Old article but a good one, I think. I can't stand people who spread this virus, especially in the presence of kids.

  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
    ·
    11 days ago

    I just found it to be abstract and unsatisfying. I study history or sociology or whatever more, i understand the world I live in more, I study language ans I get better at reading and writing I study math and I get better at taking math tests. My sole motivation was to not have to repeat it. Then the last year I had to take a math class it was all science math that relates to irl shit and also not being expected to do arithmetic on paper or in my head also helped. I can understand a formula, where to apply it, what numbers to plug in and sometimes I've made up formulas to solve stuff irl, but i am BAD at calculating them. Things clicked for me when learning sine functions, the teacher actually bothered explaining what it's useful for in real life, even if it wasn't anything I was doing, knowing people out there were out there plotting sine functions and achieving real benefits outside of a math sheet made me actually give a fuck. Otherwise I just felt like I was putting the abstract idea of an amount through a thing that makes it the abstract idea of a different amount,

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        11 days ago

        Earlier on there were some super out there ways we were forced to 'visualize math problems involving little coins thar were yellow on one side and red on another, I think red meant 10 and yellow meant ones and this was later elementary. Trying to get help from my folks with homework was exhausting for them cause they had to reverse engineer this weird shit into normal math. They had so many dumbass ways of approaching the same math problem that seemed cooked up by some mid 90s inner child gurus or something that doing math in a sorta normal way would get taught by my folks with what they remembered from school and then I'd fake the work I needed to show working backwards. Those were the teachers that didn't get mad at me for sucking at math. Don't even get me started on Around the World in 4th grade. The teacher had a book of math flash cards and we'd do one on one quick draw mental math against each other very publicly and one kid always just fucking swept, I didn't even try, that did teach me that sometimes there's greater reward in not trying. Winning didn't get you anything and trying made me stressed, the lesson is never try. Not really but it did teach me to examine a situation and determine a little more objectively whether I should have any mental stake in it. I didn't need to try to win at something I didn't wanna do that gained me nothing just because I was placed in a competition. That was useful, but they were trying to teach math