to simplify what's wrong with mathematics education. I have been trying to go back and re-take so to speak, everything from basic algebra onwards. It struck m

to simplify what's wrong with mathematics education. I have been trying to go back and re-take so to speak, everything from basic algebra onwards. It struck me that my mental math chops were appalling. I've stumbled on a recommendation, here i think, of "Secrets of mental math" by Benjamin and Shermer...and goodness, as the book states several times - "why is this not taught in schools!" i mean, folks constantly say "when will i need this"...well, in my opinion, all the time...strikes me as odd that even folks I know who are decent at maths, cant do double, triple digit multiplications and the like in their heads. Beyond the math olympiad trickster outcomes you might get from this sort of study...having an intuition for COUNTING just seems so foundational to make sure you're...you know, not getting screwed over...in many areas. I also picked up an older popular mechanics "The Art of Mechanical Drawing" - by Willard, and within are some incredible drawings, of screws, nuts, bolts, sacred geometric patterns, celtic style crosses and so on. The ability to draw such things with set squares, compasses and so on is deemed an "obsolete skill"...but once again like counting...developing such a knack for this kind of drawing would be beyond handy for someone trying to diagram an idea they have, or even to explain things to others, or purely as a mental exercise of being able to manipulate shapes. Thirdly, take a look at the field of STEM - more popular than ever. But where are the incredibly detailed Mecanno, and Lego technics sets? Stores are filled with the shittiest looking banal "robots" I dont want to come across as tin-foil-hatted - however it just really seems that there is an active force at play to basically limit the strength of the average reasoning mind. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the above mental maths book. And once getting into it - i noticed a distinct increase and improvement in general focus in completely unrelated tasks. Once again, doubtful this is just some sort of coincidence. Maths - should be taught, as all subjects - in a transdisciplinary fashion. Engineering, Biology, Physics, Electronics, Computer Science - share so much common ground. Yet - we're still keeping them apart. We are still forcing people to choose 'one'... Sad.