Well yeah take enough shrooms and everything is suddenly exposed as the artificial construct that it is. But we don't have time to wake up and reinvent language every morning ;)

Arguably, there is no objective truth

Yes there is, just look in Maths textbooks

since the symbols and rules of mathematics are assigned arbitrarily

The signs are, the rules aren't.

are basically a social contract, just like language!

Nope and nope. It's a tool for calculating things, nothing like a language at all.

no objective meaning of “objective”

There is, in a dictionary, just like the rules of Maths are in Maths textbooks

ya this one is super unambiguously PEMDAS

Spoiler alert: they all are

the one that has more of an argument is the one with the division of whether a/b(c) is a / (b * c) or (a / b) * c

No it doesn't, The Distributive Law, a(b+c)=(ab+ac), thus a/b(c)=a/(bxc).

In all fairness, I grew up in a small town in a very red state, but the education system there proved better than larger, more progressive parts of the state. The education I received was likely an outlier and not representative of the norm, but it did teach me that educators in an area do not necessarily mirror the rest of the population.

Fix? It's a duster fire. It may be hard to deal with, but a total collapse and completely rebuilding it feels like the better solution to the problem (so not based on a constitution made in completely different times with muskets and without internet etc).

So you were taught math. What languages did you learn besides English? What history did you learn, just US or also of other countries and the rest of the world? And talking about the rest of the world, how much did you learn about that? Countries, cultures, cities, geographic features like mountains, seas, etc. and how they were formed? What religions were taught about? What about history of music and art?

Thanks for confirming. I probably sounded too condescending but I wasn't sure if it was a false memory.

I loved math as a kid though, so I ran through the curriculum as fast as I could to get to the good stuff. I think having older siblings helped - it gave me a preview of more interesting material.

Yeah, I'd say the same for central europe. 5th and 6th grade are when they throw a lot of math expression rules at you.

My memory is shit, it was apparently 27 years ago if you're right but I have no recollection to when it was. But it's like cycling: it's simple and once learned you never forget it.

Now I'm learning how to weld. We're learning Ohm's law, which is the same as order of calculation: easy basic shit, a bit far in my memory but you never forget it. But others in my class are really struggling with it. I don't get it.

U = I R so R = U / I and I = U / R. P = U I so U = P / I and I = U / P. U=Volt, I=Ampère, R=Ω(Ohm), P=Watt

This was first year in high school if I remember correctly.

Definitely taught in parts of the US, it’s a regional thing though

It's a how good is your Maths teacher (who isn't required to have any Maths qualifications) question. The rules are the same everywhere.

Yeah, but even worse, you're just talking about schools. You forgot about all the kids being home schooled, taught the earth is flat and an imaginary friend created everything in 7 days. Taught by parents who lack proper education themselves.

Also, it's kinda obvious the rules of math aren't different in the US. Even when they use an idiotic measuring system. If people don't know how to use math properly, the issue clearly is the education and not math itself.