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Today I can do easy, day to day, math. APR, percentages, area (sq.ft.), MPGs, stuff that's necessary.
In high school, I skated by on not taking Calculus and took Statistics instead. And I ended up having to take a remedial Algebra course in college.
I don't know why I had an aversion to math, though I know exactly why I was good at reading and writing. My parents read to me at an early age.
Generally speaking my friends who were excellent at math were those who spoke English as a second language. They skated by in English class, and excelled in math.
I think all I needed was a tutor at that time; unfortunately I was getting B's and A (mostly B's) still, even though I fully didn't understand what it was I was doing in those math classes.
Why can't most people understand science and math?
A mixture of bad teachers and ignorant parents.
I had a really dumb Chemistry teacher in high school, she would recite and give us notes from another Chemistry teacher and that was her way of teaching. If we didn't understand, she would just repeat the notes ... ugh, just about every student was fed up with her. I did fine in the beginning but when it got to more advance lessons, it was trying for me to understand. A couple of times another Chem teacher came to sub for her class and holy ****, I understood everything he said because he explained, he actually taught. And just about everyone 'got it' and most of us implored, begged him to continue teaching our class ... alas it was not to happen. I remember her even breaking out the textbook, reciting what she read as an 'explanation'. Good grief. Once, most of us kept raising our hands out of not understanding a word she was saying, she got fed up and some of us had mentioned the other teacher's name, she stormed out of the classroom and got his notes and slammed it onto the projector and said 'see, it's the same.' We were all pretty much speechless, I'm fairly certain we all understood asking her anything was not going to get anyone anywhere. I haven't even divulge her antics when we had lab work to do. I still remember her name. And I still despise her to this day.
Physics was the next step in science ... ugh. I barely got through Chem with a C and now I had to deal with this moronic Physics teacher. He was young, his lectures lasted about 3 minutes and after that I barely saw him. Well I saw him but he was hanging around the jocks. That was it, I went and dropped the class.
And I was in a so-called 'great' school too.
Maths, I had no problem with, got all the way through to Pre-Cal.
Bad teaching, disinterested parents, and also culture. By culture I mean that in school, it's 'uncool' to be smart and be good at math and science. You'll be labeled a nerd, ostracized, etc. Social pressures have a tremendous influence on children. Pop culture has far too strong on influence on the youth. They don't care about math and science because to be liked, they need to dress right, have an iphone, listen to the right music, be interested in the right sports, etc. I've read (though I can't say for certain if it's true) that other nations/cultures don't have such an issue with this aspect.
id say it really depends on how math and science are being taught, yes there is something to be said about "math and science is not creative and open to interptation and myraid views, it is too concrete and thus dull and boring etc etc..." but for lets just focus on how it is being taught. For myself I will only comment on lab. Labraotry is a big portion of any science class post high-school and whether one enjoys the lab or not goes a long way toward-"Yes I will take more science classes or ********** I will major in something else"
I have gone through 3 labs thus far: Gen Bio, Gen Chem , Microbiology, Anatomy and Phys
1) Bio lab-1 big experiement per week, had 4 days to do it, can come in any of the 4 days. Never felt rushed, relaxed enviorment, able to collabrate with partner-loved bio lab-always did good on the tests
2) Chem lab (oncer per week)- this nearly killed science, for me, after this I was ready to curse science forever, I am convicned that Chemistry is the "killer of science related dreams". One lab-mulitple parts, only had ONE DAY ONE DAY to complete a lab, rushed, everything is rushed. You cannot even appreciate result of the experiment, the result of what you are doing because it is RUSH RUSH RUSH, finish finish finish!
3) Micro lab- (Once per week)1 day again, 4-5 expriements per day, much easier than chem but having 4-5 experiments to do along with finishing up the 3-4 expereiments last week because you had to incubate them over the weekend-meant again, rush rush RUSH, I don't even understand what I am doing, I am just in a hurry to finish
4) Anatomy lab-once a week, enough time to finish, easy
At least labroatry wise, it kills the interest of students in science and math when they have to rush and rush. Lab should be fun, it should the moment where we go from dry and boring text and lecture to "Oh so that is how it happens".
If colleges want to foster an interest in science they should look at how labs are run, the "Finish finish!" mentalitly has to go. If you want students to devolp an appreication for science then give them the dam time to actually do the science.
I think it's a combination of things, but I mainly believe that it's because the current system is broken in the sense that it invests an equal amount of time in teaching and learning all subjects at the same pace. Some (meaning few) can pick it up the amount of time alloted, while most people can squeeze by with that very same amount of time.
Just about every class is taught for the same amount of time, whether we're talking about gym, English or pre calc, when in reality math and science classes should be much longer while classes like home economics, wood shop should be much shorter.
in this article, a Cornell professor explains - using an approach that a child might understand - why adding a series of odd numbers gives you a perfect square:
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because its analytical and not something you can memorize.. you have to know how to do it, not just know about it. however some math/science people struggle with history/english.. like my mom a math teacher whos great in math but sucks in english and history, while i suck at math but am great at english and history
because its analytical and not something you can memorize.. you have to know how to do it, not just know about it. however some math/science people struggle with history/english.. like my mom a math teacher whos great in math but sucks in english and history, while i suck at math but am great at english and history
I think you hit the nail on the head with this. I've posted before that I have to be careful to do many math problems the way the students were taught because if I don't follow those exact steps, they're lost. For example, if I want to solve X/2 = 3/4, I can't just multiply by 2 to isolate the variable. I have to cross multiply by 2 AND 4 then divide by 4 to isolate the variable. My students learned to solve this problem by "Cross multiplying and then dividing". They were taught this way because that will work if the problem is 2/X = 4/3 too. Here, if you ask them to isolate the variable, many will divide by 2 and think the've isolates X when they really have 1/X on the left hand side.
Most of the time, math is not taught in a conceptual way, so people often think they have to memorize the rules and do problems by rote.
I like that Rock Groups article that was posted because I think it would help visual learners to *see* the ideas. Of course, I am good at math, so not the intended audience the person who posted wanted comments from.
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