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After a certain point, I homeschooled my kids. My oldest likes suffers dyscalculia. He really had a hard time with math in public school. My only goal in math w
by Mz 9y ago
After a certain point, I homeschooled my kids. My oldest likes suffers dyscalculia. He really had a hard time with math in public school. My only goal in math was to get him over his math phobia and teach him "math is your friend." That was it. Any actual math learned was just a bonus.
One day, I explained to him that in algebra, X was basically the exact same thing as the empty space in math problems and it made it easier to move it around. Instead of 2+2=_ you could put the "space" anywhere and it was more readable.
He had a fit. He realized had been doing algebra in his head for years to, for example, infer how much damage a particular attack did in a video game. And here books made it sound hard and alien and didn't explain it worth shit.
Maybe colleges need to up their game. Because Algebra really isn't that hard, but a lot of math is just terribly explained and, then, instead of blaming the materials or the professor, we act like the students are just dumb. Which sucks so very much.
- throwawayjava 9y agoDefinitely. Math is typically taught really, really poorly until at least university. It's not uncommon to find STEM phds who "hated math" before making it to or even past calculus. It's really funny how helpful the "_" or "cloud" trick is for kids. Even high school kids in AP Calculus find it helpful. There is a "hump" where "_" vs. "x" doesn't seem to help much, e.g. where we start working with polynomials as more abstract things and so on. I think the right approach there is to make a lot more use of computer algebra. The point is "here's a generic tool that's useful in lots of specific circumstances", but students get lost during hours of practicing the "useless generic tool" before seeing why that general tool is useful. Computer algebra systems can help there.