philosophical mathamatical mind-fuck!

[MoonKit]

STOP YELLING!

[lupine]

The teacher is just the preacher of the the evil that is Maths. It is his religion and must be stamped out.

Guess you can tell i'm not to fond of maths myself, All the way through school I was in top groups for everything except maths. Remedial class all the way. The preacher even read us a story if we got our sums right!!!! We were 16 for chrissakes!!! Can you be numerically dyslexic? I think I am. I'm quite happy pondering on the universe and all, but bringing numbers into it is unfair for us retards.

[White Paw]

a-men brother...............


MATH SUCKS...

[BlackWolfDS]

oh come on
it's not that bad.....

did that JUST come out of my mouth?

[White Paw]

no it really isnt ....... but i did have a hard time..... but i think i have my ADD to think for that ...... im constantly distracted and i think that killed me in classes ...... but oddly enough only during math classes.... i was average in everything else....

[geekboy1500]

but then if you think of the "universe as an orange peel" theory
there is no beyond you just keep going until you end up where you started.

[Shadow Wulf]

no it really isnt ....... but i did have a hard time..... but i think i have my ADD to think for that ...... im constantly distracted and i think that killed me in classes ...... but oddly enough only during math classes.... i was average in everything else....

ditto. For some reason I keep day dreaming in math class but in my other class I rarely do it. But also its so much harder for me to understand how to do the problems in math.

[Vuldari]

Pffffffftttt...

Just because something is difficult, does not mean it is a bad thing. Without a world full of people educated in complex mathmatics, the world as we know it would not exist. (...and the very concept of a "Virtual" meeting place like this where people from every corner of the globe can meet and talk as if we are in the same room would be impossible.)


...and I actually LIKED many of my Math teachers over the years. They were very intelligent, patient, helpful and kind when I was having trouble.
(...well...MOST of them, anyway...)


So many people are 'resistant' to taking the trouble to learn how to use mathmatics...but one must realise that if you were completely mathmatically illiterate, your life would suck.

[MoonKit]

I had a tendency to daydream during math too.

One kid in my class freshmen year described math as "the spawn of satan". My teacher got a kick out of that. But Vuldari is right. Just because you cant do something doesnt mean its evil.

[Set]

Just because you cant do something doesnt mean its evil.

Yes it does.

That's exactly the kind of thought that makes us human.

[Fang]

Damn humanity, But at least I'm not the only one who suffers at math.
It is evil

[Kisota]

Math! Whoo, there's my forte. NOT. I get A's, but it takes a lot more work. I can't even REMEMBER numbers, therefore I also have difficulties in social studies if dates need to be memorized.

I think all these "if" questions are fun, though. I like thinking of possibilities.

I've had some very good math teachers over the years. But...it's still not FUN.

I took Algebra I in eighth grade, and our teacher had little songs to help us remember things.

Like this one to the tune of YMCA.

"Eighth grade! We need to make a straight line, I said
Eighth grade! We will have a great time, I said
Eighth grade! Everything will be fine,
There's no need to worry.

-other boring verse-

Y = Mx +b!
Y = Mx + b!"

Yeah. Excuse the crappy abridged version. But, as you can see, it worked. I still remember the dorky song, and even the silly hand gestures.

/topic change!

[MoonKit]

I still remember the dorky song, and even the silly hand gestures.

Those hand gestures get you everytime! God, theres nothing better then your teacher calling a few kids up to do some stupid dance! Its totally degrading but so funny!

[White Paw]

I still remember the dorky song, and even the silly hand gestures.

Those hand gestures get you everytime! God, theres nothing better then your teacher calling a few kids up to do some stupid dance! Its totally degrading but so funny!

i guess i missed out on that one..... all my math teachers were compleate pricks, we had homework every night..........and we certainly didnt do any dances in classes..

[MoonKit]

I still remember the dorky song, and even the silly hand gestures.

Those hand gestures get you everytime! God, theres nothing better then your teacher calling a few kids up to do some stupid dance! Its totally degrading but so funny!

i guess i missed out on that one..... all my math teachers were compleate pricks, we had homework every night..........and we certainly didnt do any dances in classes..

My science teacher had a dance but my math teacher had a stupid song. Teachers are funny creatures.

What was this topic about? Oh yeah...the craziness mind blowingness that is the world we live in!

[Scott Gardener]

If you think math sucks, then you must hate living in a universe that follows the laws of physics.

[Set]

Math in and of itself doesn't suck. People who try to force me to learn it do.

[Fang]

Math in itself is easy, I just can't remember how to do it, it clicks after I have some help and then it's easy, but this is why math is so hard for me.
I need constant help while trying to get started, and the teacher just can't do that with 29 other kids Math also needs concentration, that is one thing I have little of.

[BlackWolfDS]

lol, ditto. After about an hour, I start to drift. There's no hard calculations yet (AP statistics). The only thing that keeps me awake and listening in that class is the teacher's corny jokes.

[Scott Gardener]

Math is a perfect example of the flaws of contemporary education. It's actually relatively easy, but they make it hard. They make you spend year after year doing basic stuff, when you could have easily have moved on to the more advanced stuff while you were still younger. Algebra and Calculus is no harder to learn than a lot of stuff we already learn. It's just made difficult by an underfunded education system that puts high school graduates in charge of teaching high school. If teachers were paid what they were worth and given a better education themselves, then they'd know not only the content itself but also how to convey it more easily and effectively.

I spent fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade learning and relearning how to add and subtract fractions. (If I had to find a least common multiple one more time, I'd carry a gun to school and go on a killing spree, too.) I got it the first time. I could have spent some of those four years getting a jump start on things like exponents, quantitative geometry / trigonometry, and the like. If we stopped treating it like some cryptic arcane wizardry that one must spend years of drudgery, mopping the floor before being allowed to open the first spell book, maybe those of us here in the United States wouldn't be so far behind India, Europe, and the rest of you in terms of engineering and science.

Higher math also teaches abstract thinking, and lays groundwork for understanding logic. Logic is something they don't teach at all. To most people, it's that thing Spock is always touting, that's somehow dehumanizing. In reality, logic could go a long way towards eliminating a lot of stupidity, opening doorways to more enlightened thinking.

Am I bugging you? I don't mean to bug ya. OK, Edge, play the blues... (guitar solo)

[Kisota]

Whoa. Scott, that sucks. I can't imagine how boring it would be to do the same sort of math every year.

I think that's improved, at least somewhat. In my old middle school, we'd take a test in seventh grade. If you missed less than...however many, you got to skip pre-algebra and go right to Algebra I the next year. It's great. I didn't have to waste my time with unnecesarry pre-algebra.

We're getting there....

[Scott Gardener]

It's frustrating to see intelligence wasted. It's doubly frustrating when it's your own. I remember applying to an advanced school that would have let me skip two grades, but one of the entrance exam questions involved fractional exponents. I could have solved the problem easily if someone simply had told me that x to the 1/2 is the same as the square root of x. Without that, I missed two or three questions, and it was a closely matched, highly competative thing. The people who went to the schools that offered more advanced classes--schools in larger cities--had the edge. Kids from smaller towns were out of luck, and I had to spend two years of my life going to school instead of living life.

I think of where I could be right now over that one little thing--two years closer to retirement, with two more years of income in the bank. By most people's standards, I'm ahead of the game. At the age of 33, I own a house and two cars, am married, and have four years of experience as a physician. There's other people my age who still live in their parents' basement. But, I still feel I could have done this two years earlier.

Yes, I know, in that other timeline, I could have had a nervous breakdown, been hit by a bus, never met my wife, and so on. But, two frigging years... It's like having a run-in with the Wraith from Stargate: Atlantis. (Deep, echoing voice...) Your kind is the least common denominator! (hand extended...) Ulgh!

[Lycanthrope]

I had a related experience, but it dates back to the kindergarden. As a member of the eldest group (age of 6) I could multiply already, but was made to add and subtract like everyone else were. In the early years of the primary school I asked my Mom about a symbol that turned out to be a root - something I was told at school few years later. I was somehow lucky that our schooling system doesn't allow skipping forwards, so it didn't matter much.

Luckily, it's the third year I study under my current maths teacher (I'm 18 now). He's extremely helpful and so keen on teaching us his subject that it can be disturbing sometimes. Nice man, very nice man overall. I've never seen him shouting or getting angry at all...

Anyway, could anyone show me some reliable source treating about american schooling system? I'd like to make a comparison.

[PariahPoet]

I want a mind-puppy.

[Moon_Lover]

Personally, I agree with you wholeheartedly, Scott.
There is also an aspect that has caused constant harassment to various students, and I have found out that it has gotten somewhat worse over the last few years: Homework.
While there is an obvious mandate to make sure that in a public school they have a set amount of time spent on school, and students occasionally need to memorize it, there is no need to spend such a continuous amount of time working on an item after business hours have finished. Allowing such exceptions would push at having people work after normal work hours have ended, ending in overworked people, and an inappropriate lack of personal communication. This leads to loss of socialization, and through it, loss of culture.
Humans need to push at helping their socialization before they end it altogether and become cold to one another. Maybe then, they can hopefully stop acting like utter idiots!
...
*Steps off soap box*