Reasons why I will never be a teacher.

[madbaker]

I've been helping several of my classmates with Macro-economics. It's a tough subject.

What I can't - I mean literally, can't understand is how someone who has gone through college doesn't understand basic algebra. Or even basic multiplication.
So I don't understand how to explain around that.

Comments

[tshuma]

Algebra I understand, not because I think it is hard, but because I have watched several different friends in college struggle with it repeatedly. It isn't hard to me, but I accept that it can be a hard subject to others. (Linear algebra and vector calculus appears to be where my brain stops functioning at 100%.)

But multiplication, man? I got nothing.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

This isn't a slam on anyone. Just that I can't empathize and can't really explain to someone who doesn't understand the concepts. Good teachers can and must; I'm not one.

[tshuma]

Yeah. I mean, I kind of remember how to teach multiplication, but it goes so far back in my mathematical learning that I'm not sure I could really pull it out past the multiplication is repetitive addition examples.

[lokis-child.livejournal.com]

Easiest way to teach algebra...

if B = Brick, and R = rebar....
repeat 2B+4R=headache

[aimeric.livejournal.com]

I blame it on reliance on computers. Reminds me of one of my favorite Asimov short stories: http://downlode.org/Etext/power.html

As a math major, I am, of course, horrified.

[sarahbellem.livejournal.com]

It seriously took me the better part of 15 years to understand BASIC algebra. Hell, it took me all of that plus 5 years to really wrap my brain around fractions. I'm a smart person... I was testing out of language comprehension classes so swiftly in school that they actually had me repeat 7th grade English- when I was in 5th grade. But math was something I always and continue to struggle with. Don't make me add, subtract, multiply or, god forbid, divide without a calculator.

But I can say, teaching the "college age students" I do, that even with my crippling math retardedness, there's no excuse for the overwhelming number of adults that come into my class completely unable to find 1/2" on a ruler, or understand that "one-quarter" is the same as "one-fourth", or that if you add two quarters, you get a half, and so on. I'm sympathetic to a certain point... After you want me to point out 1/8th on the ruler for the fifteenth time, I really have an issue there.

Part of it is they only retain that stuff for as long as it takes them to pass whatever remedial math class they were shuffled into throughout their education. The other part of it is laziness. Why bother doing the math if there's a machine that will do the thinking for you? Trouble is, you kinda have to know the basics of how to format those problems if you want to use a machine to solve them for you... And then we have a whole generation of students who were passed through classes they should have failed just to make sure retention rates looked good for the district.

Anyway, I could go on. It's one of my major pet peeves about the shitty educational system we have here in California/standardized testing/discriminating against people who are not math-minded...

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

I don't recall being required to take math in college. Seriously. That said, I did fine with Algebra in high school, but ... It's completely possible that someone doesn't need to take math to graduate college (depending on major and minor areas of study). Now, if you're in the financial field, it does seem really bizarre that they don't understand basic math ...