Yes, you get a word problem about Jack and Kwanzeeah trying to fill up a pail or something, it was nonsense to me. Why are they filling up a pail? Why are they using a bucket that is 173/9th's the size of the hose? Why do they have to not let it overflow? Why do I have to decipher this inanity, why can't they just ask me to do this stupid problem of stupid fractions? Why the cloak and dagger?

Then you get to 'real' algebra and you start to find roots of quadratic equations and other useless information. Dear Lord! When has anyone ever done this for any reason? Yes, something something eigenvalues something something computational modeling something runge-kutte. But for real though, quadratic equations are just nonsense gibberish to weed out the poor kids from the rich ones. Trig, yes, it's useful when you are building a shed that has to be totally perfect and crisp otherwise the rich white lady will not pay you. Geometry was a bit 'fun' actually, but in the same way that learning that Custer's Men took a poop at this road-side stop on the way to Little-Big Horn.

It wasn't until Chem in my 10th grade year that I actually 'got' algebra. We were doing moles to molarity calculations to get the solution to the right pH and make it all turn pink or something. It was then that I realized that all this mathy stuff was actually useful to me, that I could use it to make things easier and better for myself and my family. Like, I could 'know' what to do then. Before that it was just drill and kill and bad grades and shame. I remember staying after class and into the next one in the room, just sitting in the back doing these calculations over and over. I got kicked out for doing math! It was such a relief! I finally 'got it' when I needed it for something real to me personally.

For me, it was the issue of 'math' being this blunt-shame-thing that made no sense to use ever. But once I needed to use math, it was trivially easy. Learning math for each of us is individual, we each have our own motivations that are unique that need to be met. I know that is not easy to institutionalize, but if you want to do it, you have to find the 'correct motivation for each kid.

This is close to my experience as well. Math, for me, wasn't super difficult, but it didn't necessarily come naturally either, and I got really bored with the tedious, mechanical aspects of it in algebra, college algebra, trig, etc. Geometry and Calc I were mildly interesting, but I was handicapped a bit in Calc I because my basic algebra skills weren't as strong as they needed to be... because I found basic algebra to be mind-numbingly boring.

Fast forward 20+ years and I'm not working on re-learning some lower level math + leveling up on higher level calculus and linear algebra. This time, it seems easier (although I might not go so far as to say "trivial") and I attribute that largely to the fact that I'm much more motivated now. Now I have specific reasons for wanting to learn this math (mostly to do with machine learning and AI) and that seems to make all the difference in the world.

I'm tired of hearing about "take the derivative" and "perform the integral" (or whatever), and not quite understanding it. Heck, just what I wrote probably indicates I don't quite get it!

Also, my intuition on probabilities and statistics isn't there either, so I want to do something to fix that as well. So, when I finally get done - that's my next goal (after a bit of a break).

It isn't that I'm terrible at math, I just never used much beyond basic linear algebra after leaving high school. I never went much beyond high school: I got an associates from a tech school (worthless, since the school is long defunct), and I've taken a few community college courses, plus my online MOOC stuff that's more recent.

I'm not hurting career-wise; in fact, that's never been an issue as a software engineer (started when I was 18, and just kept going, earning more over time and having fun). I'm not doing bad right now, living in Phoenix. It ain't SV - but then again, it doesn't have the downsides of it, either (not that there aren't certain downsides).

Now - after having done MOOCs in ML/AI - I am finding that I need more understanding and intuition about calculus and other mathematical subjects, so I can really apply what I have learned, and understand it at a deeper level, and perhaps do more with it. I've given thought to going back for a BS and maybe an MS (not that I need it - I just want to do it).

Good luck to both of you; I hope it all works out great!

should read

I'm now working...

In high school, if you can convince a single person that they need to know calculus, more power to you. 99% of people don't and it's literally a waste of time. Teach people finance though...suddenly we have math that people will know is important.

Why did I have to memorize all that shit if there's a simple way to derive the formula? Jesus.

"So, you still didn't have derivation in math class?"

We explained, that we will have it in the final month of the school year, if we are lucky. Her reaction was:

"But we kinda need it already. But I should be able to teach you that in 20 minutes."

And she did. And then she spent the rest of the lesson going through some old equations that she might have spent hours explaining: "Remember how long it took us to get to i.e: equation relating gass pressure and temperature? We always used that finicky helper variable. I think I even named it delta. In reality, you just derive this base form, and do a simple substitution."

Ok, my memory is a bit hazy. But she went on and on, through stuff we have been ehm, deriving without calculus for hours, that took with calculus around 3-4 steps.

The one thing I really wished I'd have learned more of, younger, is stats. Knowing how basic probability works would have been fantastic - it took a lot of poker theory to really understand it in my bones.

Parrots have deeper understanding than was required of us.

I didn't even get a cracker.

I've been playing with computer graphics recently; I've understood trig for a long time, but this is the first time I've actually felt a need to understand matrices. Exploring applications on my own is the only way that I've really felt connected to math since maybe late grade school or early high school.

If you're splitting the tip and the tax, and everyone is pitching in $3 to cover the Birthday Girl, that's more complicated than a lot of those problems they use that nobody cares about.

(In fact, I think if you put all of those math problems in terms of fairness, you'd get more kids to pay attention. Nobody wants to get cheated, and that's what happens when you're bad at math and/or finance).

That's quite insightful! I can think of a few related approaches that could round it out, like frugality (eg. only buy the paint/bugspray/lumber/etc. you actually need for your project), and laziness (do the least amount of work possible that still gets the job done).

I don't think it matters what ethnicity or race you are, it's good to be able to actually get things the right length. And it's a lot easier to do it on paper than run around for half a day with a tape measure.

i.e a common problem such as calculating the optimal blend of fuel in a reactor is done based on solving a system of linear equations with constraints such as Loss on ignition, maximum allowable ash content, minimum specific energy etc.

Industrial design as well uses simultaneous equations extensively. Do you want to build your aircraft wing out of CFRP or a titanium alloy? One way is to use a constraint based selection method something like strength to weight ratio vs cost.

edit: I should add 99% of the time these are solved programmatically with the aid of a computer. You do not solve these problems "high school math style".

For what it's worth I also did better with literature and history than math when I was young. Also, I struggled to pass Calculus 2 but breezed through upper level CS courses. It's a very fuzzy thing.

Depends on what we are talking about. The post I was responding to was talking about "the first years of education" and with 16, we are way past that.

Yeah, I know that's not what you mean, but you're missing a point. The premise of the article is that US has a STEM problem. I merely suggested that they're allocating resources wrong to fix it. I didn't mean they should introduce rigor and discipline or increase hours - I said that the best way to achieve results in teaching math is to fix it early, when it's most commonly broken (in my experience).

It actually helps you if you decide to switch interests, because you got the basics right, which in this case is the ability to think in an abstract way.

If you don't agree with me, you should have provided arguments that math problems do not arise early in education system, but they are introduced later.

One last thought - timing _does_ matter. That's why almost every professional athlete starts as a child. The question is how much you gain for starting early and I agree, that it is usually unreasonable to put too much pressure on kids. Pressure is not necessary to fix the system as far as I see it, though.

People need good teachers at all ages. I'm glad his college professors helped him out enough to lead him to major in math.

On my side I was good at math but crashed in college, so much I avoided it, it's the reason I went into programming. Until 2 or 3 years ago I clicked again, I started to see through abstract math and now I'm back to math/phys because it's beautiful again.

If your buddy finds pleasure and can walk the path I'm not surprised he's still walking :)

Professional athletes are highly competitive. People don't hire basketball players to throw balls into hoops; they hire them to beat other basketball players. Unless you are one of the best humans at basketball, you are worthless as a basketball player.

In almost any profession, you do not need to be the best to have value.

If you knew it's not what they meant then why did you start off saying that's what they meant? If you thought they were missing the point why didn't you just say that?

While starting early is neither necessary nor sufficient for success, the question should be: do the benefits of starting early outweigh risks? Like the parent comment, I think they do, if done correctly and gently, but it should be decided case-by-case for each child. The only risk I can think of is: if you push too hard, it can have the opposite effect of making the child hate it. So, one has to do it with utmost sensitivity and by responding to cues and feedback from the pupil.

> The only risk I can think of is: if you push too hard, it can have the opposite effect of making the child hate it.

That seems like a weird "risk".

But I agree that the tendency of programmers and public to assume that if you already don't know a lot about computers, you are lost case and stand no chance is harmful. There is strong tendency to overstate how difficult things are and that makes people look elsewhere.

Seeing an integral sign and understanding what it means, for example, can help simplify seemingly complicated mathematical expressions and make them easy to understand.