“I’m never going to use this.”

That my friends, is the one line that got me sent to the principal’s office.

Well, it may have been accompanied by a few choice words, but that’s not the point.

I will never use the Pythagorean Theorem.

Never.
Nor I will ever have to figure out the velocity of a car as it travels downward

when the wind is blowing 6 miles per hour toward the north east

which is blowing directly toward the car and only slightly to the left of the moon;

I won’t need it.

I won’t need to know why the ladder makes a shadow that’s 11 feet longer

than the ladder itself is to begin with

and has nobody ever questioned why the hell Granny bought 72 watermelons?

And so I told my math teacher “I’m never going to use this”.

I explained how I’m never going to need to know what shape you get

if you cut a hexagon in half.

I will never need to know how to graph a parabola

and I will never have to do it without a calculator if I do.

I will never need to figure out how to find the slope of a line by using y=mx+b

I will never have to know

x = -b ± √b2 - 4ac
              2a

I will never use that in my LIFE.

Now let me explain why.
My chosen profession is an ASL/English Interpreter.
For those of you who do not follow, ASL stands for American Sign Language.
Yes, that means I talk with my hands and people listen to me with their eyes.

Yes, THAT is the 4th most commonly used language that you don’t know

because society has decided it is not as important as learning
to calculate the density of an object that floats on top of water and oil.

Yes, THAT is the language that 6.6 million people use as their first language

but you sit back and watch because SOCIETY doesn’t think it’s important enough

to learn in school and therefore you don’t step up to do so.
THAT is why I did.

And in doing so I stood up with those who stand silently because they have very little other choice.

However, I now know the that A² + B² = C²

I now know the velocity of a car as it travels downward

when the wind is blowing 6 miles per hour toward the north east

which is blowing directly toward the car and only slightly to the left of the moon.
I now know that if you cut a hexagon in half you get a trapezoid.

I now know how to find the slope of a line by using y=mx+b

I now know how to graph a parabola

but I swear if you take my calculator away I will fail that exam.
I now know

x = -b ± √b2 - 4ac
              2a

I now know how to calculate the density of an object floating atop water and oil

But ALONE I learned to talk to my baby brother.
ALONE I learned to communicate with a fraction of the world that you never will

ALONE I learned to make a difference in the lives of others

Because I now know what is important.

Because I now know what is worth learning.

Because I now know what is right.

So you sit there,

Doing your silly little math problems,

I’ll make a difference.

And I walked to the principal's office.