How many times have you solved polynomial equations since you got out of highschool?

zero. Haven’t needed this in 52 years.

Several times in college . . .

None

Poor guy. All I can say is it’s all about the teacher. My sister has taught math for 30-something years. Right now, she’s at a new school teaching 8th graders and told me today how proud she is. She said it’s the first time in 2 weeks she hasn’t driven home crying. Apparently she’s struggling with some 13–14 y.o. attitudes and mouths.

I’m sorry for your grandson. I wish he had a teacher like my sister. She never lies to her students, she calls them on their shit, and is willing to admit the blame when it’s on her. She asks their opinion when she has to discipline them or call them out and they usually can see her side of things. By the end of the year, most have learned what they were supposed to and can do a good job, and even if all don’t love her, they respect her.

College.

It’s rare, but I have had to for work. Does it count if I used Excel? Not much practical reason to learn by hand except that it teaches you to think in a very particular way. A critically important way. Let me offer a suggestion: There is a very good chance your grandson is smart. This may just be the very first thing that he has had to do that required any real thinking on his part. Since everything else is easy for him, this is going to be a bit of a hurdle. He needs this, it’s the foundation for anything STEM if that’s what he wants to do.

Oh wait, I have used it in excel and my husband does too. I wasn’t even thinking of that. Usually, on spreadsheets I use very simple equations, but once in a while I need to use some parentheses or use a more complicated equation than just simple addition or subtraction. Sometimes my husband and I even help each other with it if we aren’t sure. He has more occasion for it than I do.

I use them all the time, and have all through my career. More importantly, an understanding of polynomial equations is necessary to solve higher level math question

I did in college math, but not beyond that. However, I will informally use that type of calculation in my head, when calculating prices per each of items. For example, 3 oranges for 2 dollars vs. 4 oranges for 3 dollars, or something like that. It’s the same type of calculation, however, I do it in my head. 2 divided by 3 vs. 3 divided by 4.

Definitely if someone is going on in their education in science or math, including engineering, etc. it would be used.

Quite a few times. I worked in a field (nuclear power plant environmental and chemistry) where they were used semi-regularly.

College, and working on computer games, but out of school for me it’s almost never been in the typical forms of “oh look, a polynomial equation that means something I care about, just like in an algebra problem, and I need to factor it or solve for X”. But using things like polynomials because they actually represent something, yes.

The best semi-recent example, was trying to develop a formula for calculating what the fair value of various animals was based on their attributes, in a way that would give values that seemed right and made sense based on a combination of factors, with various drop-off points and so on. That did end up being a polynomial equation, and I did end up factoring it out to re-express it in much simpler terms and so on. I think it ended up being harder than any school problem like that that I’d ever done, even just doing the simplifying of it. And, I would have balked if I hadn’t developed a fairly strong skill at doing those sorts of problems in high school. And the result was quite useful professionally.

BUT, my boss ultimately ended up not being able to really get it, or like it, and THAT was actually the last straw that lost me a job!

So one could either blame that on my willingness to dive into that kind of math instead of doing something that didn’t require math, OR one could blame it on HIS lack of math fluency, OR his (very reasonable) expectation that the math would be a problem for others. Maybe.

When was the last time you used works of fiction? Should they not be included in the curriculum? Mathematics is part of our cultural heritage and some basic level of understanding should be aimed at, although I agree that it could be better taught than it currently is.

@Zaku Wow.

@LostInParadise I never thought about comparing math to fiction, I will be utilizing that comparison one day. I use my math knowledge way more than my fiction knowledge. Especially for practical things in life.

Thanks for the responses. We homeschool using an online curriculum.