Are you good at maths?

I'm terrible at maths, especially when it comes to working things out in my head. I found I improved when I got a personal tutor in high school, but there were some concepts I just never managed to wrap my head around (like long division).

Arithmetic-good

Algebra - average

Geometry - poor to very poor

The abstract side of maths, I was always pretty good at, and I spend quite a bit of time turning equations into computer algorithms in the sound processing code that's one of my hobbies. I got my 'A' level without having to sweat too much (doing both Applied Maths and Physics conveniently meant there was a bit less to learn!)

Mental arithmetic, I'm absolutely hopeless at, though. Unless I write down my working out, I can mess up just adding a couple of two digit numbers very easily. I don't have any problem with number recognition; I think it's more that I always seem to have too many thoughts cluttering up my working memory - I make a lot of mistakes carrying over to the next digit. I also quite often have to work forwards or backwards through different multiples to double-check that I've remembered my times tables correctly.

I'm a maths teacher 

well maths was my thing at school. I got 2 years ahead in class and helped my 2 year older brother with his homework. Got my maths A levels Pure and Applied when 16, but terrible with social skills and now in deep mess with legal issues related to poor understanding of social matters. Self diagnosed autism but high achiever, but now official confirmation aged 64 years

Good is a relative term.  One can appear good when the people around one are truly awful.

I was good at maths throughout my up and down school career without making any effort.

And being good, caused endless problems.

I was moved into a normal middle school after my stay at a 'special school'/insane lunatic asylum is a better description.  I arrived a few weeks after term had started and I was immediately placed in the bottom maths set.  I enjoyed my stay in that maths class and I didn't have any problems. I actually fitted in.  In the end of year exams I came top by a big margin.  And I was moved to the middle maths class for the following year.   But, the boy who came second wasn't moved and he really was upset. He blamed me, for holding him back.  If I hadn't been there, then he would have been top and he would have been promoted. Despite being in the same class in other subjects, he never spoke to me again.

A month in the middle maths class, I came top in a maths test again by a massive margin. And I got promoted to the top maths class.  And we had a repeat performance,  the girl who was second, behind me in the test went ballistic.  Blamed me for stealing her place in the top class, she refused to work in the middle class, started a petition to get moved to the top class.  The irony of the whole situation was that I would have preferred to stay in the bottom or middle classes because they were relaxed and had a friendly atmosphere.  The top class was overcrowded and impersonal. 

So glad to see this thread and would like to add to it. One of my great disappointments with myself is I've never been good at math. I'm technical minded- have been an electronics engineer first part of my life (so much terrible trouble and stress getting through the theory qualifications for that). I love science too, but the math just does not compute :( 

I love doing statistics though, this is the crazy thing.

I also think that in recent year I've developed Dyscalculia. I'm definately starting to jumble numbers up.

They have all had the phones since they went to senior school, year 7 so that if they had any problem getting home etc they could contact us.  They have never been told not to use them but it hasn't been encouraged and they don't see us on them very much. 

I think the pressure on parents must be tremendous.  I know my niece, who resisted with her two boys (9 and 14) for a long time has now given in.  She insists on rationing their use indoors, though - and absolutely no use at family mealtimes.  Maybe some parents have no quality time with their kids because the kids are always on their phones or computers.  Anything for a quiet life. 

Uh-oh!!!

To coin a phrase. Are theparents giving g the phones out to their kids as pacifiers or chimdmi details!

Just reading a piece in a news magazine. 

1 in 4 children under the age of 6 now own a smartphone, according to a survey by the digital retailer MusicMagpie.  Almost half of those that do spend over 20 hours a week on it.

It could be the ones who cannot keep away from them have other issues at home, parents who have no quality time with them and so on. 

My children have phones but they are hardly ever on them. The 2 youngest 16 and 19 both girls probably have left them in their bedrooms and at least one of them will have no charge. They have face book accounts but very rarely use them and you are more likely to find them reading, making something or playing a board game than using any thing electronic.

Xanadu said:

I just think the lack of social skills make us look silly and that gets projected back at us often enough that we start believing it and taking it on board  I think my intelligence is probably entirely useless in a neurotypical world.  My brain works so so so fast and takes in the entire picture of everything and they just can't keep up and as I try to explain it makes ME look like the silly one but actually it's them and oh man oh man it's so frustrating . . . the speed of thinking of neurotypicals really really frustrates me :( 

Yes, I know what you mean.  I sometimes wonder what use my intelligence is at all!  I mean, what do I apply it to that serves me in any practical way, apart from being able to get through the usual daily round?  Driving, doing my job, preparing meals, cleaning, shopping.  I don't have the focus to learn anything properly.  I get bored and distracted far too easily.  The things that are my main interests - writing and digital artwork - are things that I can get fully absorbed in, and which give me pleasure and a sense of fulfillment.  But they aren't things I can build a career on or make a living out of (though I've tried).  I know - from what people have told me and from what I know about myself - that I'm sharp and witty.  It's not exactly spontaneous repartee, but I can be pretty quick with a rejoinder.  And the more knowledge I have, the more I can make those creative connections in my head.  I think being at university certainly enhanced that ability, because it was three years of full-on learning - an experience I hadn't had before and haven't repeated since.  I think it was having that imperative hanging over me that helped me there.  And it left me with a huge curiosity about many things - but not the application to actually sit down and learn them.  That's why, as I've said elsewhere, I feel like my head is a scrapbook.  I flit around like a gadfly.  It's the same with work.  I've had dozens of jobs in my life, ranging from 2 weeks to 5 years.  An average, probably, of 8 months per job.  The idea of being in one place for too long - I just can't envision it, and never have been able to.  It's actually become worse as I've gotten older, too.  Over the last 12 years, I've had 11 jobs (though mainly in care).  Some employers like that, because it shows a broad base of skills and experience.  But it means I'm still effectively where I was 12 years ago income-wise.  I'm 58 now and have 9 years until I retire.  I don't think, in that time, I'm likely to improve much on my current standard of living (unless I get a book deal!  Hah!).  Not that it bothers me too much.  I enjoy a minimalist life.  Too much stuff is stressful.  I could happily live in a small motorhome, if I could afford one.  Hit the road and go.  And if it broke down... then fill up a back pack and become a rubber tramp.

The NT world in general frustrates me.  The more I see of it, the gladder I am to be as I am.  I like being on the outside, looking in.  For years, though, it screwed me up.  But I've never really been a joiner in any sense.  I have no faith, no political party membership (though I have principles), no wish to belong to any club or clique.  I don't understand the fixations with fashion, status, etc.  I hate the bunker mentality in political discourse.  It puzzles me why people want to slavishly follow trends, belief systems, teams, countries, and so on.

Yeah... not much use in an NT world, my intelligence...

I just think the lack of social skills make us look silly and that gets projected back at us often enough that we start believing it and taking it on board  I think my intelligence is probably entirely useless in a neurotypical world.  My brain works so so so fast and takes in the entire picture of everything and they just can't keep up and as I try to explain it makes ME look like the silly one but actually it's them and oh man oh man it's so frustrating . . . the speed of thinking of neurotypicals really really frustrates me :( 

If I am reading something interesting or working on a painting I can leave the phone alone. But I know how tempting they are. 

There was an experiment done in the States with a group of kids, 14-25, same age I teach: they were asked to go cold turkey for eight hours off their phones and computers. They had to abandon the experiment. Only two boys could stay off it for more than 3 hours because they were painting their planes. The girls though were starting to threaten suicide. 

nexus9 said:

less thrilled to see how terminally it distracts some of the kids in the classes I teach. 

Yes.  I was reading that Melinda Gates's children don't have smartphones and only use a computer in the kitchen. Her husband Bill spends hours in his office reading books while everyone else is refreshing their homepage. The most sought-after private school in Silicon Valley, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, bans electronic devices for the under-11s and teaches the children of eBay, Apple, Uber and Google staff to make go-karts, knit and cook. Mark Zuckerberg wants his daughters to read Dr Seuss and play outside rather than use Messenger Kids. Steve Jobs strictly limited his children's use of technology at home.

I have to own up and say I hate what the technology has done to society in general. People now seem to be permanently distracted by the devices.  It interferes with concentration, work, etc.  My colleagues at work are nearly all of the generations who've grown up with the technology and can't live without it.  We're not supposed to use our phones at work, but that doesn't stop them.  They're not doing their job properly.  It needs the managers to come down hard on them, but they tend to turn a blind eye.  They're meant to be there to do a job, not spend much of the day - as several of them do - fixated on social media, or checking dating apps.

On the other hand - the technology is designed to be addictive, and it certainly works.  Even some older people I know, in their 40s and 50s, are lost without their phones.

I have always been hopeless at maths. Slow, and easily confused. English was another matter, I was tested for IQ more than once and according to the school psychologist, scored very high, though I was never told what this score was. I was three or four years ahead of my classmates anyway and was also considered gifted at languages, though somehow I did not reach the levels of proficiency I could have hoped for. My comprehension skills always seem to lag, do speak at varying levels, four other languages. 

So my skills were uneven and the trouble with all this is still that for every gift, there seems to be something I am slower at that will trip me up.

I have always been fascinated by small gadgets and loved my very first Sharp pocket computer, graduating to Psion, then a Mio 550. But then one ofy students came to class in 2006 with her i-phones.....

No I don't programme or anything like it, I do find smartphone technology exciting, less thrilled to see how terminally it distracts some of the kids in the classes I teach. 

I am good at most maths (although I really struggled with my first year university applied maths unit probably because I didn't do physics at school.) My parents were both accountants though so it is in my blood - they used to keep me occupied as a youngster by giving me columns of numbers to add up.

Pure Maths was my favourite subject at school. Algebra just makes so much sense, creating rules, abstracting the real world out into the world of numbers and formulae to manipulate at will. I work in Computing now and everyday is algebra and variables. Big smiley face.