This is true for most parallelograms and later polygons.
Daughter just went through parts of middle school that seemed to focus on things like rhombuses and trapezoids. The only thing I"m thinking, as an engineer, is when was the last time I gave af about any of those shapes? I would just reduce them to triangles and rectangles.
Trig skills are WAY more useful than knowing how to calculate specific polygon shapes… I don’t mean to say that middle schoolers should be learning trig… just that the time spent learning how to do specific shapes is a literal waste of time that they could be using to prepare for later things (like trig).
As someone in education i would bet money that since it is a vocabulary word with a simple definition in a subject that is hard to teach, it is included to make things easier on the teachers and students. Mind you easier isnt often a good thing, and in this case I’d say its lazy and irresponsible to focus on things that don’t scaffold well or have much practical use
This is true for most parallelograms and later polygons.
Daughter just went through parts of middle school that seemed to focus on things like rhombuses and trapezoids. The only thing I"m thinking, as an engineer, is when was the last time I gave af about any of those shapes? I would just reduce them to triangles and rectangles.
Trig skills are WAY more useful than knowing how to calculate specific polygon shapes… I don’t mean to say that middle schoolers should be learning trig… just that the time spent learning how to do specific shapes is a literal waste of time that they could be using to prepare for later things (like trig).
As someone in education i would bet money that since it is a vocabulary word with a simple definition in a subject that is hard to teach, it is included to make things easier on the teachers and students. Mind you easier isnt often a good thing, and in this case I’d say its lazy and irresponsible to focus on things that don’t scaffold well or have much practical use
Maybe it shows up in some of the dreaded standardized tests, and that’s why they’re sure to teach it?