
Math doesn't suck, you do. - scg
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=math
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NeilCJames
While funny, that is the worst advertisement for learning math I have ever
read. If you are of anywhere near normal intelligence, and put in anywhere
near normal effort and don't 'get math', your parents, teachers,
superintendents, school boards, and departments of education sucked, not you.

Applied math is about finding, stating and solving problems. Strategy instead
of tactics. Writing a cookbook, not reading one. Teaching mathematics-as-
recipes is the reason most people don't "get" math, even if they score decent
grades in school. It is the reason they don't think they will use math in
"real life"--because they learnt a bunch of equations, and didn't learn what
they mean, because they don't need to know what the equations mean to pass the
exam. So, because the exam sucks, and teachers have to teach to the standard
exam, the teaching sucks, students have to study textbooks that suck, do
homework problems that suck, and take tests that suck. Imagine that: Most of
the students end up sucking! Instead of fixing it, let's have yet another
round of blame the victim!

~~~
wkdown
I wouldn't blanket blame the teachers/etc because a lot of students feel if
they don't get it right away, they dismiss it out of hand and don't give it
much effort after that. Prof Hawking can't teach a 3yr old long division.

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crxpandion
Math is not simply following instructions like a recipe. Maybe if you put your
cookbook through a paper shredder then what the author says may apply... I get
the author's Maddox like style and all, but such things do not belong on HN.

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ntkachov
I feel like the people who are on hacker news don't really apply to this
article. Anyone who can understand Javascript usually knows what Pythagorean
theorem is. They probably understand, at least, calculus.

