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I am beginning to think “I suck at math” less and more of “I’ll never be good at it”, from the comments on this thread. I absolutely despise grinding and drill

I am beginning to think “I suck at math” less and more of “I’ll never be good at it”, from the comments on this thread. I absolutely despise grinding and drilling uncontexualized and contrived problems and have never been able to maintain something stuff like that for very long. Which of course becomes problematic at I find myself interested in problems that require a decent grasp on some math.

Jtsummers 5y ago
The grinding is, by analogy, equivalent to the "reader" books in many languages. "See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot, run!" level and then up. It's very hard (for most people) to jump from "I now know the English alphabet" to "I can read any article in a literary magazine." Many people forget that they went through that process because they did it so young, but also because language (written and spoken) is far more pervasive than mathematics. This pervasiveness means that you have less "grinding" to do, because you get to learn just by being in the environment the language is used in (if it's your native language, or if you can afford or are otherwise forced to move into an environment where it's the local native language). Unless you're like me as a kid, you don't look around and start counting, adding, and multiplying based on the objects or scenes that you see, and "thinking in numbers". Thus the need for grinding, you need some math fluency (which takes practice to develop and maintain, like any other domain) before you can move on to more advanced topics (at least easily). If you lack fluency, even at a low level, then you have to do a refresher every time you try and get to something moderately advanced. Which is frustrating, at least, if not demotivating to the point of causing most people to stop. The more fluent you are, the easier it is to pick up an arbitrary advanced topic (at least to read, if not to apply or extend).

Jtsummers 5y ago

The grinding is, by analogy, equivalent to the "reader" books in many languages. "See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot, run!" level and then up. It's very hard (for most people) to jump from "I now know the English alphabet" to "I can read any article in a literary magazine." Many people forget that they went through that process because they did it so young, but also because language (written and spoken) is far more pervasive than mathematics. This pervasiveness means that you have less "grinding" to do, because you get to learn just by being in the environment the language is used in (if it's your native language, or if you can afford or are otherwise forced to move into an environment where it's the local native language). Unless you're like me as a kid, you don't look around and start counting, adding, and multiplying based on the objects or scenes that you see, and "thinking in numbers". Thus the need for grinding, you need some math fluency (which takes practice to develop and maintain, like any other domain) before you can move on to more advanced topics (at least easily). If you lack fluency, even at a low level, then you have to do a refresher every time you try and get to something moderately advanced. Which is frustrating, at least, if not demotivating to the point of causing most people to stop. The more fluent you are, the easier it is to pick up an arbitrary advanced topic (at least to read, if not to apply or extend).