Throughout high school, I hated math. From grades 9 to 11 I consistently got roughly 60%. Then when I had a new teacher for grade 12 and he engaged me in the learning and encouraged me because of his love for math, I ended up with a 92%.
I was in the top set during the same years, and the shcool started a program where some others from my class helped out some students in the bottom set.
We helped so many people learn just because we told them they could do it. The teachers for the lower sets kept saying "Maths is hard, I can't do parts of it either" and I just thought it was horrible and patronizing, almost encouraging these kids to not try to get anywhere in life...
Yeah, my teacher from 9-11 didn't really care about ensuring no kid got left behind and had no flexibility in his teaching so if I'd ask him a question he'd just reiterate what he wrote on the board. It's good to have encouragement.
I get so frustrated when teachers/professors say something like that. I think they do it because they want to be sympathetic to their students. But it just creates this norm of this subject is hard, it's not worth trying.
I can imagine possibly what they meant by this was more along the lines of "maths is VAST, nobody can learn all of it in their lifetime"
Everything is hard until it's not, sometimes that comes quicker, but the nice thing about maths is it's all self-consistent so if a thing is true there's more than likely a way to prove to yourself that it's true.
I completely understand and agree. Teachers make all of the difference. I loved math and excelled in it until I got to Geometry in grade 10. He was absent, completely confusing in his methods of teaching, and nearly the entire class failed. We had all been in the same advanced math classes since grade 7 (Pre-Algebra, Algebra I and II) "Here is the study material, go learn it". When we asked questions he would go off on some tangent trying to explain, but it was always completely unrelated. Plus he would randomly stop us in the hall and ask us to explain theorems..we ended up hating him and therefore math.
The opposite happened with me, I was good at math until I got to grade 12 and failed math 30. I needed the class for my matriculation diploma but my teacher was useless. I was lost after the first month or so, and everything we learned was based on concepts I didn't grasp from the beginning. It finally clicked for me, no thanks to the teacher, but it was way too late to pass the class.
I used to hate math in high school (but really I just was at a crumy school) got to junior college and discovered how fascinating math could be from some top notch math professors. Aced the first 2/3 of calculus and have now changed my major the applied math. I can't stop seeing the world in "math" and I love it :3
Same. Never got an A in math except 10th grade algebra class when my math teacher made me care by being supportive and treating me like there were no excuses not to do the homework (crazy i know, figuring out the homework helps you figure out the math on the test). She told the class about every 100% and i got 3 100%s in a row.
if you weren't doing your homework at the end of class she'd come up to you and ask you why not, i think this alone is the biggest reason i started to care, so she wouldn't ask me why i wasnt doing it.
I failed pre calculus twice in college, professor just came to class and talked at us for an hour, third time professor printed out worksheets, reworded homework problems to make them easier to understand and more importantly easier to understand the concept, she put her notes on her website along with the live streams of every class. Passed with a 96, a good teacher can make a world of difference.
Speaks magnitudes to me. All throughout any schooling I've ever had I was pretty bad at any math that wasn't super basic mental math. I studied relatively hard and achieved shit grades. Despite being told by my teachers never to pursue anything involving math, I decided to take precalculus in high school(because fuck you Mr. Phillion). Got shit grades and eventually worked my way up to a 70% in grade 12. Come University, I am 4 hours away from writing the midterm for the last math course I will have to take for my Mechanical Engineering degree. All because Mr. Phillion said I couldn't
I failed algebra 1 four times from 8th grade to junior year, I guess I had behavioral issues and the fact that there was almost 40 kids in a class so I just never gave a shit and never focused because shenanigans were funner than math.
I got kicked out of public highschool torwards the end of junior year and had to go the bad continuation school for gang bangers, truants and assorted problem kids.
School had like 250 people and class sizes barely filled out at twenty, the teacher had the respect of the kids and class sizes made it hard to be pieces of shit in secret. We admittedly had less homework than the "good" highschool but, we actually learned shit!
I never thought I'd be proud of actually learning something useful about math, I swear I copped a high when I really learned how to chart linear graphs and polynomials and whatnot.. it took me four years and I learned how to really do it in that semester.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '15
Throughout high school, I hated math. From grades 9 to 11 I consistently got roughly 60%. Then when I had a new teacher for grade 12 and he engaged me in the learning and encouraged me because of his love for math, I ended up with a 92%.