Learned in School/ Once Thought Unimportant

I have only a smattering of Latin and of French--but what I have is useful for Crossword puzzles.

I hated anything to do with maths in school. It was always my worst subject. See, every teacher (and other adults, too) kept telling me how important math was. Nobody ever told me that playing with numbers and similar concepts was fun! I would have taken to it like duck to water if only somebody had said, "This is more fun than those crossword puzzles you do every day, more fun than Scrabble, more fun than chess, even." Anybody said that, why, I'd probably be solving equations now instead of wasting my time reading books and doing the NYTimes crossword.

I do wish I'd gotten hooked on math. It's only in my dotage that I'm begining to realize I can grasp the concepts easily; they just never had any fascination for me.

I think that one of the problems is the way that some of the "dry" sciences and math are taught. If young people were given concepts, instead of boring formulas to memorize, I think that these subjects would hold much more interest for them. I am talking now about the general student, not the ones who need the more involved courses for their degree.

I went back to college in my 30s. I had never DARED taken physics. After I graduated, and did not have to worry about exams, I took a course in conceptual physics (Physics for Dummies ) on a non-credit basis. I had a blast. I learned such fascinating stuff!

When I was in high school, I had the vague feeling that if I didn't grasp something immediately, it was beyond me. I mean, wasn't studying and working somehow related to cheating?

Without math you're lost.
I once had a carpenter give me an estimate on installing
hardwood floors in a bedroom. He didn't know how to figure
out the square footage and make the connection to how
much wood he needed and what the materials would cost.
Granted, he wasn't really in the market of installing hardwood
floors but these are basic math projects anyone should
know.

I was taught the metric system and the biggest challenge
for me was when I had things shipped overseas and tried
to figure out the cubic feet vs. cubic cm I would need for
my shipment, since the prices are calculated by cubic feet.

maybe your carpenter didn't know what a square foot was because he had his flat foot around ( a round).

Even if you are not in business, you need to know math. What about balancing your checkbook, figuring out a budget, or filling out your (you should pardon the expression) IRS forms!

You all might appreciate the fact that the way math is taught is changing, at least where I live. I'm a junior and I take the ordinary old math courses (algebra !, geometry, alg II, etc) where they just spit out the formula and you have to do the problems with the notes you take every day. In the younger grades, they're beginning this course called Integrated Math where students get problems, have to solve it themselves, and then get helpful formulas after working on the problems, so the concept is already learned. I think it's a cool idea.

I'm reminded of a conversation yesterday I had with one of the Fringes of Mr. Noddy's Family.

She was justifying an extra on her cable account--Only $30 a month. I asked her how much that would be a year--and she couldn't work it out without pencil and paper.

Why, why, why are the Twelve Times tables no longer taught?

RBHSwr17- Sounds wonderful. It would be great if all the school systems had courses like that. It is such a pity that many teachers actually turn off students through teaching math in a boring fashion.

Don1- I think that older people sharing their experiences with the younger folks is just marvelous. Kids are loath to believe their parents. When they hear the information from perfect strangers, I would think that it would have much more of an impact.

Young people- Don't waste your student years fooling around in school. Study hard, and make like a sponge in school. You may not understand the future impact of what you are learning now, but you will, later on in life. It is so sad when you hear an older person say, "If only I had paid more attention in such and such a class"!

With all respect, I think some of you are missing my point. Noddy, for example, laments that the multiplication tables are no longer taught. Phoenix points out how important it is to know math for practical reasons. But that's why I hated math to begin with. Every adult told me how important it was to be able to compute your change at the store and to figure out how much a percentage would come to etc. etc. etc. I couldn't have cared less. Practical stuff? Who needed it? I learned the multiplication tables against my will, Noddy, and that certainly didn't endear the concept of mathematics to me. Learning anything by rote is, to me, a meaningless exercise in improving one's memory. Now, if somebody had taken the time to explain to me why five times five equals twenty-five, to show me what multiplication is about, that might have made a difference. To simply remember a bunch of tables, or, later, a bunch of formulas was totally without meaning for me. You all seem to be stressing the practical aspect of math. Well, that's exactly what my teachers stressed and that's exactly why I hated it.

My fave subjects where maths, accounting, business admin and english. A lot of the time I found school a drudgery but I was a bit of a swot so I did okay. Now I work in a field that makes me rely on the tools I learned in each of those subjects - I do a lot of analysis, difficult calculations and manage a wide variety of complex transactions, as well as having to explain and present it in professional (and plain) language to clients. I ended up being quite a multi-tasker. If I had not had to juggle all the courses and heavy workload at school that I did, then I could never have managed a job like this. The subjects and tools I brought with me were handy but the stick-to-it and take-pride-in-my-work attitude has been a good lesson learned too.

I wish I had taken physics in high school, but I chose biology instead. That was actually pretty enjoyable, and to this day, whenever someone uses that hoary chestnut "learning by osmosis", I can correct them and say that "diffusion" is more accurate. I always did poorly in math, but of late, have become more interested in it, perhaps because I'm long out of school, and have to manage my books for the business. I'm with MA on the math issue. If teachers took a more creative approach to the curriculum, students would be much more interested in learning.

I agree that learning something by heart or it not been put into a practical context is not the best way to learn and retain information.

I always found that when I finally grasped a particular lesson that I would (privately) create a scenario in which it could be used and make a note about it. These are the things that helped me better grasp concepts and even remember them later (for exam-time). That was my study-method but on thinking back, it's a pity the teacher didn't use something similar to have a few more students understand.

IMO, the key is teaching the practical in a way that is interesting to the student. I hated Trig in high school until one of my teachers figured out that I loved electronics and figuring out how electrical equipment worked. Once he showed me how I could create a sine wave graph using baseic Trig functions that correleated to the output voltage of an AC generator I was playing with I was hooked.

Sadly, most teachers either don't have time or the inclination to figure out what makes their students tick and then find a way to incorporate the learning with their interests.

Merry Andrew--

I had two sons. One adored the music of the spheres as expressed in mathematical reationships. The other loathed any subject in which the answer was always the same.

I have sympathy with you--learning the multiplication tables and hating every equation.

I have much less sympathy with someone who didn't learn the times tables--but who bumbles along as though math doesn't matter.

Ideally every teacher would be gifted and every student curious and attentive, but the is an imperfect world.

In elementary school we had to memorize the state capitals, didn't seem too important at the time but it's good to have that knowledge to draw on now.

When I was in school all of the girls had to take "Home Economics" and they taught you to sew.

How completely uncool.

A few years ago I went out and bought a sewing machine after being completely outraged at the price of very simple curtains.

It took a while to get the hang of it again but I'm glad that I learned the fundamentals of sewing way back when.

I'll never be a great seamstress but at least my windows are covered and I have a little privacy.

And I can whip up a wicked halloween costume!