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Maths?

TheCatWoman

Are we Brits genetically bad at maths, poorly taught or what? It seems so many of us ND and NT really struggle with it and have done for years, so much so that it almost seems to be a point of national pride that we're collectively so bad at it.

All I know is that I'm terrible at it and couldn't pass a GCSE grade 3, even with special tutoring, it meant I failed my access course, luckily it didn't stop me going to uni because I didn't need maths for history. What makes it even worse is I seem unable to use a calculator either, I can put the same numbers in 3 times and get 3 different answers.

Parents

  • I think that maths, like foreign languages, is taught by and for people who have natural abilities in the subject. For me, maths was taught badly. I have zero interest in maths as maths, I get no satisfaction from solving maths problems per se. I do not find either numbers or equations beautiful. Maths was presented to me as, "there is a thing called simultaneous equations and this is it, this is how you apply it". Then we would spend an age doing simultaneous equation problems. It was tedious, dreary and meaningless.

    I really need to know 'why'. Why are simultaneous equations useful, why were they developed. Also, what real world problems do simultaneous equations help to solve? I really needed these explanations to make maths accessible to me and I never really received it. 

  • in reply to Martin

    Never really understood Fourier Transforms (or Laplace Transforms) as I couldn't see the point.
    Then some years ago realised FT are used in radio signal analysers so read it all again from an old maths book and it all made sense, only took 30 years to see the need for it.

    Laplace are used in electrical circuit analysis I believe (and other applications0). Have not looked at it in detail. But once there is an application I can see why it is is useful.

    Partial differential equations also confused me. It was always, "we can't really solve this, but we can get a solution if we guess it involves e and sin x, and it works". What?

    If I understand stuff I remember it. If I try to learn parrot fashion, it won't stick. I think this is why my maths plateaued many years ago. Also all the trigonometric identities confused me. Just seemed to be a requirement to fill my head with pointless info where the space could be better used for other real world stuff.

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  • in reply to Martin

    Never really understood Fourier Transforms (or Laplace Transforms) as I couldn't see the point.
    Then some years ago realised FT are used in radio signal analysers so read it all again from an old maths book and it all made sense, only took 30 years to see the need for it.

    Laplace are used in electrical circuit analysis I believe (and other applications0). Have not looked at it in detail. But once there is an application I can see why it is is useful.

    Partial differential equations also confused me. It was always, "we can't really solve this, but we can get a solution if we guess it involves e and sin x, and it works". What?

    If I understand stuff I remember it. If I try to learn parrot fashion, it won't stick. I think this is why my maths plateaued many years ago. Also all the trigonometric identities confused me. Just seemed to be a requirement to fill my head with pointless info where the space could be better used for other real world stuff.

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