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Yet, as someone teaching electronics and programming to art students, many of whom "hate maths" there are many people who would have understood it in school if

by atoav 2y ago

Yet, as someone teaching electronics and programming to art students, many of whom "hate maths" there are many people who would have understood it in school if it was explained right and/or if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place. The truth is that many math teachers suck. I had a math teacher that managed to do integrals with us for a year without ever explaining to us (in a school specialized on mechanical engineering) what real world problems would be impossible to solve without it.

WalterBright 2y ago
> if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place Being bad at math means you'll likely not manage your finances very well, and that will hurt. I saw a documentary recently on Netflix (or Amazon?) on what happens to athletes who became overnight millionaires. Very few managed to hold on to that wealth very long. Some pretty sad stories.
- atoav 2y ago
  Do you have kids? Telling them their finances are a reason for learning maths is bullshit, because not every person that age has to worry about their finances. And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral. As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods. The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I've seen 'em right up through high school saying that there was no purpose to learning math, and that math wasn't "relevant". And then they go into the workforce and mismanage their finances into perpetual poverty. I also see them choose college majors apparently on the basis of avoiding all contact with math, and wind with degrees that employers aren't interest in. Your hero story worked, good on ya! I would have related the true story of hiring a contractor to build an elliptical patio. He charged by the square foot. He laid it out, and had the bricks delivered. Something seemed off. I measured the L+W+H of the brick pallet, and the volume of one brick, and computed the area the bricks would cover. Then, measured the L+W of the patio layout, and used the area for an ellipse formula. The bricks was the right number for the area, but the area was only 2/3 of the area he quoted me and charged me for. I nicely inquired about the discrepancy, and he hemmed a bit and said he'd made a mistake, and adjusted the bill accordingly. Of course, we both knew he tried to cheat me, quite egregiously. I figure he did this regularly and got away with it with his math challenged customers. I recall a documentary about a famous entrepreneur who made a lot of money in high school by gambling with other teens who did not comprehend the odds. Sure, finance doesn't interest a 6 year old. But I've never heard of a teen who didn't want to have money in their pocket, and who looked forward to being taken advantage of. Even the unruly ones. I don't agree that finances are bullshit reasons for learning math. P.S. In high school, I joined a poker game with some peers who I knew had engaged in fencing stolen goods. They cleaned me out. I knew enough about poker odds to realize they were card cheats, but I didn't see how they were doing the cheat. It was a cheap lesson for me :-/ The most effective scams are the ones where the mark doesn't realize he was cheated, and will come back for more. I didn't return to poker.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
      In high school writing software brought me a lot of money, way more than my peers, it was very welcome
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I just talked about this with a friend of mine who related a story about a teacher friend of his in a low-income school. Lots of gang violence, standard rough neighborhood. A kid asked the usual "why do I need to learn algebra?" question. The teacher replied "If you want to stay poor, you don't have to." The kid got the message. There you go, an anecdote to match yours!
Symbiote 2y ago
> I had a math teacher that managed to do integrals with us for a year without ever explaining to us (in a school specialized on mechanical engineering) what real world problems would be impossible to solve without it. Did you not ask?
- Doxin 2y ago
  Have you ever been in a math class -- or any class -- where someone didn't ask what the point was?
- atoav 2y ago
  I sure did. She said it doesn't matter, or we don't need to understand right now. As I said, shw was not a good teacher. As an educator myself the point I am trying to make here is that the why is crucial in complicated topics and if someone who was mentally there even feels the need to ask the why you should probably reconsider the way you chose to teach things. I vividly remember the moment when I researched integeals for an exam. I found the typical simple examples and wondered why the hell that teacher didn't mention this once. In fact today I am convinced the right way to teach such topics is to always bring up the examples even (or especially) as you dive deeper into the material. This reminds people what they are actually dealing with.

by atoav 2y ago

WalterBright 2y ago

> if someone gave them a good motivation why they should bother understanding it in the first place Being bad at math means you'll likely not manage your finances very well, and that will hurt. I saw a documentary recently on Netflix (or Amazon?) on what happens to athletes who became overnight millionaires. Very few managed to hold on to that wealth very long. Some pretty sad stories.

atoav 2y ago
Do you have kids? Telling them their finances are a reason for learning maths is bullshit, because not every person that age has to worry about their finances. And even if you choose that as a story you will have a hard time explaining to them why they need to learn trigonometry or something like the aforementioned integral. As an educator I have found most people don't really need a hard rational incentive to learn a thing. All they need is a story that convinces them to learn that. E.g. when I helped unruly teens with their homework and they had an abstract geometric problem to solve, it costed me literally nothing to come up with some story of how they comanding the knights in a castle and to prevent their enemey from entering they have to figure out how much material they need to chop in the woods. The same boring problem suddenly was tied to a heroic story of them saving the day and oh wonder, they were more interested in solving the issue.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I've seen 'em right up through high school saying that there was no purpose to learning math, and that math wasn't "relevant". And then they go into the workforce and mismanage their finances into perpetual poverty. I also see them choose college majors apparently on the basis of avoiding all contact with math, and wind with degrees that employers aren't interest in. Your hero story worked, good on ya! I would have related the true story of hiring a contractor to build an elliptical patio. He charged by the square foot. He laid it out, and had the bricks delivered. Something seemed off. I measured the L+W+H of the brick pallet, and the volume of one brick, and computed the area the bricks would cover. Then, measured the L+W of the patio layout, and used the area for an ellipse formula. The bricks was the right number for the area, but the area was only 2/3 of the area he quoted me and charged me for. I nicely inquired about the discrepancy, and he hemmed a bit and said he'd made a mistake, and adjusted the bill accordingly. Of course, we both knew he tried to cheat me, quite egregiously. I figure he did this regularly and got away with it with his math challenged customers. I recall a documentary about a famous entrepreneur who made a lot of money in high school by gambling with other teens who did not comprehend the odds. Sure, finance doesn't interest a 6 year old. But I've never heard of a teen who didn't want to have money in their pocket, and who looked forward to being taken advantage of. Even the unruly ones. I don't agree that finances are bullshit reasons for learning math. P.S. In high school, I joined a poker game with some peers who I knew had engaged in fencing stolen goods. They cleaned me out. I knew enough about poker odds to realize they were card cheats, but I didn't see how they were doing the cheat. It was a cheap lesson for me :-/ The most effective scams are the ones where the mark doesn't realize he was cheated, and will come back for more. I didn't return to poker.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    In high school writing software brought me a lot of money, way more than my peers, it was very welcome
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I just talked about this with a friend of mine who related a story about a teacher friend of his in a low-income school. Lots of gang violence, standard rough neighborhood. A kid asked the usual "why do I need to learn algebra?" question. The teacher replied "If you want to stay poor, you don't have to." The kid got the message. There you go, an anecdote to match yours!

Symbiote 2y ago

> I had a math teacher that managed to do integrals with us for a year without ever explaining to us (in a school specialized on mechanical engineering) what real world problems would be impossible to solve without it. Did you not ask?

Doxin 2y ago
Have you ever been in a math class -- or any class -- where someone didn't ask what the point was?
atoav 2y ago
I sure did. She said it doesn't matter, or we don't need to understand right now. As I said, shw was not a good teacher. As an educator myself the point I am trying to make here is that the why is crucial in complicated topics and if someone who was mentally there even feels the need to ask the why you should probably reconsider the way you chose to teach things. I vividly remember the moment when I researched integeals for an exam. I found the typical simple examples and wondered why the hell that teacher didn't mention this once. In fact today I am convinced the right way to teach such topics is to always bring up the examples even (or especially) as you dive deeper into the material. This reminds people what they are actually dealing with.