What exactly makes Math hard to some people?

[madelf]

In my head the numbers are white and float on an infinite black void. The numbers 1-10 gently slope upwards a bit. I generally look at the numbers at an angle with 1 or 20 right in front of me and numbers 2-10 gently slope upwards to my left.

You... see... ....math.

*backs away slowly*
You're scaring me.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Math wouldn't be quite so hard if they'd just tell you what x equals up front.

 

[madelf]

There is also a condition that can make math a bitch, called dyscalculia. It's just like Dyslexia, except that you switch numbers.

I've never been diagnosed, but I suspect I have a slight touch of it (I nail most of the common symptoms, though it's not severe). I'm forever swapping digits in phone numbers & if I'm doing an important calculation (even at the level of simply adding a few numbers) I'll need to check it a couple times to make sure it keeps coming out the same. It really sucked back in the old days when I was doing architectural drawings without a computer to automatically generate the dimensioning. Sometimes I'd have to add up a single dimension string a half dozen times (or more) to get all the errors out.

You can imagine what I went through in math classes. I never made it past geometry & I passed that only by the skin of my teeth. To this day I can't do even simple math in my head (like adding or subtracting double digits), it all has to be on paper.

 

[Impeesa]

That's more than a little insulting, don't you think? There's a reason why more people have trouble with math than other subjects, even people who do think, which is pretty much everybody.

You'd be surprised, actually. I'd hazard a guess that yes, there's a reason more people have trouble with math than with other subjects - and that reason is, people tell them it's hard and it's okay not to get it. Problem is, then they don't think about it, and it becomes self-fulfilling. In younger kids, it's more obvious. I have a 12 year old brother and sister who are being homeschooled this year. They are both smart kids (okay, maybe my brother moreso than my sister). Both of them absolutely refuse to think for themselves. They will do whole worksheets wrong, or refuse to even comprehend what the question is even asking (this extends to more than just math). If you can get either of them to calm down long enough to think rationally about it, they have no problems at all doing it on their own, but they'd rather just stab in the dark and hope it saves them time and thinking.

In high school, I had a friend who had a great deal of trouble with physics 11/12. I could never figure out why, he's definitely a smart person (he's in pre-med now). One day he came back and said the last assignment was really easy, because he'd asked his dad for some help. His dad is also a smart guy (chemical engineer), and he helped my friend break it down a little - the first step in thinking logically through a problem.

And I don't have just second-hand anecdotes, either. Over four years of university physics and computer science, I have grades ranging from D to A depending on whether I took a little time at some point to think through the course material. I know first-hand the difference in end results after actively thinking about the material, or spinning my wheels looking for shortcuts and trying to avoid work. It really is a conscious choice - some people just don't realize they have more options. Once they're there, it does take more thinking for some people than for others, I realize that. But once you get to thinking, it's hard not to reach your goal eventually.

--Impeesa--

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

You... see... ....math.

*backs away slowly*
You're scaring me.

I've heard of something like that, where people see certain letters in one color and others in another. I forget what it's called.

I've forgotten most of the math I learned in high school and college, but I learned then not to be afraid of math and numbers. I learned how to do math in my head in Academic Team for several reasons (mostly because the pencil slowed me down, and this was Quick Recall), which apparently blew the mind of people in my high school chemistry class (which also involved math, in balancing equations). I'm also the one my managers at work go to when they need numbers crunched.

And, geekiest of all, one night in high school when I'd gone to bed, I figured out that the difference between two adjacent numbers' squares equals the sum of the two numbers. (4^2=16, 5^2=25, 25-16=9, which is 4+5, for example) I'm reasonably sure I hadn't seen this in class before, and it was useful in Academic Team.

Brad

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

It's called synesthesia, and it isn't just seeing letters and words as colours. I wish I had it. The synesthete power in XPH is based on it.

 

[EricNoah]

You... see... ....math.

*backs away slowly*
You're scaring me.

*laughs*

I also see dead people, but that's a different story.

Oddly enough, I also ascribe personalities to different numerals (just 0-9). In general, odd numerals are "mean" and even numbers are "nice." 5 isn't too mean though; and 2 and 0 are the "nicest" of the nice numerals. I think it has to do with (at some point early on) thinking that even numbers are easier to add and subtract than odd numbers.

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

There is also a condition that can make math a bitch, called dyscalculia. It's just like Dyslexia, except that you switch numbers.

Diagnosed, here. It is indeed an added challenge to my other physical abnormalities.

It's called synesthesia, and it isn't just seeing letters and words as colours. I wish I had it. The synesthete power in XPH is based on it.

That one, too. And yes, you do. Not only do I not understand how most people function being Blinddeaf (Not being able to hear the tones colours make) or unable to track scents by colour, etc, but it made me able to pass math with a C despite the dyscalculia. I could always listen for the pure tone when the equation was right.

 

[Eridanis]

I almost always get strange looks from people when I explain that I did a double major in math and theatre in college. To me, the two disciplines are closely related: both are very creative arts, each with its own set of rules. A difference being, math rules are able to codified and expanded upon, while theatre rules are meant to be ba-roken! I think Umbran spoke to this very well.

The talk about synthesia is very interesting. I remember that as a boy, I would think of things in such a fashion (for instance, I always associated the route numbers of the highways near my home with characters from the Flintstones - a show I rarely saw, BTW). As I went through school, I lost that ability as I tried to rely on logic and memorization, but it never quite left me completely. I'll have to think about this some more.

 

[EricNoah]

Synesthesia, eh? Great to have a word for it! I caught this quote:

...phenomena such as the assignment of a personalities or moods to numbers. ...the spatial extent of synesthesia including "number forms" and other mental maps in which a variety of information may be spatially organized, in an idiosyncratic yet consistent manner (e.g., peculiar time or number lines).

Which is totally me -- particularly the time lines too. I'd totally forgotten about that -- I see my whole life, in years, as on my twisted number line. One year is viewed as months -- imagine an oval racetrack, with January at about 9 o'clock, march at about 7 o'clock, etc. Each "side" of the oval is a different season. The months are not "even" in size -- some are abnormally large or small. I think this results in me having some disappointments about how long certain winter months are dragging on, or being surprised that September, for example, isn't this huge long month.

A week, likewise, is an oval, but kind of elongated. Monday thru Friday on the sides and bottom, and the weekend along the top edge. In my mind a weekend is as long as a week!