LOL, you have no idea how much that made my head swell to read your post (after I got over the embarrassment of my initial post!)
If you only knew, if you ONLY knew how much difficulty I had with math growing up. I went to summer school for many years, which is about the most depressing and discouraging thing for a kid.
My mother tried so hard to tutor me. They hired some poor Electrician’s Mate (my dad was a Naval officer) to tutor me, and all I could do was put my head on the desk.
I wanted to go to Medical School when I was in High School, but knew I would never be able to go to college at all for any scientific degree because I could not even add or subtract fractions when I graduated from High School. So I joined the Navy.
I got assigned to work with a civilian who was aboard the ship because of a research project they were doing with our squadron’s planes, a wonderful young guy who also was teaching college level math to sailors on the ship. He asked me what I was going to do when I got out of the Navy, and when I said I wanted to go to college but couldn’t do math, he offered to tutor me (because we spent nearly all day together anyway)
He broke the mental block I had (and I was ready to break it) and I passed his course with a “B”, the highest grade I had ever received in any math course up to that point (I had one “C” to my credit, the rest were “D” and mostly “F”!)
I ended up getting a double major degree in Chemistry and Nuclear Medicine, both of which took a lot of advanced math (particularly Physical Chemistry, which nearly killed me!)
I never got to thank that man. Some years later, when the Internet made such things possible, I found his name and address, and sent him a long, heartfelt letter, telling him just how much he had changed my life. I never heard back from him, but always hoped that letter found its way to him. One person can make so much difference in a person’s life, and he made a big difference in mine.
I will forever be grateful to him.
I OTOH was the guy who liked taking tests in HS because that meant no homework. The two guys ahead of me in HS class standing both ended up as Ivy League professors. But you know what? For all the time I spent in school seeing other kids struggle with what to me was straightforward, I meet those same people today and they all made their way in life quite well, thank you very much.You would never think it, in school when so many of them (let’s face it, statistically half of them) were below average. But in general they did fine. So one conclusion to draw is that school is a hothouse environment for some, and a terrible environment for others. It just shows them to terrible disadvantage, and it’s not fair.
At our last HS class reunion, Charlie T. stood up and bemoaned that very thing. He had pulled up the rear, try as he might, he just didn’t get it. Nothing about school made sense to him, and his diploma was a gift. Ended up, he went into the Navy and got pidgeonholed in a place where he would do technical stuff or he would pull very undesirable duty. The upshot was that he ended up writing a couple of manuals for the Navy. Came out the other end OK.
You just have to wonder how he - how you - would have done using the Khan Academy videos. Anything woulda been worth a try, right?
“. . . you have no idea how much that made my head swell to read your post . . .”
How wonderful to have been able to trigger such a wonderful response. Thank you for sharing.
I felt strongly that it was important to post what I did, in the format that I used.
Loved your ‘story’ and appreciate the effort you made to learn Math. Feel free to send me a ‘off forum’ message any time you want but it is not necessary. My obligation is fulfilled. But your story was very interesting and I would like to hear more.
T.L.