I hate geometry

Let me step back a moment. I love algebra. Always have. It's a gloriously simple, logical math that I aced back in the day and still approach with ease. Whenever anyone says something about how we don't use algebra in our everyday lives, I quickly correct them.But geometry? Ugh. It was the first math subject that stopped me cold. In fairness, trigonometry was even worse, but by that time, I'd already checked out from geometry.I don't know what it is, really. One friend suggested it wasn't taught very well. It uses a lot of algebraic equations, so it shouldn't really be that awful, right? But whenever I'm faced with it (as I am more and more these days with a fifth- and a seventh-grader), my temper begins to flare and I get tremendously annoyed.It's not fair to the boys. They're looking for some assistance in understanding their homework. I go to Khan Academy and look up videos, but often I'm not looking things up with the right terminology. Maybe. I don't know. And most of what I'm finding is written for high-school students.Math has completely changed, though, and my fifth-grader is getting his introduction to geometry now, and my seventh-grader is taking "Algebra," but half of what he's doing is geometry. In a sense, it's great - concepts that build on one another are being taught together. But I'm no longer able to help him understand his homework.The boys have always done their own work; we've just helped them understand difficult concepts and problems when they have been stymied. Now? Any subject other than math, we're 100 percent on the ball. But math? I'm wishing I'd gotten geometry more. Nothing annoys me more than not knowing how to do something.Especially when it's elementary- or middle school-math.Photo by Dmitri Popov via Unsplash.