Yes, it is definitely a clickbait. Netflix is fun. Computer games, social media, movies are, too. However, that's not what I am gonna debate or discuss in this post. What I am going to point out is how those things are interesting to watch and spend with for hours, but that's not the case with science. Why could we spend days after days just binging a series on Netflix, but getting tired and bored after just minutes of studying?

Mistake(s) In The Way We Teach


One of the most common question asked by high-schoolers is : "why do we have to learn this? When are we going to use them in our life?" The reality is : most of you won't. Most of us won't use calculus or Newton's three law of motion in our work. There are indeed some of us that will continue to pursue the academic route, but let's be honest, that is just a really small percentage. So why do we have to teach science to everyone? Why don't we just teach them to the people who really have interests on it?

That is a question I've been asked myself a lot since I was in the middle school. When my friends procrastinate about the amount of materials we have to learn during a day, no, I'm not actually learning them. I try to find the answer of my friends' procrastinations. Is there actually an answer, or is it just a paradox or something? 

To be fair, I also don't have the motivation to learn the materials given in the school. So, after all I'm not different than anybody else, and I think I have to look at myself to find the answer to that question.  

I Accidentally Invented Calculus.


It was during the math class in 8th year, and we discussed about geometry. Volume of a ball, a cone, and so on. As usual, almost no one is listening. We were busy with our own activities, including myself. I was just playing with a circle and contemplating about why the area of a circle is a constant "π" multiplied by the radius two times. There are a lot of beautiful geometry proofs out there, and I was just trying to find "my own" (because usually someone already used that proof, but I just did not know about it yet).

What I did is I divided the circle into rings like in a dart board, then stretched every ring and consider them as rectangles. I noticed that the smaller the width of the ring, the more accurate is my approximation. Then I arranged the stretched rings into a triangle, and I found that the area of the triangle is the circumference of the circle times the radius, then divided by 2.

credit : 3blue1brown
It was surprisingly close to the known area of the circle  , but still not exactly. The only way I could make it exactly as the known area is by making the width of the rings almost zero, but not zero. I could not wrap my head around this idea at that time, so I keep it to myself, until 2 years later I actually learned about calculus. That proof I developed when I was 14 is actually the essence of calculus : make an approximation to the smallest level. Did I just invent the concept of calculus without knowing it?

It's Not Only The Mistake In Teaching, But Also In Learning


What I want to show you with that short story is that someone could be easily obsessed with an idea, once you are already really into it. The idea has to come up from yourself, or at least fuelled by other's, but not 100% given by someone. You won't like a movie if someone told you the storyline; you enjoy it because you experience it by yourself. You are introduced with a question at the beginning, and you keep asking yourself what happen next, while the movie revealed the plot. 

As I said in the previous post (if you have not read it, I really recommend you to. Click here.), the two pillars of education are ideas and knowledge. Most of the time, we are only given the knowledge done. There is nothing interesting about the chain rule, power rule, etc. The interesting things are within the discovery and the development of the ideas. You cannot take out science. You have to buy the ingredients and cook it by yourself. 

Why we have to learn science is not because they are useful for everybody; but because they are meant to be interesting. We killed science. We slaughter science into pieces, print it on textbooks, then sell them as cookies. You eat them, you are full for the test, then you shit it out. 

How to Fix These Mistakes


To fix mistakes, first we have to know who created them. We did. Since when? Since an undetermined time. There is no moment in the past when everyone just love learning science. The mistake is not on our education system. Our system our built for masses, but learning is an individual experience. Each one of us has to understand how we learn and cope with new ideas, and this is the hard part.

Teaching is not about giving out materials. It's about presenting a question and fuel the students with more question, so ideas could grow inside each mind of them. It's definitely not an easy job, but the point is teaching is a two-way street. Not only the teachers have to be creative enough to urge their students, but also the students have to be opened enough to think and enjoy the process of learning.

Next time I will discuss the last part of this topic, is about why it is so important to be scientifically literate. We learn science not only because it's meant to be fun, but also because we have to, for the sake of humanity. Stay safe and happy, everyone.


This post is heavily influenced by Grant Sanderson's TED talk, "What Makes People Engage With Math". Link below if you still have 20 minutes. I know you have. 

What Makes People Engage With Math