"When you got all done, you got answers. With English you could say a lot of words that mean different things, my interpretation might be different from any of the teachers. But with math, there's no interpretation -- two plus two is four."
१८ ऑगस्ट, २००५
"It was cold and calculating. There was no gray, it was black and white."
Taking an attitude like that, about 40% of Americans say they hated math in school. Interestingly, about 25% of Americans say it was their favorite subject. The reason for loving it seems to be identical to the reason for hating it:
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I think that the problem comes when we teach math. We teach the mechanics (grammar, syntax, etc.) but gloss over the useful and interesting bits.
As a math graduate student, I'd like to point out that there are many who feel that those mechanics are the interesting bits.
It's hardly surprising to me that many people like math for exactly the same reasons others dislike it.
There are some blogs which, along with their comments, penetrate or summarize what is going on in important areas of society with startling accuracy. This is one of those blogs.
It points out that just as some languages (e.g. Italian) are suited for conveying the romance and drama of Opera, others (e.g. algebra, geometry, calculus) are suited for conveying the concepts of Physics, Engineering or Finance.
I, for one, wish that reality had been explained to me in just that way when I was younger. I would have enjoyed mathematics much more had I understood that.
Thanks, Ann, and thanks dale, John and Charles
Jim Rhoads
I was one who love math and hated English, etc. for almost precisely those reasons. Throughout high school and my undergraduate years, I always felt that Engish and the like were totally subjective. Math and science were objective. That meant that even if I didn't suck up to the teachers, I could get a top grade, whereas most of those getting the As in English seemed to be sucking up a lot with the teachers. And somehow, being a guy, I couldn't do it.
My youngest brother, just as good as the rest of us in math, could suck up, did, and was Valditorian of his HS class.
The reason that I loved math in college was that it was, bar none, the easiest major in the school. The dept. was so small - maybe 1-2% of the student body that you really got to know everyone and all the profs. Plus, it had the easiest requirements, little homework (if you understood it), no comps, thesis, or GREs.
I also loved it because to some extent, it was make believe. I used to think of some of my classes as "Let's Pretend", for example, what happens in a non-Euclidian universe where parallel lines meet. Working out the logical ramifications. That sort of thing. Great fun.
John Thacker,
The mechanics are what I didn't really like. I took a bunch of engineering classes right after law school so I could sit for the patent bar, etc., and hated the mind numbing repetition. I was used to understanding the concepts and going on. In engineering school you often don't, but rather practice the mechanics until you can do them in your sleep.
Maybe it was that I knew I wouldn't actually be using the techniques in real life, but rather had to know the basics so I could undertand and explain inventions utilizing them.
And I wasn't wrong. In well over 100 patents in the electrical arts, I have yet to use very much of that stuff, and what I did need (which was rare), I could look up fairly quickly.
I must say that private school mathematics seems to differ quite a bit from what appears to being taught these days in the public schools. In my daughter's private school, they work on the mechanics a lot. But then there are a lot of story problems where they have to figure out how to apply the math that they have learned.
And it seems to work. My daughter and I are working (already) on SAT prep, and she does as well on the math questions as I do (with a math degree), with three years left before she actually takes the SATs.
Except for trig, I liked math okay until calculus, and then I *loved* math. Calculus is when you start to pull back the curtain and see how powerful and beautiful math can be. The best advice I never took came from a high school math teacher. She said, "Take math until you fail." I wish I had done that.
"Take math until you fail."
That is great advice. Thanks for sharing
I took math until I came out twelfth in a class of thirteen. The prof, benevolently, did not fail me (it was grad school, and he was teaching his first class ever.)
Then I backed up, chose another area, and kept going.
It's still my favorite subject.
These days I teach it to my homeschooled five-year-old. I'm having a blast. I love it when he asks, "What are we doing in math today?" and I say "Tangrams!!!" and he shouts "Yayyyy!" I hope he gets this jazzed about geometry and calculus later on.
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