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Random Thoughts Thursday: Metric System
Thu, May. 4th, 2023 10:04 pmIt's no secret that a certain percentage of Americans can be weird regarding the metric system, especially responding to posts using the metric system on the internet. (Enough so that this post will only be temporarily public.) But earlier this week, I had a bit of an epiphany about (partially) why this is, we were subtly taught that it was hard.
This isn't the only reason and my explanation I am about to give is not going to apply to everyone, but it is a thing.
Keeping in mind that school curriculum varies vastly across the US and even within the same state, things can vary wildly, despite having state requirements all schools must hit and mostly having the same textbook selection (within the same state), at my school, the only time we dealt with the metric system (that I can remember) was when converting United States customary units to metric or vice versa.
I have to do an aside here to point out that in the US, we technically use United States customary units, not the imperial system, though it is derived from the English units of the British imperial system prior to the UK's overhaul of the system in 1824, creating differences, and is still sometimes called the imperial system, just to add to the confusion.
Back to how my school and definitely others taught us that the metric system is hard. The only time we dealt with the metric system in math class was sometime in middle school, which in our district was 5th-8th grades (10-13 year olds), where we learned of it's existence, the very basics of what it was, and the math of how to convert back and forth between it in the US system. In science class, I don't remember dealing with it until high school and then, it was in the context of all our answers (when applicable) had to be in metric units. This means that we were taught to do the calculations in US units, then convert our answer, every single time, instead of just using metric units to start with.
Of course if your only exposure to something is constantly awkwardly converting the units, you are going to think it's complicated and hard.
Also keep in mind while I am telling you all this, from 6th grade on, I was in honors and AP (college /university level) classes only all the way through to graduation in 12th grade. I have no idea what was being taught in regular classes, but I have met enough people from other places in the US when I went to college that had a similar relationship to the metric system, I believe this was wide spread and not just here. And I know it's been a long term practice here because my father and my sister (who is 15 years older than me) had similar experiences. While we had some overlapping teachers, none of them were math or science teachers.
This kind of stuff sticks with people. Back to my father for a moment. He has used the metric system on a near daily basis for work for the entirety of his adult life, and he will still try to argue with you that it's hard.
Also for more context, I did go to a small, rural, public school, but I still feel this was a wide spread issue and just one of many factors of why Americans are weird about the metric system.
This isn't the only reason and my explanation I am about to give is not going to apply to everyone, but it is a thing.
Keeping in mind that school curriculum varies vastly across the US and even within the same state, things can vary wildly, despite having state requirements all schools must hit and mostly having the same textbook selection (within the same state), at my school, the only time we dealt with the metric system (that I can remember) was when converting United States customary units to metric or vice versa.
I have to do an aside here to point out that in the US, we technically use United States customary units, not the imperial system, though it is derived from the English units of the British imperial system prior to the UK's overhaul of the system in 1824, creating differences, and is still sometimes called the imperial system, just to add to the confusion.
Back to how my school and definitely others taught us that the metric system is hard. The only time we dealt with the metric system in math class was sometime in middle school, which in our district was 5th-8th grades (10-13 year olds), where we learned of it's existence, the very basics of what it was, and the math of how to convert back and forth between it in the US system. In science class, I don't remember dealing with it until high school and then, it was in the context of all our answers (when applicable) had to be in metric units. This means that we were taught to do the calculations in US units, then convert our answer, every single time, instead of just using metric units to start with.
Of course if your only exposure to something is constantly awkwardly converting the units, you are going to think it's complicated and hard.
Also keep in mind while I am telling you all this, from 6th grade on, I was in honors and AP (college /university level) classes only all the way through to graduation in 12th grade. I have no idea what was being taught in regular classes, but I have met enough people from other places in the US when I went to college that had a similar relationship to the metric system, I believe this was wide spread and not just here. And I know it's been a long term practice here because my father and my sister (who is 15 years older than me) had similar experiences. While we had some overlapping teachers, none of them were math or science teachers.
This kind of stuff sticks with people. Back to my father for a moment. He has used the metric system on a near daily basis for work for the entirety of his adult life, and he will still try to argue with you that it's hard.
Also for more context, I did go to a small, rural, public school, but I still feel this was a wide spread issue and just one of many factors of why Americans are weird about the metric system.
