Who Hates Math?

[Dragon's Tooth]

So in closing I do not hate maths, I dislike the way it was taught me and the level of difficulty I prescribed to it which led me to choose not to like it, which in turn allowed me to miss out on so much without the ability to properly apply it.

I think maths is very poorly taught anywhere in the world and the only thing that maths teachers can think to do is to give you long lists of sums to practice with. Its even worse in uni. I remember a lecturer asking how to make maths fun and I said to try applying it to real world problems and my lecturer replied "but that is just physics". Does it really matter as long as kids are learning?

Math was my least favorite subject but I did like geometry as it was applied to things I could see. I enjoyed it only if I could apply it to
actual design like building speakers and furniture as the numbers affected the sound quality and frequencies the cabinet would amplify.
My favorite subjects in order are: Science, English, History, Math

in uni (my most resent maths experience) everyone in my class said maths was hard because we couldn't relate it to a real life application ... the abstract was hard to grasp. but no one cares bout that or the fact that it would be easier if it was in a real world context.

 

[Christian T]

God must have a sense of humor because I work with numbers all day long and I am not good at math. Never was, probably never will be. It takes me forever to figure out even simple calculations. God bless the person who invented the calculator!

Logically it does not make sense that I am so poor at math and yet extremely proficient in English. English is ten times more difficult than math. Math has logic to it. English is a hodgepodge of contradicting rules. I have no idea what my reading level is but it must be sky-high. Math--somewhere around 3rd grade. But here I am working with numbers and not words. They seem to think I do a pretty good job at it because they keep giving me more to do.

We sound very much the same. I am much more a man of words (and phrases, and clauses, and predicates and all that) than a man of numbers. My natural linguistic interest and ability feed and develop each other in a beautiful cycle. I do have something of a mathematical interest, but my mind certainly doesn't travel naturally down those paths of thinking.

And yes, maths and language are so fundamentally similar, yet so characteristically different. If maths worked the same was as language, then this is how maths lessons would go:

Teacher: What is 6+1?
Student: 7!
Teacher: Yes, good job. Now here's a tricky one, what's 6+2?
Student: 8!
Teacher: No, it's 53.
Student: What? Why?
Teacher: Ah, I have no idea. Just don't go around saying 6+2=8 because people will laugh at you.

This is why I'm studying linguistics, because I'm constantly analysing the language I hear and enjoy the learning the somewhat logical reasons for the current state of the English language. For instance: I know why there is a "t" in mortgage. It's old French for "death pledge" and the "t," like all silent letters, is silent because:
1 - people couldn't be bothered pronouncing it anymore and
2- they couldn't be bothered changing the spelling.


That's how you get silent letters. Thankyou for indulging me in this aspie monologue.

 

[Yoshi08]

I hate math. I am not a numbers guy although I wish I was. Math is my worst subject in school and always has been.

 

[Biblio-Love]

I am not interested in math at all, and the basics I find confounding. Apparently though I can do complicated equations, as found in mensa tests, but I never understand how I get the right answer. I like patterns though, so maybe something about that. I much prefer to study words and cultural history.

I failed math in high school.

 

[imagesbyholly]

I loved math in first grade- then it ended. Math was agony for me until 10th grade Geometry/Trigonometry. I loved it! I soared! I got a better grade than they could even put on my report card! Then it ended. Math was misery again until I dropped out of college after getting sick. I joke with myself that it was the statistics class that actually did me in.

 

[Kingmatt333]

Maths was my worst subject from prep to year seven, gok in year eight and horrible afterwards. I think it really depends on who your teacher is. That's how it worked for me.

 

[total-recoil]

I've always hated math too. My mom tried to teach me algebra when I was a younger teen and it was a NIGHTMARE. After she diagnosed me with Asperger's and told me that Temple Grandin recommends skipping algebra for some autistics, everything got better. I started doing basic geometry instead and even though I didn't get very far in the book, it was easier and I enjoyed it much more.

I believe many of us have brains resistant to some information processes which can cause brain block and, in my case, frustration and anxiety. However, I also believe by exercising the brain, it will automatically adapt. That is, it gets easier. I regret having bought into the idea I was hopeless at maths simply because I struggled to understand numbers. Now I know that with hard work I can definitely learn calculations, more so if I feel I need them. Often I forget something and have to go back again over old ground but I'm sure I'll improve with more work.
Electronics is difficult for me as well so I have to work really hard to get information to sink in.
By the way, I made a very simple maths discovery I'll share because I never read this in any book so if the formula is used, I do not know. Say you want to know a given percent of a number. Let's say, to be very simple, 250 and you need to know 20 per cent of it. I found that by multiplying 0.2 by 250 you get 50, and so on. I'm not quite sure how I discovered this but it comes in useful. Say 20 per cent of 75 would be 15 = (0.2 multiplied by 75 = 15). Then half the 15 to 7.5 and you get 10 per cent and so on. In fact a lot of maths I do my own way and sometimes via the back door so kind of long winded but it gives me the information I need. I don't feel I really need calculus or much in the way of algebra so I only swat on specific maths. Like I can tell you offhand that it takes 0.02 of a second to generate 1 alternating cycle of electricity on a 50 hertz domestic supply.

 

[Tarragon]

By the way, I made a very simple maths discovery I'll share because I never read this in any book so if the formula is used, I do not know. Say you want to know a given percent of a number. Let's say, to be very simple, 250 and you need to know 20 per cent of it. I found that by multiplying 0.2 by 250 you get 50, and so on. I'm not quite sure how I discovered this but it comes in useful. Say 20 per cent of 75 would be 15 = (0.2 multiplied by 75 = 15). Then half the 15 to 7.5 and you get 10 per cent and so on. In fact a lot of maths I do my own way and sometimes via the back door so kind of long winded but it gives me the information I need. I don't feel I really need calculus or much in the way of algebra so I only swat on specific maths. Like I can tell you offhand that it takes 0.02 of a second to generate 1 alternating cycle of electricity on a 50 hertz domestic supply.

That's an interestingly different way of doing it. For me, 20 percent of 250 is just 10% which is 25 , times 2 which is 50. I guess I just like to simplify things as much as possible I don't have a 0.2 ratio in my head. It's really interesting that you do. Just goes to show how we are all different (and thus all alike with being different!)

 

[Christian T]

By the way, I made a very simple maths discovery I'll share because I never read this in any book so if the formula is used, I do not know. Say you want to know a given percent of a number. Let's say, to be very simple, 250 and you need to know 20 per cent of it. I found that by multiplying 0.2 by 250 you get 50, and so on. I'm not quite sure how I discovered this but it comes in useful. Say 20 per cent of 75 would be 15 = (0.2 multiplied by 75 = 15). Then half the 15 to 7.5 and you get 10 per cent and so on.

The first things I was taught in primary school about percentages were its relationships with decimals and fractions, so it's interesting that you've made the connection by yourself and much later than primary school.

To use your example:
20% of 250
=20/100 x 250 ("of" is always "x" they drilled into us)
=2/10 x 250
=0.2 x 250

but I'd stick with the fraction myself, so:

2x250/10=500/10=50

10% is a really easy percentage to get, you just divide the number by 10, which means taking off a zero or moving the decimal point across one space to the left

Woh, I must say that is the longest thing I've ever written on the subject of maths! :rolleyes2:

 

[King_Oni]

A few days ago I ended up downloading a book with over a 1000 math questions and started doing them. I did fairly well.. over 90% I answered correct. And I just had some basic math in high school. Part of the 10% I missed were subjects I never got explained in high school. Stuff like absolute values and what have you. But in general, I like it. I like doing it all without paper or a calculator as well.

The thing I was bothered by in high school when doing maths, and as such, a reason why I didn't perform well there, was that the outcome of the question wasn't the most relevant part. The most relevant part of getting a good grade is showing how you calculated it. And of course that had to be similar to what the teacher said in class, and not my own way of figuring out the mathematical conundrum. That's where thinking for yourself got punished to some extent.

 

[Tarragon]

The thing I was bothered by in high school when doing maths, and as such, a reason why I didn't perform well there, was that the outcome of the question wasn't the most relevant part. The most relevant part of getting a good grade is showing how you calculated it. And of course that had to be similar to what the teacher said in class, and not my own way of figuring out the mathematical conundrum. That's where thinking for yourself got punished to some extent.

Im 100% behind you on this comment. People who are good at maths because they follow what they are shown blindly won't necessarily be the best thinkers. I'd argue that all the genius mathematicians who actually count (oh, the punnery!!) would think for themselves. Yes, a method for doing something is usually the simplest way, but I'd rather know someone who understands how that method was derived rather than someone who just does it because that's what they've been shown.

my A-level chemistry was interesting, as I'd work out questions my own way. So much so, that my chemistry teacher would good naturedly comment on how I always took a page to work something out when the others in the class would only take a few lines. I did A level physics too, but without doing A level maths. so, I didn't get shown how to work out answers easily (physics teachers never bothered to point this out to me :banghead: I used to try and work everything out myself, and this was actually the start of the end of my first run into university. I became quite convinced I was no good (even though looking back now, I see what was going on, and it was not because I was any less intelligent than the others in school -quite the opposite).

id say that it's not maths that is horrible, but the way it is "taught" parrot fashion and if you don't do what you are told blindly, you will suffer. Probably is the same for all state education - the state doesn't want free thinking members of society, it wants sheeple. Mind you, school teachers as a species aren't known as the brightest of the bunch (always exceptions).

Long reign the NT's over us poor unfortunate different people! :stomp:

 

[Christian T]

Long reign the NT's over us poor unfortunate different people!

What a repellent truth.

I'm almost a strong advocate for free academic thinking, though more in English as that's my preferred subject, but I totally agree that any valuable contribution to any field is done with conscious, complex thought that is often original and risky. The methods now taught rigidly in schools were created through this type of thinking, and not by sycophantic conformists (sorry, a tad emotive but I do feel strongly about this)

As for the specific method being more important than the result, I recently watched a documentary called The Growing Pains of a Teenage Genius about a 13-year-old aspie maths protegee doing a university course who is struggling with precisely this. He often only sees the answer, not the method, because he can solve complex problems in his head as if it's a simple sum, which is the only thing holding him back. I really felt for him.

 

[total-recoil]

I had a very interesting late night experimenting with decimal numbers. In electronics basically you get a lot of submultiples of thousandths or millionths. Wave signals can be generated in fractions of seconds which is where the maths came in. I was breaking down seconds into milliseconds, bearing in mind one thousand milliseconds are equal to one second. So, 0.001 could be described as one thousandth of a second or (as I personally prefer 1 millisecond). Then it gets into microseconds which are millionths. 1000,000 microseconds in one second so 0.000001 is either one millionth of a second (or as I prefer one microsecond).
It gets kind of interesting when you then try to figure out how many microseconds in a given digit made up of milliseconds. Like 100 microseconds would be 10 times as fast as 1 millisecond and so on.
This isn't really doing maths as a subject but it is useful in electronics so you can understand the graphs. It certainly doesn't come easily to me and I often forget what I learned before and have to revise stuff but, in some ways, the maths part is like a cerebral workout.I
I only really need practical maths for electronics although there is some calculus that I haven't bothered with.

I hate math. I am not a numbers guy although I wish I was. Math is my worst subject in school and always has been.

 

[total-recoil]

There is an urgent need to get back to philosophy. Philosophy in reality is the love of knowledge and pursuit of knowledge. The reason I value knowledge so highly is I've learned that knowledge is the key to solving problems. Philosophy is cultivating all forms of knowledge, science included.
At uni, I can now see a lot of what I was taught contained "cultural bias". Ideas tend to be passed down in classrooms over decades but are often "fashionable". For example, when I was given lectures of the USSR and Marxism I was simply taught the whole ideology was a failure but there was never any attempt to analyse the subject matter in context of history. I call it cultural bias because facts and figures are abandoned due to classroom or cultural bias.
Even worse is the people who become angry or offended if you disagree with or question them. It's not a case of being right or being seen to be right but what really matters is getting to the facts.

Im 100% behind you on this comment. People who are good at maths because they follow what they are shown blindly won't necessarily be the best thinkers. I'd argue that all the genius mathematicians who actually count (oh, the punnery!!) would think for themselves. Yes, a method for doing something is usually the simplest way, but I'd rather know someone who understands how that method was derived rather than someone who just does it because that's what they've been shown.

my A-level chemistry was interesting, as I'd work out questions my own way. So much so, that my chemistry teacher would good naturedly comment on how I always took a page to work something out when the others in the class would only take a few lines. I did A level physics too, but without doing A level maths. so, I didn't get shown how to work out answers easily (physics teachers never bothered to point this out to me :banghead: I used to try and work everything out myself, and this was actually the start of the end of my first run into university. I became quite convinced I was no good (even though looking back now, I see what was going on, and it was not because I was any less intelligent than the others in school -quite the opposite).

id say that it's not maths that is horrible, but the way it is "taught" parrot fashion and if you don't do what you are told blindly, you will suffer. Probably is the same for all state education - the state doesn't want free thinking members of society, it wants sheeple. Mind you, school teachers as a species aren't known as the brightest of the bunch (always exceptions).

Long reign the NT's over us poor unfortunate different people! :stomp:

 

[Kelly]

I can't remember when I was really little but when I started secondary(high) school I whizzed ahead of the other kids in maths but then the next year I just lost interest and then just didn't do it anymore (literally - I didn't go to class). I find maths so boring and hate having to do it at all.

My little girl can't do maths, but to an extreme point, I think she may have dyscaculia as she has some of the signs and I did a test on her and the results said if you got more then 5 wrong it was an indicator, she got over half wrong. Same with the dyslexia test, it was quite shocking really, she's 7 and a half and she still cannot recall the alphabet fully and in order, still writes letters and numbers backwards. She used to be 2 levels ahead in reading, now she's slowly falling behind, but the teachers insist she will be fine "she'll catch up". I mean getting basic concepts are too hard for her, so I will say what's 3+5 she says 8 (after using her fingers to add) and I say so what's 5+3, she gets it straigtaway now as she realises that I'm swapping the numbers but she still can't understand when I say 8-5 is easy because she already knows what number is missing, she can't do it, even after I have sat down written it out explained it to her over and over she still uses her hands to do it, totally unsure of the missing number. The only way I can get her to do division is by using her dolls, right we have 40 dolls we need to split them into 4 groups how many in each? she will do it get the answer right(10) and then I will say what is 10 dolls x 4? she just can't get that opposite she will try working it out on her hands, get confused try with the dolls and get it.

As for percentages the way I always work it out is whatever percentage times the number gives you the amount;

20% of 250
0.20 (percentage) x 250 (number) = 50

23% of 250
0.23 x 250 = 57.50

16% of 342
0.16 x 342 = 54.72

3% of 1025
0.03 x 1025 = 30.75

My husband does it another way; 250(amount) x 20(percentage) divided by 100 = 50, too long winded for me, I like my way better.

 

[total-recoil]

The way we learn is when we want to learn. When I was at school I had too many issues to really be able to address schoolwork so I did very badly. And all my life I just accepted I was a flop at maths. I have now totally changed my attitude towards learning and challenge this whole concept in society that we are somehow "cut out" to do language and not "cut out" for maths and vice versa. I think what actually happens is we find some subjects easy and others difficult so, in my case, yes, maths is hard for me. However, just because I find it hard doesn't mean I can't do maths (or maybe even get good at it).
Your daughter I think just finds the maths boring at this point which is quite natural really. Maybe doing what you're doing you can find a way to bring it home to her and make it fun - perhaps even computer games.
Fortunately I don't need in depth maths for electronics. It's all fairly basic and really what I need to know is stuff like splitting a voltage along a circuit into smaller voltages to supply transistors and so on so to do that I need to add up resistors and do basic divisions. As it has some purpose I don't mind spending time on the maths.
Yes, I do percentages the same way. One thing I was doing last night was a good mental workout. I was taking 0.001 and dividing that by 1000 to get 0.000001. So, one thousandth of a second (1 millisecond) divided by 1000 makes one millionth of a second (a microsecond). After that I was messing about trying to work out how many microseconds in a given millisecond value (say 10 milliseconds) and then deducing it's fractional value to a whole number in decimals. It's not a bad idea as I get so many graphs that show time-scales in kilohertz against fractions of seconds.
In some ways when i do this stuff it strikes me as a great alternative to stressing over life.

I can't remember when I was really little but when I started secondary(high) school I whizzed ahead of the other kids in maths but then the next year I just lost interest and then just didn't do it anymore (literally - I didn't go to class). I find maths so boring and hate having to do it at all.

My little girl can't do maths, but to an extreme point, I think she may have dyscaculia as she has some of the signs and I did a test on her and the results said if you got more then 5 wrong it was an indicator, she got over half wrong. Same with the dyslexia test, it was quite shocking really, she's 7 and a half and she still cannot recall the alphabet fully and in order, still writes letters and numbers backwards. She used to be 2 levels ahead in reading, now she's slowly falling behind, but the teachers insist she will be fine "she'll catch up". I mean getting basic concepts are too hard for her, so I will say what's 3+5 she says 8 (after using her fingers to add) and I say so what's 5+3, she gets it straigtaway now as she realises that I'm swapping the numbers but she still can't understand when I say 8-5 is easy because she already knows what number is missing, she can't do it, even after I have sat down written it out explained it to her over and over she still uses her hands to do it, totally unsure of the missing number. The only way I can get her to do division is by using her dolls, right we have 40 dolls we need to split them into 4 groups how many in each? she will do it get the answer right(10) and then I will say what is 10 dolls x 4? she just can't get that opposite she will try working it out on her hands, get confused try with the dolls and get it.

As for percentages the way I always work it out is whatever percentage times the number gives you the amount;

20% of 250
0.20 (percentage) x 250 (number) = 50

23% of 250
0.23 x 250 = 57.50

16% of 342
0.16 x 342 = 54.72

3% of 1025
0.03 x 1025 = 30.75

My husband does it another way; 250(amount) x 20(percentage) divided by 100 = 50, too long winded for me, I like my way better.

 

[Undiagnosed]

I hate math! always dit! I'm glad Im not in school anymore and don't have math classes. But I'm glad I learned the basics that i need in everyday life.

 

[debym6]

I know I hate it. I suck at it, and it seems like nothing but constant frustration. Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated that I have screamed and cried while stuck on a problem...I can literally feel myself burn up when I get stuck on a problem.

Math class is awful, I always dread it, at least my two friends sit near me, they're good at it, but they don't help me that much. I did have a very good math teacher in junior high, but that's about it. Now that I don't have her anymore, I'm just back to the misery again...Ugh.

Does anyone else get frustrated with math like this? If not, what subject frustrates you? (If there is one)

Yes my son is the same way, it is very hard right now. I feel your frustration as I see it daily with my son. I am sorry.

 

[Pusteblume]

Yes I hate math. I can't even count 2+3 and stuff like that in my head. I need to use my fingers.
And if the numbers are bigger then my number of fingers I need a calculator.

 

[Galaxy Freeze]

Holy crap! I thought I was the only one who still used their fingers...this is a breath of fresh air to know someone else does it!