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I used to hate maths. I am a relatively intelligent 18 year old and things like science, business and history come easily to me. About a year ago halfway throu

I used to hate maths. I am a relatively intelligent 18 year old and things like science, business and history come easily to me. About a year ago halfway through my IB diploma with me failing the maths part of it a number of things happened which have completely changed my perspective of maths. I started loving maths, reading about it outside of school and doing extremely well in the subject. The things that happened which caused this 180 degree turn: a) My teacher sat down with me and explained the WHY. It wasn't just formulas and rules but actual explanations that allowed me to approach problem questions with logic rather than a formula book. b) Khan Academy. The ability for me to go back to the very start and become proficient in the very basics of maths without looking like and idiot and at my own pace was amazing. Some people laughed when I started at the very bottom in khan academy and worked through most of the program but the things that I have learnt and were never taught to me (or I ignored them when they were taught) was just astounding. c) Choosing physics as my main science where I had to use maths to solve real world problems. When I discovered that maths could actually be used in real life to solve real problems I extremely motivated to read more about the formulas and their deeper roots. Now I have graduated high school and when ever younger kids ask me what they should do and focus on I tell them that they should focus on maths and make sure they understand everything when its taught because learning it later when you are on more advanced topics is extremely painful. I think the biggest problem school's today in relation to maths is that we are allowing people to move on in the curriculum with a maths score of 50%. In other subjects it doesn't matter because the content next year isnt based completely on the content of this year but in maths it does. If only I had been told in year 6,7,8,9,10 "You are going to have to repeat this year unless you improve you maths score". All it takes with maths is practice and giving kids a reason to learn it other than "you have to". Maths is one of the most amazing things I have ever come across in my (short) life and once I truly understood its power, my view of the world was never the same. Maybe my experience is unique but it truly think that many kids are suffering the problems as i had.

unimpressive 14y ago
The number of people who say something along the lines of "You shouldn't be able to move up without an understanding above ~60% of the grade level math." is seriously scaring me. The ability to move up past the broken system is important. Needing more assumes Math is being taught and not "math".
- redslazer 14y ago
  It would be fine if they were moving past the broken system to something better, this is sadly not the case. It really took someone telling me "Your doing great in all your other subjects but with this score in maths you wont get a diplom" to realise that I should probably go and learn the basics. As soon as the basics made sense , maths was fun and enjoyable (even without calculator).
- alexqgb 14y ago
  How can you "move past" not understanding mathematical concepts when they're essential to everything that follows? I mean that's the whole point of math - to provide an explanation in which every step is necessary, and understood to be necessary. If there's one class that should be Pass / Fail, this is it, and the bar for passing should be set VERY high. I agree that this would create problems, but those would fall squarely on the schools, who - as many others have mentioned - teach "math", not math.

unimpressive 14y ago

The number of people who say something along the lines of "You shouldn't be able to move up without an understanding above ~60% of the grade level math." is seriously scaring me. The ability to move up past the broken system is important. Needing more assumes Math is being taught and not "math".

redslazer 14y ago
It would be fine if they were moving past the broken system to something better, this is sadly not the case. It really took someone telling me "Your doing great in all your other subjects but with this score in maths you wont get a diplom" to realise that I should probably go and learn the basics. As soon as the basics made sense , maths was fun and enjoyable (even without calculator).
alexqgb 14y ago
How can you "move past" not understanding mathematical concepts when they're essential to everything that follows? I mean that's the whole point of math - to provide an explanation in which every step is necessary, and understood to be necessary. If there's one class that should be Pass / Fail, this is it, and the bar for passing should be set VERY high. I agree that this would create problems, but those would fall squarely on the schools, who - as many others have mentioned - teach "math", not math.