A new acquaintance: "What do you do for a living?"
Me: "I teach Math at RDC"
They: "I was never good at math", or "I hated math!"
When my wife states that she is a physician, she never hears back "I was never good at biology", or "I hated biology". So, why the animosity?
What's your personal experience, both direct and indirect? Why don't people like math?
Math was the bane of my existence in high school. I have struggled with learning and understanding math all through out my entire life. Adding and subtracting in my head is still nearly impossible for me. Each year of my high school career I did systematically worse, no matter how hard I worked, and how much help I got. The only thing I was able to well was long division of polynomials, and some problem solving. The rest, however, foreign concepts to me. My mother insisted that I go the "academic route" in all my subjects so that going to university would not be a problem . In my senior year I went into the diploma with a 48 percent and came out with a 42. Being a perfectionist, and every unequipped to handle personal failure, the event was almost traumatic for me. Looking back now, I realize that how I handled failing is the reason why I "hate" math. It is not so much the concept of Mathematical logic, but rather my reaction to the failure to grasp it. In fact I feel that if I tried again to take Math 30 I would probably succeed with some difficulty, but nevertheless succeed.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteFrom another FB friend:
ReplyDeleteOne of my teachers suggested it was bad experience with teachers; usually a male teacher making a female student feel stupid or a female teacher making a male student feel stupid.
But those were just his thoughts. I have always liked math! I have never had a teacher that made me feel bad either. So I'm not sure.
And from another friend, still via FB:
ReplyDeleteI had a bad experience with a math male math teacher making me feel stupid in junior high school. Up until then I liked and did well at math. According to him, it was common knowledge, that girls could not do complicated math. After that, I had no motivation to learn it. It probably didn't help that he would come help the girls in order to look down our shirts.
Unfortunately, there are still teachers like this in the system and they are very difficult to get rid of... the high school in Sylvan finally put one on suspension, but he had to actually hit a kid first. Before that it was common knowledge that he sexually harassed the girls and most girls simply transferred out of his classes. I don't think he taught math