I Hate Protractors

I'm not a math fellow, but I think even math teachers will agree with me that protractors are ridiculous. They are useless!

Now before all you SOHCAHTOA lovers write me hate mail, let me clarify that I know protractors are immensely useful in real world situations like architecture and astronomy...but in middle school?

Protractors are just weirdly shaped. They don't really fit in pencil boxes and they end up cluttering backpack pouches. Seriously, who has a semicircular slot just for their protractor?

And though I haven't verified this with one of my math teacher colleagues, I'm fairly certain protractors are only used for, at most, half a textbook math chapter, hardly necessitating a specific tool for angle drawing. I graduated 8th grade: I don't remember using my protractor for anything academic related.

Through this school year, I've had to confiscate over five protractors. Boys are using them as fake brass knuckles. Girls are using the raised tick marks to file their nails. Aspiring circus folk are spinning them on their pencils.

I got so mad at a protractor/Frisbee distraction today that, when I was alone, I snapped that thin plastic in half. I did it slowly. The blue protractor discolored along the lines where I folded it. And the moment I brought its two opposite edges together, I heard and felt its spine crack. Then I imagined its angle-measuring voice screaming. One of the blue shards almost hit me in the eye, but, even with that, it was damn worth it.