Logic is More Important than Ever – So Why Don’t Schools Teach it Anymore?

[Aaron Blumer]

Yes, now that you mention it, Geometry class was helpful to me on that score—working with proofs. I don’t recall learning anything about the laws of inference, the syllogism/categorical logic, square of opposition, propositional logic, or truth tables though. Geometry was a good appetizer. After all these years, I value what I learned in geom. more than the algebra and precalc.

It’s quite interesting how much of the basis of geometry is related to formal logic. We homeschooled our kids for everything after 6th grade. I was responsible for some of the classes, and for one of them, we started with critical thinking, moved to formal logic, then did rhetoric, debate, argument refutation, etc. (This was over the course of 6 years.) Our youngest, who is (was) not at all interested in math/science, when she took geometry, just whizzed right through all the basics of logic leading up to geometrical proofs, because she remembered everything from all the logic she had had to do in my class. (Her geometry curriculum included logical and/or/xor, truth tables, etc.) Logic is definitely something every kid should have to take in school, because learning it well forestalls a lot of bad thinking later.