this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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i hate that we all got so frightened about math. it's genuinely fun to learn how it works when you're not being forced to in a school setting, which was just a fucking nightmare for no reason. i had this former navy DI lady teacher in gifted kid algebra [so already a year ahead] yell at me for asking questions; she wasn't going to 'hold my hand' thru the homework, which was quite literally her fucking job
Turning 35 in a month and I've just started learning maths again after being afraid of it because of a similar situation to yours.
It's surprisingly easy. I used tl give maths tutoring to finance my university degree. What I'd do is let the kids do one exercise task from their school books to see where their difficulties were. While they were on it, I quickly read through the relevant sections in the book, and it was so easy every time that I knew everything I needed to know after a few minutes. Like literally stuff that took weeks at school within minutes.
School just sucks and makes it really hard to learn anything. Almost everything kids learn at school is actually really easy.
Well it's harder for them because they are kids and their brains are still developing. You've had a lifetime of experiences to draw from where you use math concepts subconsciously many times a day.
Totally true. They haven't learned to learn yet, they aren't learning because they want to, or even because they need what they learned.
But the point I was trying to make is, that many adults are still afraid (and many even strongly so) of maths, because it was hard for them at school. But it probably wouldn't be hard for them now.
i completely agree. this sentiment was echoed pretty well in a (nontechnical and accessible) paper i read a few years ago. he says the current approach is like forcing people to learn music, but only teaching them how to read sheet music and not letting them touch any instruments. it hides the creativity and problem-solving of the discipline and reduces it to memorizing formulas.
Idk man I've been doing my Cal 3 and 4 this semester and fuck me it's hard. Yeah sure it's cool sometimes but wrapping my head around it and often trying to think about things geometrically hurts. I sat there for a full hour trying to figure out why I couldn't picture the equation I was trying to take a triple integral of only to realize it's 4 dimensional and I almost cried
Im sorry you had awful teachers, but not all of them are bad. I had amazing teachers that were very worried for the students to learn. In contrast I had very shitty classmates that just didn't care and would blame the teachers for their laziness.
It's not about being frightened, it's just that i know only a handful (mostly esoteric) languages with worse syntax.
Fear fear fear. The same old, actually hollow from the inside, villian that bugs me everywhere