What specifically do you not like about it. And I don’t just mean “it’s too hard”, what specifically is hard?
I feel like most people would like mathematics, but the education system failed them, teaching in a way that’s not enjoyable.
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Someone who used to dislike it in school and university here.
Having to cram a lot of information and formulas, and then reproduce it without error for an exam. None of it made sense, and I wasn’t even aware it was possible for it to make sense.
Only after many years did I understand it’s all connected, there’s a logic to it. It’s possible to understand rather than just blindly learn.
Btw the notation really doesn’t help.
I think this is true for lots of people. I also think there’s a bunch of us that have never had that feeling of it being a memorisation task.
In fact, the reason I liked maths and science was because it wasn’t memorisation. Unlike languages (for example) you could always work out the bit you forgot, and didn’t need to depend on some made-up aide-memoire that only applied 75% of the time and remember what 25% it didn’t apply to.
All I can think is that some early teacher failed you, and didn’t lay out how the foundations worked.
if the foundations of mathematics are dependent on a single early teacher… that’s a serious dependency for mathematics then.
The foundations of everything are dependent on those early teachers.
I think the issue is that mathematical logical thinking is what needs to be taught, like that everything can be described as equations.
The teachers put too much emphasis on formulas and notation and equations and so we are led to believe that math is only about rote memory of math grammar and so it never makes sense.
What did you find problematic/hindering with the current notation?
I’ll offer a different perspective. I’m actually really good at math, and I hated it in school because I didn’t want to do dozens of homework problems because I already knew how to do it and it was pointless work.
And I didn’t, which led to me having to take my tests sitting next to the teacher because she wouldn’t believe I could make > 90% on the tests without doing any practice problems.
Classic elementary/high school scenario: “This kid is ahead of the curve… a little too far ahead if you ask me. I’d better accuse them of cheating, given that the rest of the class sucks ass at long division/algebra/calculus…”
It was a tiny rural school and I was a kid from a major metropolitan area who was in honors classes before relocating to a school that had none.
In her defense, like 99% of students at the school not doing homework and acing the tests would have been cheating.
nah they just make you tutor the stupid kids. at least mine always did.
I feel seen, had forgotten all about that.
I was never made to “tutor” but my assigned groups for projects were conspicuously full of problem children I was expected to balance.
thats why theres always an ongoing debate on grading homework. what matters more are the exam grades to show if a given person understands a concept, but it runs the riak of more people failing out without the weight of graded homework easing up scores.
back in middleschool, i was basically told i would instantly fail a geometry class if i didnt start doing homework, despite aceing exams. The goal of homework is to teach students more about meeting deadlines, and that message often gets lost in education.
The main purpose of homework, at least in the stem classes, is to reinforce the subject. Some kids absolutely need that reinforcement and to have the teacher correct their work to help them understand the concepts.
A big part of the increasing workload to play ratio in elementary school is for learning to do some hard work. If you coast and/or give up easily, there will be a tall wall waiting for you at university level if not earlier. It won’t be hard to scale if you’ve learned to put in the effort, but it will be too late to start practicing that then.
Same goes for figuring out how to make your brain retain information (association building). At some point rote memorization isn’t going to cut it anymore.
These things need to be built up along with the basic knowledge. And yes, schools and teachers all around the world are often failing the students in that. There’s no simple blame or simple cure. Education is a huge task.
It’s hard for me to remember all of the different formulas and remembering when to use what.
Its so easy:
b square plus and minus the the square root of negative b minus 2ac all over 2a???
Edit: fuck, i forgor💀
Swap neg b with b square and you got it. I have recently used the quadratic equation for what I hope is the last time ever.
Edit: Oh, and I think it’s 4ac.
It sounds like “Pop goes the weasel”
X equals negative b
Plus or minus square root
Of b squared minus 4ac
All over 2a
Maybe we should have open book exams for maths…
I enjoy the concepts and structures of mathematics. Fractal geometry, holomorphic dynamics, computational theory, uncertainty principles and all that are fascinating as hell. Discrete systems dancing with continuous integrals at process limits.
I DO NOT ENJOY working with math. Specifically I cant read complex equations. I don’t have an attention disorder but I swear the moment I try reading anything that looks like this I get overloaded and nope out. If it aint highschool algebra with PEMDAS I cant do it. If you put a bullet to my head and pinned my survival on properly solving a quadratic equation I’d just tell you to shoot me.
The concepts are cool once you can get past the notation to understand the ontology of whats trying to be conveyed. The actual expanded out notations and trying to do work with them is a fuckin nightmare.
Also since im ranting can I just say, across STEM the biggest problem is the naming convention. Math and science would be at least 60% more accessable if we went back and renamed all theorems, hypothesis, proofs, to be what they are about instead of just shouting out the guy who discovered it. “eulers identity” doesnt mean a fucking thing. Neither does scrodingers equations or the riemann hypothesis or turing machines. THESE ARE NOT ACCESSABLE NAMES THEY CONVEY NOTHING INTRINSICALLY BESIDES SOME DEAD GUYS LAST NAME. GET SOME PROGRAMMERS WHO KNOW HOW TO ACTUALLY DECLARE HUMAN READABLE STRINGS FOR YOUR FUCKING ABSTRACTION OBJECTS.
Your rant reminded me of this https://youtube.com/shorts/S65gPwY0i-g about more problems in putting people’s names to theorems
I have a learning disability which affects my ability to understand math (discalculia). Its really hard to explain how it feels, but any time I do simple math in my head I can’t keep track of the numbers and they are start to blink in and out. Its like having short term memory loss for the duration of the equation? Not sure if that makes sense. I can absolutely do the math, but its an uphill battle and I end up having a lot of anxiety because I think people will judge me for how long it takes. I have a lot of trouble with addition, subtraction and multiplication so, really, the very basics.
I think if I didn’t have this condition I would probably really enjoy math. I didn’t know about this when I was in high school so I don’t know if they could have even helped me. I also had a math teacher for a couple of years who would literally throw a chair at the wall if you did something wrong or he thought you were playing stupid. So that certainly did not help the situation.
The numbers start blinking in and out, yes! This is why I have to write out the numbers on the most simple stuff, and write a d rewrite complex problems to keep track of how the numbers change and which ones go where.
I really enjoy what math does. When it applies to what I’m doing, I don’t mind even learning a new method. What killed me in school was math for math’s sake. They never explained where one might use the math. Trig was my favorite because almost every problem has a real-world use case that’s immediately apparent.
I find it hard to keep numbers in mind, and memorizing huge lists of numbers doesn’t work well for me. I need a purpose, a story, a reason behind the numbers. I’m the weirdo who loves story problems.
I don’t like busywork, running meaningless numbers for the sake of doing it is dull to me.
This comes off like a person who has no empathy, or who assumes everyone else thinks like they do. When I was in college, I tutored math to middle school kids, and I can say with certainty that some people’s brains take to it more naturally than others. You can be very smart and still struggle with math.
And putting that aside, “enjoyment” is inherently subjective. It’s like saying most people would enjoy liver and onions if they had it cooked right. No, some people will and some people won’t. It’s okay - people are a diverse lot and it’s fine if some people don’t like what you like.
You can be very smart and struggle with
anythinga lot of things.Absolutely
Probably all about the teaching. I understood maths up until we hit differential calculus. Then I didn’t understand what we were doing to numbers or why. And my teacher was incapable of explaining it.
I had to take algebra 1 twice in highschool. The fist time I took a college level course, and failed, but passed my second year in the gen course. I then failed algebra 2 miserably, though I will say that year was wild for me, and I didn’t really have fucks for math class. I half assed it and was not surprised I failed. You can’t half ass math class.
For me, was that if I missed one lesson, it began this giant snowball effect where I couldn’t catch up, so in case of my first year algebra, I gave up and failed. It’s the only class I ever failed.
The class moved really fast, and I have adhd (unknown to me then). I could thrive in English, History ect because the lessons are structured differently. Math, you dont viciously pay attention, or need more time, I couldn’t keep up with its pacing in highschool. Once imaginary numbers were introduced, I just, yeah.
Exactly me. I aced every English history science class and failed math miserably. Also adhd but not that bad.
Luckily computers can do it now so we dont need those skills as much but I still wish I had them.
The question is not aimed at me because I do like math (I have a degree in it), but I did want to comment on a possible reason.
One thing I heard in my math classes (shared with math education students) is that children are introduced to math by primary school teachers who are disproportionately skilled in language and arts rather than math and science. They impart their dislike of mathematics to their students.
I dont have issues with math, its helpful for [gestures broadly to everything].
You are right, how it was taught in schools (US) is a miserable failure. A focus on practical applications so the people can do their taxes and budgeting, understand probability and how statistics are used in reporting (and how they are misused), and spending more time on the metric system would go a long way.
I’m good at math, but I dislike it for the same reason I dislike cutting the grass: it’s work and my ADHD brain doesn’t get reward dopamine for accomplishing work.
This. I used to bloody love maths. It used to be like a puzzle that felt good when it all fit together neatly. Nowadays its just work. When I see a bunch of numbers that need worked my body physically aches with frustration.
I still love when numbers do stuff, but I need them spooned to me like a semi-literate milk-fed gimp.
Most people don’t just like to sit there and solve puzzles. Math is systems of interleaved puzzles that grow in complexity.
If you enjoy that, you like (pure) math. Most people don’t - I don’t think “most” would if the education system didn’t fail them, the same way that most people don’t like sudoku puzzles.
Personally I don’t like pure math, I like applied math. Physics. I like seeing the numbers that represent the forces I can see in the real world. I sort of enjoy geometry for the same reason, but less so. I enjoy stats and probability theory to a degree.
But yeah, most people don’t enjoy just sitting there and doing puzzles. There’s probably a good number of people who would enjoy math if they had a different educational experience, but a ton of people just don’t like doing math.
Shit teacher. I had a good teacher one year and it turned out I wasn’t actually bad at maths.
