Thank you Kaslin.
The message of the OP should be made every day in the USA. I’m one of those who managed to graduate with a BS Degree without algebra skills. This was 35 years ago. It has always bothered me that I don’t posess math skills beyond the very basic.
I’ve made an attempt to correct this by first self-study of basic math and pre-algebra and now I’m taking elementary algebra at my local community college. At age 54, I’m one of the older students in the class, probably the oldest.
Almost everyone in my class above age 30 is in some sort of health care field and trying to advance. It is a shame that the public schools don’t stress math more and that we only get serious about it after we are sick of not having the skills that are necessary to achieve advanced knowledge in most technical fields.
The youngsters, those who are just out of high school seem to posess a serious attitude problem.
It’s not just an attitude problem, fatboy, it’s that “math is hard,” to quote my neighbor’s high school teenager.
When I was in high school just 10-15 years ago, we weren’t allowed to use calculators in math class. Our teachers were smart and assigned us the odd-numbered problems for math homework, because the even-numbered problems were solved in the back of the book.
*The trick here, I learned, was to DO the even-numbered problems to make sure that I had the concepts down, then do the homework. Yes... I did double my math homework, but I didn’t care.
Nowadays, kids can’t tell time on an analog clock. I had some kid ask me what time it was in the mall. I was on the phone with my fiancee and just flashed my watch at him. He looked at me and said, “Dude, I can’t read that.” No kidding.
Just a few weeks ago I was at a local Publix in the aisle where they sell beer. Miller started selling Miller Lite in 9-packs of 16 oz. beers (144 oz.). A very... white... gentleman with a very tanned neck *wink* went to grab a 12-pack of Miller Lite cans, and I stopped him.
I said, “You can get a 9-pack of 16 oz. cans for a dollar less than that 12-pack, and it’s the same amount of beer.” He looked at me cockeyed.
“That’s less than this here 12-pack, son,” he said to me.
I corrected him, “Actually, nine 16 oz. beers is 144 oz. as is twelve 12 oz. beers. It’s the same quantity for less!”
“That don’t make no sense,” he says, “Why would they sell the same product for less?”
He proceeded to the checkout with the 12-pack. Simple math.
I spent many a night banging my head against my dorm room wall over complex calculus problems for my engineering classes. I actually failed a course called Discrete Math three times. It dealt with path weighting and the like. Now that I work in IT and have actually drawn up network path weighting and priority diagrams, QoS, etc. I could probably ace the class.
The problem, as I see it, is a lack of two things: 1) motivation & 2) practical application. When I was in high school, I could relate to my math homework, because I was also a gearhead and a carpenter’s apprentice using math every day. I used to take apart microwaves and my Nintendo just because I could. I took joy in plugging my voltmeter into wall sockets to check output. I wired my first circuit breaker as a 13 year old. I was motivated to do well, because I wanted to continue to learn and build upon what I already knew; and I was practically applying my knowledge to my skills.
Kids today have smartphones, iPads, iPods, PS3, XBOX, cable TV, Facebook, YouTube, laptops, video games, etc. I tried to explain the very simple formula of Wattage = Amperage x Voltage when my neighbor’s teenager was trying to find a charger for his laptop. I explained to him that if he used one that put out too much amperage, it’ll fry his battery. He was more concerned with finding a charger with a plug that fit his laptop. His battery overheated while charging and melted the wires going to his wireless NIC. Now he wants me to fix it.
Sadly, future generations are going to be asking Asian kids to fix their problems. Ignorance truly is bliss.