Eldest is doing Geometry this year for math. He just hit Sine, Cosine, and Tangent last night. As I sat with him while he watched the video of the instructor explaining the concepts and how to calculate it, I was struck with the difference between THEN and NOW.
Today's math teachers, just throw the formulae up on the whiteboard. Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse
And then they say, just remember that.
And they go about working examples.
And I look at my child who is frantically scribbling down the formulae and mumbling them under his breath and I blurt out, "SohCahToa."
He gives me a blank stare. "What?"
"SohCahToa," I say.
He frowns. "It sounds Native American. What is it?"
And I chuckle awkwardly to myself because, yes, when I learned it, there was some sort of story involving a Native American woman and her babies? I think? I don't actually remember the story. Because the story wasn't the point. The point was the mnemonic. So I explain, "It does sound that way. There's a whole story, but I don't recall it honestly, because the point is it makes it easier to remember the formulae."
I write down the "name" -- "Look, see? Soh Cah Toa." I tap the S, "Sine", tap the C "Cosine" tap the T "Tangent."
He nods hesitantly. "It doesn't seem okay."
"The story definitely isn't. Remembering the formulae this way? Totally is. Otherwise, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally and My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas are also wrong."
He's not completely convinced. But he did manage to do the homework correctly, so I'm going to call it a win.
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