Actually...some of us are not math people. I can’t play pool unless my husband points at the ball and the shot.
I lost my kid in sixth grade math.. but the way that math is taught now is non sensical. My school went with new math in the early 70’s... I was toast.
Not that I am sympathizing with this dirtbag... I did Minor in Economics and had a great GPA. Lemme tell ya this dweeb couldn’t pass Econ 101... Paul Samuelson..still have the text.
“My school went with new math in the early 70s... I was toast.”
My late life sister in law got hit with that “new math” and we were baby sity with her and I helped her with it.
You have to know all forms of math to decipher it, they take them and toss them in a bag, shake and hope the parents can’t help the kid!!!!
I finally told her to seperate the problem into sections solve it and after she has the answer go back and write it in terms that the teacher would accept!!!
I can see no purpose for it other than to make sure that parents can’t help the student!!!!
They have tried to revisit this atrocity several times over the decades, as "conceptual math," and various other educationist approaches under new names. They could've done less damage to the country with a nuclear bomb or two; we now have several lost generations of kids.
Truly educated people need to understand algebra, geometry, trig, and at least some concepts from Calculus. I don't believe you can claim to be an educated person if you don't. In the 1970's, even liberal arts curricula required one Calculus course; algebra and trigonometry -- even in humanities were considered remedial -- for a BA/BS and did not qualify.
Now colleges are talking about dropping math requirements altogether. It's a mistake. There's no such thing as someone who can't do math. There are just bad teachers and bad methodologies.
Samuelson was a dweeb, too. Won the Nobel Prize, too.
Samuelson was a quack, earning royalties for filling American undergraduate heads with mush.
“I lost my kid in sixth grade math”.
My condolences.
Its my settled opinion that educationists intentionally mystify their subjects to prevent parents from being able to critique their teachers and maintain the respect of their children. I have an engineering degree which I earned back when every Tom, Dick and Harry didnt go to college. But some of the nomenclature they use now . . .I was chatting with an old friend recently, and I remembered that he had said he had never been able to understand math. Now as the subject comes up, maybe the fact that he was in school ten years later than I meant that he had new math and his problem wasnt altogether his fault. In any event, I can recommend a solution to math phobia:
khanacademy.orgA free math education for anyone interested in learning it. I mentioned it to my friend, and hope he will enjoy it (since hes retired, he certainly doesnt need it).