D2s Fun Friday Five, Math Edition

[greybeta]

[Poll #683998]

Comments

[fub.livejournal.com]

I like math, but I suck at doing it.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't "like" math until I was 16.
I grew up in an era where I was told repeatedly by teachers (from grade 1 on) that I was "good in English & Social Studies" so it was to be expected that I wasn't "as good in Math & Science."
There still exist vast bastions of folk and teachers in particular who percieve 'English & Social Studies' to be "Liberal Arts" and therefore not related to 'Math & Science' - which I believe arises from the way Universities tend to be structured.

When I was 16, I was standing in the hallway when a *friend's* math teacher walked up and started chatting with her about something... don't recall the rest of the conversation, but the relevant portion went something like this:

me: Don't ask me... Math isn't my forte
teacher: Really? That surprises me. What makes you say that?
me: Well, I'm great at English & Social Studies, so it's not surprising that I'm not as good at Math & Science.
teacher: What?!?
me: (echo above)
teacher: Well, I know you edit the yearbook, and I know from Ms. J that you are her best student in any of her English classes - to me, that means you should be a natural at Math.
me: *boggle* huh?
teacher: Look - let me lay it out for you. English (counting off points on his fingers) man-made language, created to express ideas/concepts/thoughts, follows specific rules, structured so that someone should be able to understand what you are trying to communicate... Math - man-made language, created to express ideas/concepts/thoughts, follows specific rules, structured so that someone should be able to understand what you are trying to communicate, only it's far easier because there's no such thing as rules that are sometimes violatable like the i-before-e clause or the 'sometimes that letter is silent sometimes not' issues.
me: *stunned silence* *lengthy pause* I'm going to have to think about this and get back to you.


All it took was an attitude shift.
Almost literally overnight I went from an average student in math to one of the best in my class (by class, I mean grade-level) because I changed my mind and broke my own self-imposed limitation.

Ever since then - math has been a joy.

The two things about this that are most important to me tho are a) the number of people I have related this story to who have then had a similar life-changing result where math is concerned, and b) although I never *did* take a class from that teacher - I looked him up last year, and sent him an email 22 years later to tell him. Since he's still teaching at my old high school, it was a big thing to him to get that email.

Okay, personal anecdote over!

[yndy.livejournal.com]

sheesh...

Facility with English does not preclude internet laziness or typos however...

Reading this:
vast bastions of folk and teachers in particular who percieve
makes the "good in English" comment rather ironic.

Oh for the lack of an edit-comment-feature!!!

[sarnath.livejournal.com]

I also took DiffEq and Linear Algebra. I think the only majors that take more math than mine are Electrical Engineers, Physicists, and Math/Stats.

[odclay.livejournal.com]

I'm not terribly fond of math, but I can understand it well enough. Up until calculus. I figured I would take calculus in high school because that was the next step in the math curriculum, and it was frickin' pointless. I understood some of it, but as the semester continued, I started getting daily headaches. When daily heartburn and bile rising in the throat started setting in, I realized enough was enough, and dropped out of the class after the semester ended.

I'm taking trigonometry in college because I ran out of time during my college placement test and never finished the math section. So they think I'm not so good at math. Like I care...

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

You know, when I started to read your second sentence, I thought you were going to say that the teachers fell back on the old "women don't have the aptitude for math" argument. It's interesting that they would think that aptitude for Liberal Arts and the Sciences would be mutually exclusive. Did they expect results on Verbal and Math components of the SAT to always be significantly skewed one way or the other?

Teachers like your friend's math teacher should be treasured.

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

The five hour calculus class I took my freshman year of college is what forced me to change majors. I aced calculus in high school, and was tutoring my friends during my freshman year. Somehow I was only pulling a C grade in my class while they were pulling in As.

I looked at their tests and said "man, this test is so frigging easy!" When I approached my teacher about her testing methodology, she said her goal is to try to trick her students.

I grew so irritated by her and the class that I dropped engineering in favor of communications. Which I put to stellar use in my professional life.

I'm a computer programmer.

[cathawk.livejournal.com]

I'll be forever grateful to my 7th grade teacher who taught me I could do math (see the first part of the story in the poll). While it's never come easily to me, I learned that if I persisted, I could learn it. I'm betting you'll become that kind of teacher.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I have the same problem with singing. ^_^

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I loved this story. :)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for me, my professor for DiffEq was aptly named Dr. Failure.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Heh, you would take the easy way out. ;)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I had one professor who thought it was her mission to make sure we knew the material forwards, backwards and sideways. Which would be fine...if her class was the only one I was taking. This meant that I never had enough time to keep up with her torrid pace.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I'm betting you'll become that kind of teacher.
Except that I wouldn't be able to handle punk 7th grade preteens...

[packbat.livejournal.com]

My cool math-related story: I was sitting in a guest lecture for my college statistics class, and the lecturer listed four statistical distributions – the Binomial, the Poisson, the Geometric, and the Exponential – and managed to tie them all to the Poisson process and its discrete equivalent. I was awed.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Amazing. We need more guest lecturers like that!