problems, the more capable you become to solve even greater problems in the future, such as those that entrepreneurs solve. But why does this follow exactly?

When you learn geometry, you're training your brain to work in a certain way - to use principles to make deductions and conclusions about an argument. The query might be, "What is the size of the angle x?", and then, by using the basic principles of mathematics, and reason and logic, you can determine the right answer. The beauty is that there is only one right answer, and so you have to use a strict method of reasoning to find it out. Once you've developed that skill, you can apply it to other areas - "Is this a solid investment to make?", well using the facts available, and sound logic, I can make a right answer.

Also, it teaches one how to reason abstractly. For instance, once I've found what angle x is, I can find out what other angles are based on the truth that I've found. I can use all that information to come up with new principles, and then use those principles to solve completely unrelated problems. That helps you in other areas of life, because you can start to connect ideas that seem to be unrelated. The more you practice this, the better you become at it.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter in the commenting section below.

PyThoughts