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Couldn't it simply be that you actually did have the right environment to learn math? Being poor might mean you couldn't have a tutor, but it doesn't mean you c

Couldn't it simply be that you actually did have the right environment to learn math? Being poor might mean you couldn't have a tutor, but it doesn't mean you couldn't concentrate. I always found distraction to be the real problem, and that can happen to rich kids as well.

Jensson 5y ago
> but it doesn't mean you couldn't concentrate You mean sitting in a classroom and listening/talking to people? Because that is all it takes. Edit: It is really irritating to me how so many people thinks it is impossible to grasp math by just sitting there. Look, there are so extremely few concepts to learn and you have many hundreds of hours of class time to learn it, how can you not learn during that time? Nobody told me to do work during class, so I didn't. Nobody told me to do homework, so I didn't. I just sat there, when they gave me a test I did it, the tests was the first time I ever tried to solve a problem and I solved them because I had seen how to solve similar problems during class. This strategy worked up to a masters level in physics/maths, so not just high school.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Did people really explain things to you at university? Where I went you were expected to read a lot on your own, and then you had a few hours of tutorials where you could ask some questions. For high school, you're basically right, there isn't that much content. But it's not like you're in a math class particularly long either. Few hours a week for a few dozen weeks a year, for a few years, and a fair bit of each class is getting everyone seated, telling people the homework, and reviewing the previous lesson. If you look at a math/science high school curriculum, you tend to just follow some book that's a few hundred pages, and it takes the whole year to do it. An engaged kid could read it all over a few evenings, per class. > It is really irritating to me how so many people thinks it is impossible to grasp math by just sitting there It's very easy to think you really understand something when someone's explaining it to you. Kinda like watching a show on Discovery. Then when it comes to solving problems, there's a fair chance that you're exposed. I found this a lot at university, there'd only be 10 questions but they were good ones that necessitated looking at a variety of sources and getting a real understanding. Often nobody I knew would be confident on all the answers, and this is kids that got into a world famous university.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > It's very easy to think you really understand something when someone's explaining it to you. Kinda like watching a show on Discovery. Then when it comes to solving problems, there's a fair chance that you're exposed. I didn't think about it though, I didn't assume I understood anything. Just that one day there is a test, I went to the test and answered everything as well I could. I didn't get everything right, I did a lot of stupid mistakes, but I got enough things right. I think that if you need to practice to do well on the tests then you don't understand the subject well. There comes a point where you feel you have perfect clarity of a topic, I just reach that level very fast. I am not always correct when I feel that way, but it was good enough. > Did people really explain things to you at university? Where I went you were expected to read a lot on your own, and then you had a few hours of tutorials where you could ask some questions. Right, higher level courses makes you do more independent work. But the courses people take for physics, CS or engineering are still very well explained. The courses you take to prepare for math research didn't go as well for the reasons you explained, I still passed them but with worse grades and started doing math research, but after I solved my first research problem and wrote about it I realized I didn't really like math that much and learned programming and got into Google instead. I figured that if I have to work on something I don't care about I can just as well earn a lot of money doing it. Just explaining things here to make my position more understandable. I always hated teachers who grades after how hard you work or how many boring practice problems you solve etc, so I have a strong distaste for any argument along those lines. "But you need to work hard to learn!", no you really don't. That is my point. Don't make me do boring stuff because you had to.
    - User23 5y ago
      The existence of so-called gifted persons such as yourself does present some difficulty to the blank slate crowd. Sadly, they appear to have settled on reducing or eliminating testing as well as tracking into gifted programs as a way to cut that gordian knot. Their alternative is more subjective measures, where I imagine at least some of your teachers would have been inclined to grade you poorly despite your grasp of the material. It’s disappointing, but also amusing. When I was in high school Harrison Bergeron was assigned reading. And it’s a great loss too, but one that most people won’t even notice. Observe how much skepticism your personal testimony gets from those who cannot even imagine what it’s like to have extremely high intelligence.

Jensson 5y ago

> but it doesn't mean you couldn't concentrate You mean sitting in a classroom and listening/talking to people? Because that is all it takes. Edit: It is really irritating to me how so many people thinks it is impossible to grasp math by just sitting there. Look, there are so extremely few concepts to learn and you have many hundreds of hours of class time to learn it, how can you not learn during that time? Nobody told me to do work during class, so I didn't. Nobody told me to do homework, so I didn't. I just sat there, when they gave me a test I did it, the tests was the first time I ever tried to solve a problem and I solved them because I had seen how to solve similar problems during class. This strategy worked up to a masters level in physics/maths, so not just high school.

lordnacho 5y ago
Did people really explain things to you at university? Where I went you were expected to read a lot on your own, and then you had a few hours of tutorials where you could ask some questions. For high school, you're basically right, there isn't that much content. But it's not like you're in a math class particularly long either. Few hours a week for a few dozen weeks a year, for a few years, and a fair bit of each class is getting everyone seated, telling people the homework, and reviewing the previous lesson. If you look at a math/science high school curriculum, you tend to just follow some book that's a few hundred pages, and it takes the whole year to do it. An engaged kid could read it all over a few evenings, per class. > It is really irritating to me how so many people thinks it is impossible to grasp math by just sitting there It's very easy to think you really understand something when someone's explaining it to you. Kinda like watching a show on Discovery. Then when it comes to solving problems, there's a fair chance that you're exposed. I found this a lot at university, there'd only be 10 questions but they were good ones that necessitated looking at a variety of sources and getting a real understanding. Often nobody I knew would be confident on all the answers, and this is kids that got into a world famous university.
- Jensson 5y ago
  > It's very easy to think you really understand something when someone's explaining it to you. Kinda like watching a show on Discovery. Then when it comes to solving problems, there's a fair chance that you're exposed. I didn't think about it though, I didn't assume I understood anything. Just that one day there is a test, I went to the test and answered everything as well I could. I didn't get everything right, I did a lot of stupid mistakes, but I got enough things right. I think that if you need to practice to do well on the tests then you don't understand the subject well. There comes a point where you feel you have perfect clarity of a topic, I just reach that level very fast. I am not always correct when I feel that way, but it was good enough. > Did people really explain things to you at university? Where I went you were expected to read a lot on your own, and then you had a few hours of tutorials where you could ask some questions. Right, higher level courses makes you do more independent work. But the courses people take for physics, CS or engineering are still very well explained. The courses you take to prepare for math research didn't go as well for the reasons you explained, I still passed them but with worse grades and started doing math research, but after I solved my first research problem and wrote about it I realized I didn't really like math that much and learned programming and got into Google instead. I figured that if I have to work on something I don't care about I can just as well earn a lot of money doing it. Just explaining things here to make my position more understandable. I always hated teachers who grades after how hard you work or how many boring practice problems you solve etc, so I have a strong distaste for any argument along those lines. "But you need to work hard to learn!", no you really don't. That is my point. Don't make me do boring stuff because you had to.
  - User23 5y ago
    The existence of so-called gifted persons such as yourself does present some difficulty to the blank slate crowd. Sadly, they appear to have settled on reducing or eliminating testing as well as tracking into gifted programs as a way to cut that gordian knot. Their alternative is more subjective measures, where I imagine at least some of your teachers would have been inclined to grade you poorly despite your grasp of the material. It’s disappointing, but also amusing. When I was in high school Harrison Bergeron was assigned reading. And it’s a great loss too, but one that most people won’t even notice. Observe how much skepticism your personal testimony gets from those who cannot even imagine what it’s like to have extremely high intelligence.