Geometry may be hard-wired into brain, study shows

Reuters ^ | Thu Jan 19, 2006 | Anon

[TheLion]

Our public schools are not teaching our children....they are indoctrinating them.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the ping, excerpt and links!

But of a truth, I don't see where Euclidean or Riemannian or whatever makes any difference. IMHO, the point is the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics and man's astonishing ability to notice it and make use of it.

[Netheron]

Thank you for thinking of me. :)

[grania]

Is that an actual answer? (As a geometry teacher, I've seen worse!) <^..^>

[grania]

Therefore, Kant concluded, Euclidean geometry was an example of synthetic a priori knowledge—it was a truth about the world that could be known to be true without doing any experiments.

Actually, the mind is programmed by heredity toward survival skills. The world hunter-gatherers knew was involved with the dimensions and experiences they encountered. That would make things that surround them inherently obvious, while stuff like programming the TiVo or figuring out the remote control lighting's 60 zillion steps totally incomprehensible to sensible people. <^..^>

What Kant says has validity. I've really had very good luck teaching Geometry when I filled in those "a priori" deficits, and built logically from there.

Hint....at the start of Geometry, hand a child a piece of paper and a pencil, and ask him/her to draw a map from home to school. It's the best diagnostic test there is for Geometry preparation.