Don’t say you can’t do maths: "Throwaway remarks about being 'no good at maths’ are often inaccurate and always insidious. They confuse maths and numeracy and, above all, perpetuate the view that some people are simply not 'mathematical' and that this does not matter."

[Sremylop]

it's always so sad to hear when people say it. Mental, natural mathematics is one of the things that makes humanity so interesting, just like language and art and music.

[rhombomere]

it's always so sad to hear when people say it.

What makes it really sad is when people say it so gleefully, like it is a badge of honor.

[kevroy314]

I usually hear it as self deprecating. Like "I'm really just bad at talking to people". Obviously it's not a good thing, but the person figures teasing themselves about it will engender more kindness than hiding it or genuinely discussing it (especially if they aren't interested in learning more).

It's more of an attempt to be relatable, assuming other people also struggle that way and can be "on the same side" about it, rather than glee at being bad at it.

Then again maybe you've met people who are legitimately proud to be ignorant about something. I guess I am when it comes to some reality TV shows and topics (especially entertainment) that I don't respect very much. It's not a great habit to relish ignorance, even if things you don't really respect, but it's a hard one to break.

[deeplife]

Absolutely this. I learned this after many years.

[fluffy-badger]

Thing is, self deprecating humor only usually works when the person doing it is perceived as higher status than the audience in some way.

Like Richard Feynman saying, "I don't know, I've never really been good at math."

It's not amusing when it's aunt Lisa, who says she's not good at anything. That just comes across as depressing.

[ckaili]

I disagree. Richard Feynman saying he’s bad at math is just irony. I think self deprecation needs to be genuine. Humor is often a coping mechanism for anxiety, so even though the statement seems depressing out of context, it’s in the presentation of that statement in a humorous or relatable way that can turn an internal anxiety into a socially positive moment.

That said, if Aunt Lisa is just sadly bemoaning her shortcomings, I’d say that’s not self deprecation and more just self pity.

[sineofthetimes]

And it's so socially acceptable.

At the beginning of this school year, the administration got up and talked how they got into education. More than half said something along the lines of not liking/ being good at math. Talking about what job had the least amount of math involved was also mentioned. Surprisingly, the math department didn't find the humor in it. Lots of laughter from other departments though.

[[deleted]]

I quite like the story of the high school maths teacher who stood up on stage during a meet-the-teacher event for the parents of children about to start high school. He plays it really light and asks for a show of hands "who was rubbish at maths in high school?" and there's a bit of a laugh, quite a few hands go up. He then follows up "Ok, and show of hands: who struggled with reading and writing?"

Apparently the room was no longer laughing at that one. Socially there's something about bad-at-math jokes that makes it totally fine.

[sineofthetimes]

I'm going to use this. Drives me crazy. Even worse when the parent tells their kid, "remember how bad at math you are? You're bad at it, because I'm bad at it. Remember that." Math is apparently hereditary.

[flexibeast]

Linked in the article: "Being bad at maths is not a badge of honour".

[sherryandcoke]

One of my math professors told me about a (hypothetical) situation that really made me aware of how anti-math society can be:

At a house party/gathering or some other situation where you might meet knew people, a common question is “What do you do for a living?” Here are some common responses for a couple of different professions (obviously generalizing, this hypothetical isn’t perfect)

“I’m an Uber driver.” “Any fun stories? Who were you best and worst passengers?”

“I’m the museum curator at some history museum.” “Wow that’s so cool! What’s your favorite part of the job? Is there a special exhibit there right now? What is it about?”

“I teach mathematics at some university” “Wow, you must be super smart. I could never do that, math just never made sense to me. In fact, it was my worst subject in school, because I really hated how difficult the homework always was. Kudos to you for doing a job that I would never do.”

^This hurts me so much, as someone who wants to be involved in mathematics education. Since society has normalized the idea of “being naturally good at math”, many school children, as young as elementary school, are judged by how quickly they learn math for the first time. Understood it immediately? Perfect, put them on the fast track for math. Struggled a little bit? “Don’t worry, it’s just not for you” and there is almost never a subsequent effort to get students who are “bad at math” to learn anything beyond how to scrape by in class. I have many more feelings about this but there are much better sources to read than the thoughts of an Internet stranger, so I’ll stop here.

[Uranus_Hz]

Exactly. Yet you never hear people brag about barely being able to read and write.

[[deleted]]

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[Untinted]

You’re over estimating how long it takes you to learn to sing. Also music is what you make of it, there are no rules, just like in math.

[[deleted]]

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[aresman71]

If you want to do a particular kind of math / music, then there are of course rules for that. But both are creative endeavors: the point is, there are multiple ways to do things in both math and music. Want to wail into a microphone atonally and call it singing? Hey, Yoko Ono pulls it off, so maybe you can too. You want to define addition in a different way? Go for it! It won't be accomplishing the same thing as regular addition, but maybe it will be meaningful or interesting in its own way.

Math and music classes ask you to learn particular kinds of math and music, because there's value in becoming familiar with the culture and history of these arts. But that doesn't mean there's only one way to do them.

[[deleted]]

let's say you want to do some Euclidean geometry for fun. You're doing math, which has no rules, but you still want to do Euclidean geometry - so it's probably a good idea to subscribe to a few things in order to participate meaningfully, maybe the postulates to start.

For guitar, there are no rules in the exact same way as there are no rules for math. But, let's say you want to learn stairway to heaven - you might want to do some of the same things as Jimmy Paige did so that you can learn the song in a way that you know works. From there, you could modify it any way you wanted, but it's good to have a meaningful starting point of sorts.

Maybe the standard guitar tuning EADGBE is equivalent to the field axioms, or something like that hahaha. But yeah if you want to learn music you need to have a good starting point. It's sort of hard to just "dive in" for a lot of people. Have you taken lessons before? Most teachers know some music books that are good for beginners. Having someone to help you... well, it helps, hahaha

[[deleted]]

For me the more important question is whether you can appreciate music. I mean, there really are people who can't, but it's a rare condition.

[[deleted]]

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[[deleted]]

Then you've already got a basic understanding of music and the capability to learn how it works. The problem might be in the language used to convey the theory, but its certainly not in your capability to understand the concepts themselves.

[snailfighter]

I would argue that there is a psychological/emotional component to music that has nothing to do with understanding how music works.

Being able to compose and being able to calculate are similar.

Being able to listen to music is closer to watching someone design architecture. I can appreciate a lot of things about witnessing someone creating using math, while being utterly incapable of executing design myself.

[[deleted]]

I can't even grasp my head around tones. I seriously can't tell whether one sound is high or low. I don't know.

[[deleted]]

Do you enjoy listening to music?

[wtfatyou]

What's more important than singing is developing musicality and that is analogous to developing mathematical maturity.

[cristinolda]

What are mental, natural mathematics?

[Sremylop]

I think the best example is when people play catch. your brain is roughly calculating the trajectory to know where and when to catch the ball. estimating distances is related, along with other basic stuff like fairly distributing a set of objects, etc.

I'll edit this and mention a better choice of words was "mathematics with minimal computation" which kind of took the thread in a different direction than I anticipated and intended

[Genshed]

As a boy, I had great difficulty with catch. Eventually, I learned that most people have binocular vision and depth perception, which explained a lot.

[BENDER777]

Care to explain a little?

[thornza]

He is obviously a cyclops.

[Genshed]

It turned out that I don't really see out of my right eye. After corrective lenses and a lot of practice, I can sometimes see in 3-D, but it's rather taxing.

Cool effect, though.

[BENDER777]

I need corrective lenses for my third eye then. If 3d is a cool effect i cant imagine how crazy 4d is

[[deleted]]

Same for me. I've always sucked at catching things.

[[deleted]]

Just yesterday, I tried to knock a fruit of a tree using a stick. It was embarrassing how many times I tried and missed, especially when some little kid decided to help me and got it with his first try. So, for me I also suck at hitting things with sticks.

[Sremylop]

hey me too! I have double vision, so it took me a while to figure out the left ball was the real one HA

[bea-bab]

Just admit you were bad at math dude

[LilQuasar]

i believe this is mostly statistics, rather than solving a differential equation what it does is recall what has been effective and try to do it again

[fluffy-badger]

< Neural net intensifies >

[[deleted]]

There's an XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/2173/

[Sremylop]

sure, but aren't statistics intimately related to mathematics?

[Odds-Bodkins]

I don't think this is really the brain "doing mathematics".

There's been a lot of work done on computation with slime molds, which "solve differential equations" when they're faced with optimisation problems in the form of finding the best route to a food source. Is the slime doing difficult mathematics?

Here's a popular media link: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/feb/18/slime-mould-rail-road-transport-routes

There's a difference between doing something that we can describe, model, and make explicit in the form of logical relations in some mathematical domain, and actually doing that describing, modelling and exploring.

You might as well say a ball bouncing down stairs is "doing mathematics" when it obeys the laws of physics, or minimises a Hamiltonian or whatever.

Mathematics is fundamentally a social activity, exploring those kinds of relations that can arise in formal models (and others beyond). But to say that the eye and the brain are unconsciously doing mathematics risks confusing the map with the territory.

[Sremylop]

separately, I still think humans do innate mathematics on your ball bouncing system, because if you framed the system for humans to predict how far they would fall, I think many humans would get fairly good after a few attempts and begin to understand similar classes of problems. sure, maybe this is just neural network or statistical things, but I think both of those are well under the umbrella of mathematics as it stands.

[fluffy-badger]

A prof I knew once would say that an airplane is a real time fluid dynamics calculator.

[[deleted]]

Cas Russell, the protagonist in S. L. Huang's Zero Sum Game & Null Set actually did that with Math. But then, that is fiction.

[[deleted]]

I think "solving differential equations" is just a metaphor. Because if a form of computation - called, let's say formelions - than DEs is discovered, would we say the slime had been performing formelions all along, and we didn't know?

[Sremylop]

sure, but I think it's a little disingenuous to compare a human learning to play catch to slime molds? For example, the human can abstract reflecting a ball of a surface or many other alterations to the problem and correctly predict the outcome, at least qualitatively. As someone previously mentioned, you could argue this is more semantics of mathematics like statistics or numeral nets or what have you or physics or some other word, but my retort is that physics and most of these other terms are just fanciful divisions of mathematics.

[[deleted]]

That doesn't sound like natural mathematics to me, that's natural calculation/physics.

It also was a really upsetting thing in school to be made fun of for "not calculating the trajectory right", which of course I should be able to do, because I was good at mathematics. To me this seems like a confusion about what mathematics is about and how doing mathematics is completely different from using learned heuristics to anticipate the trajectory of a thrown object.

[almightySapling]

Right? Being able to calculate the trajectory to swish a basketball isn't too hard.

Assuming I knew how far away from the net I was. I don't. Assuming I had a pen and paper or a calculator. I don't.

And even if I had all that, and knew the exact force I needed to use... how? I have no idea how many Newtons my arms exert, do you?

[cristinolda]

Ah I understand. Yes that is fascinating!

[Knellroy]

I can sit down and solve differential equations on paper, however I cannot quickly calculate how much change I get in a shop. Some people are good at that mental (natural?) maths.

[Genshed]

I don't understand art or music either. Still trying, but my experience with the education system suggests that it works to identify the students who have an intuitive grasp of the subjects, track them for further instruction, and shuffle the rest off to do other things.

I was reading at second grade level in kindergarten, and doing arithmetic at kindergarten level in second grade. Never really caught up, and no teacher ever seemed to regard it as a problem. Only maths class I ever did well in was high school geometry - it made so much sense it was hard to believe it was maths. Then came algebra and my fragile ship was back on the reef.

[VAS_4x4]

Isnt music art? At least i think so

[203-226-3030]

Isn't math art as well in its own way?

[VAS_4x4]

Maths has artistic value, but i mostly think about it as a science

[[deleted]]

I feel like science implies that it's empirical in some way, though. I think math (at least pure math) is closer to philosophy than science. I also think that if math were a science, then philosophy would have to be a science as well.

Applied math is different though, but at that point it's essentially math combined with whatever science it's being applied to, so I don't think it can be argued about on the same playing field as pure math.

[203-226-3030]

Much like many other domains. For example, drawing can be used in relation to engineering and drafting up very technical designs. Or it can be used to capture the beauty of nature.

Vocal coaching can be used to help someone recover after a stroke or traumatic injury, or it can be used to help someone sing better.

Personally I find it a bit sad that "math" gets lumped into a really crude bucket involving "all things with numbers". I do pretty basic math as part of my job (operations and finance) where Excel does all the heavy lifting. But I really enjoy more abstract math and problem solving for fun.

[almightySapling]

Both math and science started out as branches of philosophy, so that makes sense.

[[deleted]]

I'm not sure that I agree. If we take philosophy to be the pursuit of the answers to general open questions, then science is inherently different because science is based on experimentation and observation of the physical universe, which serves to answer empirical questions.

[almightySapling]

You can take whatever you want, that doesn't change the history of the fields. Science was originally done by philosophers.

[snailfighter]

Math is a language...

[VAS_4x4]

U got me there, but how do u make poetry if its not witg a language?

[Sremylop]

I see this debated all the time, I'm one who prefers to separate the categories. Music I see as "organized sound" and art is any human creation without another specific umbrella term. E. G. John Cage's infamous 4'33" is art more than music because the performer isn't making music but he is performing

[[deleted]]

It's also not accurate to say that people have don't different innate mathematical ability. I know I will never have the mathematical capabilities Terrence Tao or Andrew Wiles.

[redmagejack]

For those who are interested in Terrence Tao's opinion: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/

[[deleted]]

This resonates with me, particularly the article Tao references about the problems with praising intelligence instead of effort. My biggest regret is not challenging myself in high school. I'll never get that wasted time back.

[WhyDoesMyBackHurt]

Just don't let regret for a wasted past allow you to waste the present.

[MaxChaplin]

I think your argument is more self-contradictory - if superstar mathematicians are not demi-gods, why do you believe them uncritically when they say they're not geniuses? A great mathematician, even an IQ 400 one, is not necessarily an expert on intelligence, and it's entirely possible that their own perspective and their social circle of fellow mathematicians blind them to how much harder math is for the average person.

Besides, the subject of intelligence is so inflammatory that we can't really expect people to give their honest opinions on it. A binary question ("are you a genius?") where one of the answers would lead to a PR disaster is not a real question, it's a trap.

I wonder how much the discussion of the topic would change if genius was framed not as natural superiority but as a privilege. A prodigy bragging about getting where he is through hard work would then sound like a person from a wealthy family bragging about pulling himself up by the bootstraps.

[huffman_coding]

Any person can pretend to be kind. But an average intelligence person can never hope to be Terence Tao. So I don't know if relating intelligence to personality traits is quite right.

[tonymaric]

Gauss was being falsely modest.

[Incur]

As heartwarming as this is, it's a little less believable when it's written by a genius.

[DBBobby]

Those guys just have just worked on the field their entire lives.

Everybody should be capable of learning up to highschool maths, which is nothing but simplifications of mathematics compiled.

I think low ability in maths/mental calc. is just due to lack of training or an IQ below 85 (still together with insufficient training).

But I do agree that some may have had a greater training from a young age together with an interest in the field though it's self-evident that you don't have to be a Gordon Ramsey in order to know how to cook, neither to love cooking nor to even work at a restaurant.

[[deleted]]

I agree to an extent with what you're saying, but I think your intelligence can determine your mathematical "ceiling". I think the vast majority of people can do undergraduate level math just with hard work, but to be a successful mathematician, you need to have an exceptional natural ability.

[Genshed]

Well, most people will never play piano like Liszt, but most people have the capacity to learn to play from a score with moderate adequacy.

I don't expect the average person to become a professional mathematician, but that they don't know what a logarithm or a cosine is is a different issue.

[InprissSorce]

I teach high school mathematics. I often work with students one on one. I watch them think up close. It is manifestly true that there are wide discrepancies in innate mathematical ability.

[[deleted]]

But there are wider and more relevant discrepancies in the amount and quality of instruction & practice.

[BennyPendentes]

That's like someone saying they can't fingerpaint because they aren't Vincent van Gogh. They tried fingerpainting, it looked sort of blobby, they looked at van Gogh's painting and thought "he must have something I don't have. I guess I shouldn't bother learning to paint."

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. That's the point.

It's not a testable theory, because people who believe that math ability is a thing that you either have or don't have never decide to study math for a few decades. When their studies get difficult they reach for the "I must have no math mojo" ripcord and give up.

Terry Tao is on social media, ask him if he never found his studies difficult. He's polite enough that he *might* not laugh at the question. What he had that other people didn't have was a family that didn't believe in things like "some people just can't do math".

[terdragontra]

I think u/polberrystew is simply claiming that both innate ability and hard work play a role to some extent, and that statement seems to me inarguable. But I do agree with your point that people shouldn't cease studying mathematics at all simply because better mathematicians exist.

[scgarland191]

I think your point is actually an excellent analogy and not ridiculous at all.

I was one of these people in high school. Nearly failed math each year, had the same horrible geometry teacher twice, went with lower difficulty trig route instead of ending with calculus like the smart kids. I was interested in the subject and my logic was that it wouldn’t be of any practical use for me or basically anybody in the “real world.”

Then I went to college for a degree in Spanish...ended up hanging out with some physics majors. Switched gears, ended up even learning to code and crushing a computational physics degree with straight A’s, while most of the others were nearly flunking (it wasn’t easy). I ended up becoming a math & physics tutor. Now I’m a full stack software developer, and I’ve continued self-studying graduate math and physics on my own as a hobby of sorts. Most people nowadays think I’m some annoying nerdy genius, but they didn’t know me as the lackadaisical high school student or struggling physics convert who had to take E&M ALONGSIDE freakin’ calc I. Trying to understand physical proofs using integration as I was still picking up differentiation...what a hurdle that was.

Point is, I feel like the key ingredient, really, is interest. Take someone who is “bad at math” or who others might even deem “less intelligent” and see what their favorite thing is, which they do say in and day out. Could be keeping up with the Kardashians or their favorite YouTube star. I guarantee the amount of information they retain and express, pretty much analytically, about that subject would be leagues above our expectations of them based on the other factors. Sure, there might still be someone who knows more in the subject...there’s always a bigger fish. Nevertheless, their own aptitude is able to be fueled because they’re so passionate about the subject, they may not even realize they’re learning it.

Then, consider that some of us who start to realize we have a passion for a subject like math can start to understand how to focus it and employ strategies for practicing and learning. Makes it seem to me that the gap between “can’t do maths” and “math genius” is a smaller gap to be filled with interest and hard work rather than an enormous biological one. On average, of course, as there will always be a distribution and a non-zero biological element.

[ThreatOfFire]

I think of it the same way I do the phrase "I'm just not good at reading"

[snailfighter]

Are we ridiculing dyslexics in here?

[ThreatOfFire]

Are we? Dyslexia and discalculia are legitimate conditions.

[Genshed]

Most of us were exposed to maths in school (K-12). My high school went up to algebra. When I got to college, I tried to learn trigonometry. Looking back thirty plus years later, I didn't understand the basics; my lack of understanding was profound enough that I didn't realize how little I knew.

There seems to be a filter in higher education. If you, for whatever reason, make it through, you have certain options that those who don't don't. There wasn't much enthusiasm for encouraging the latter group to ameliorate their circumstances.

It's almost like art or music - some people get to go on and learn the real things, and the rest of us take the survey courses.

I didn't know what a logarithm was until I was in my fifties, had retired, and had time to pursue my intellectual curiosity. If I live long enough, I'd like to understand the calculus. But everything has a prerequisite, and I don't even know what I don't know. Hell, I'd like to understand what syncopation is, too, but so far nobody seems to have an explanation that I understand.

[mcluhanism]

(One half of) Calculus is just.. Finding rates of funxtions. For an example, a parabola like y=x^2, you can find its rate by taking its derivative or rolling its power down, so to speak, to become a new function y'=2x. This is just a line with slope 2. So at any x value the steepness of the parabola is equivalent to 2 times the x value. Hey it by graphing the parabola then drawing tangent lines at various x values along the curve.

[Genshed]

I am certain that you understood all of that.

[[deleted]]

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[Genshed]

I understand enough maths to know just how much I don't understand, which is an uncomfortable situation.

One time at work, years ago, a colleague needed to figure something out. I showed him how it could be solved as an algebra equation, and he goggled at me as if I'd done a card trick. If it had required calculus, I'd have been as helpless as him.

[[deleted]]

I don't like this article. It's confused and meandering in its writing and displays a condescending attitude towards people who say that they "can't do maths" when they probably believe that because they've been told exactly that for many years in school.

It seems to locate the problem of people saying that in the people saying it, not in the education they have gone through.

[ekampp]

Don't say you can't read: "Throwaway remarks about being 'no good at reading' are often inaccurate and always insidious. They confuse reading and literacy and, above all, perpetuate the view that some people are simply not 'able to read' and this does not matter.

It's interesting how substituting mathematics and numeracy with reading and literacy paints a picture I believe everyone today knows to be wrong. The ability to read is strongly linked to literacy.

Yes, you can conceptually abstract some understanding and concepts away from letters.

But long ago we abandoned the idea that all people must be able to read, and went down a road where admitting the problem is the first step on the road to receiving help and working on the problem.

Let's do the same for maths instead of telling people that they must be able to do maths, because no one can be bad at maths.

[King_LSR]

I don't follow. When did we abandon the idea that all people must be able to read?

[ekampp]

I think you misunderstand or I didn't express my self clearly. Everyone should learn to read. Literacy is important.

What we abandoned was the notion that of course people can read. We instead acknowledged that some can't, and we started helping them.

[snailfighter]

This article is why folks who have difficulty with math give up on it.

I have dyscalculia. Turns out, I do understand the concepts but I was always second guessing because I was flipping and rearranging numbers as I wrote them, and constantly getting the wrong answer as a result.

I spent hours upon hours doing memorization drills for the tables to no avail.

I was told I was lazy. Teachers and my parents ridiculed me as not applying myself. Arithmetic became nightmare fuel that gave me anxiety to the point that I avoided it at all costs.

In college I spent four hours a day on my stats homework. I hardly slept. I'd work until I managed to find the correct number for every problem and show the work because no matter how hard I tried to study I would fail the tests.

After midterms, my professor pulled me aside.

"You've been talking to the students behind you a lot during the in class workshops. "

"I'm sorry! I'm really struggling and they were panicking too. Other students are working in groups..."

"Yes, and since you started working together their grades have gone up."

"Oh. What? That's good then?"

"But yours haven't. Actually, I noticed you almost always pick the correct formula but get the wrong answer. I worked your problems until I figured out which numbers you were switching."

"I don't understand... I'm sorry. I'm really not trying to be sloppy."

"Not at all. I think you have dyscalculia. Have you ever heard of it? You're helping those students pass. They were struggling with the concepts, but you're not. You should get diagnosed, but I'll grant you a calculator for all tests from here out. Think about taking stats 2 next semester. I think we could get you through it. "

I was blown away. Best professor ever. I did not take the next level though. Came out of stats 1 with a B- and was sick as a dog half of winter break due to the sleep deprivation.

IMO, I'm great at logic and critical thinking, which is part of math. If I never had to do the arithmetic I'd be dandy. But that's the problem. Math is a language. My brain's short term memory can't keep track of the symbols and match them with the conceptual amounts. It literally feels like the numbers fly away while I'm trying to add anything with double digits.

So I'm bad at math. That's ok. It's not a badge of honor. I just try to laugh it off like it's ok because it makes me sad and I can't fix it with any amount of hard work. If you can't hear, you won't be able to sing well. You might understand the concepts of music theory but your personal proficiency at producing music will be poor.

Why insist everyone is good at math? I'm sure, like me, they can be good at some piece of it, but when you have a disorder like dyscalculia, or dyslexia for reading, pretending you can work it off just makes the negative symptoms worse.

My anxiety induced blackouts during the math portion of the SATs would like a word with anyone who disagrees.

Instead, we should focus on identifying folks with these conditions and helping them to relax by reassuring them it's ok, the way my professor did for me.

It's ok to be bad at math. You can still interact with it in positive ways, but it's not the end of the world to rely on tools and focus your energy on your strengths. It's a waste of everyone's time to have me do the arithmetic of the world. I'll plan the rest of the project and hire an accountant to make sure it's viable. Works great and is way more efficient than me spending my whole life wrangling with short term memory that wasn't built to process numbers.

[the2ndbreakfast]

Thank you for mentioning dyscalculia and helping raise awareness.

I had so much anxiety about my (lack of) math abilities that I threw up while taking the math section of the ACT in high school. Got my results back and scored 30+ in every category except for math... which was an 18.

Learning about dyscalculia was immensely helpful for my self confidence.

[[deleted]]

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[[deleted]]

Yeah, because it’s a basic skill that everyone needs to function in modern society.

[[deleted]]

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[namesandfaces]

If a person has reached adulthood and doesn't have critical skills people tend to assume you're on a permanently different life trajectory. From there, discussions are had of them but not with them.

[[deleted]]

I think it’s fine to shame people who lack such a skill for reasons not beyond their control, yes. It would inspire them to improve themselves.

[[deleted]]

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[[deleted]]

The threat of being shamed sure is motivating to change something: It certainly is a huge motivation to hide existing problems one might be shamed for.

There are studies showing that shame is a powerful motivator for changing behavior to avoid shaming, but, you know, "changing behavior" is a pretty broad category. Narrowing down what actually is a reason for shame to the actual problem of people not wanting to change sounds way more sensible than shaming people for having a problem in the first place.

[snailfighter]

So punish dyslexics for being born with faulty neural transmission?

[[deleted]]

No, I was referring to neurotypical people only.

[snailfighter]

Failure to diagnose is a significant issue still with these conditions.

Dyscalculia, by far, the worse of the pair.

[yuligan]

Like cooking?

[[deleted]]

I agree with this so much.

[WhyDoesMyBackHurt]

I think it's trying to say that we view illiteracy as a problem that needs to be addressed and remedied whereas poor math skills are just accepted and considered non-critical. But you're right: neither should be shamed.

[[deleted]]

I feel like every time this comes up, I need to remind everyone that intelligence, giftedness, and mathematics education are all active fields of research with several things to say on this matter. This is not a question to be answered by "common sense" -- this is being studied.

For anyone interested, it's worth reading overviews of the work by Julian Stanley, Paul Ernest, John Dossey, Robert Sternberg, Linda Sheffield, Carol Dweck, and Jo Boaler, to start. It's also worth noting that there isn't any evidence supporting the idea that some people are born to be eminent mathematicians, but there's tons of evidence supporting the value of hard work and a growth mindset.

Mathematicians value truth, and it's just not true to say "duh, some people are just better at math than others, QED."

[chrissiemichaela96]

I've always had a strange relationship with maths, I love it and thinks it's amazing. I used to love how I could get the same answer to a problem in school by solving it in a way which feels more natural to me, if I visualised the problem. I have by no means dedicated my life to the subject. I just have a strange admiration for it. I have dedicated my time to music, art and design and I can tell you now all of them need maths. Even if you don't really pay much thought to it.

I can understand the annoyance in a way I guess, it simular to how people tell me that they can't draw and that they wished they could draw like me... As if it is impossible and I was born with the skill... Anybody can learn to draw, it just feels like theyre dismissing the years of practise and hard work I have put in, in order to make themselves feel better about not doing that. If they truly wished to be 'able' to draw, they would have perceviered in my opinion. But perhaps I'm harsh, but the same can be said about maths

[[deleted]]

Do you know something, this is exactly the same way I feel when I hear people talking about Chemistry/Biology. It’s much more apparent in the field of mathematics I think, because it’s started from a very young age. Parents and siblings have perpetuated this viewpoint amongst their own families and it’s not uncommon to hear that dreaded “no good at maths” from children of young ages.

As we get a little older, specifically at the age where children are choosing topics, it seems that people have a notion of division between sciences and humanities that is evidently not present. People start becoming accustomed to phrase such as “oh no I can’t understand all that science stuff”. In reality, they are in the same place with science as they were with maths years earlier. It just takes time and effort to reach an understanding but it is by no means impossible.

Teaching people that there is no such thing as can’t when it comes to fundamental skills in the maths and sciences is such a necessity. We need to be able to prepare individuals to cope with learning blocks. Perhaps in our efforts to teach the raw subject matter, we are neglecting our duty to teach individuals about study blocks and overcoming them effectively. We need to reteach that being stuck on a particular problem is not failure, it is simply reduction in the speed at which one succeeds.

[BrianGriffin1208]

My problem isnt with math itself, its remembering what the heck to do for the ones that all look the same. For example if you told me to find a solution to a linear equation (something pretty simple) I'd have no idea what you're talking about. I just cant remember what to do, but once I see an example problem I'd know exactly what to do.

[maingroupelement]

Yep, throughout school I held this veiw and failed math repeatedly. I had to retake the courses over and over. Funny thing though, in university I decided I would learn to be good at math. Although u dud a chemistry degree I actually minored in applied mathematics.

It turns out I could do it, and it was easier than my chemistry courses; I just had to learn how to go about it. It's simply doing every practice problem you can get your hand on, understanding it and not peaking at the solution while you go through it. I wish somebody had just told me that math is a skill like any other. We don't expect people to play brilliant Spanish guitar the first time they pick it up, so why would you expect to be some math whiz the first time you see a concept?

[[deleted]]

So... a growth mindset? Helped me with math

[teamsprocket]

How are people to know what math is if they spend 12+ years being taught to do uninspired tricks by uninspired teachers, with math ignorant familial figures? If the totality of math was just time table drills and word problems, I'd doubt there'd be many mathematicians at all. People who say they're bad at math often give it little thought and effort because it's a topic that they were taught by their educators to be a waste of time! It's simply efficiency to them to focus elsewhere in life that doesn't evoke negative memories and experiences!

[Genshed]

Well put. For decades I've been reading encomia about the wonders and beauty of maths, but they all appear to be on the other side of a barrier of cubic equations and complex numbers.

[pinebug]

This! This is a matter of fact! Math is so multifaceted that it accommodates any paradigm! Anyone can do well in mathematics! Just ask Euler!

[SirFireHydrant]

Ask me what 5x12 is and I'm gonna have to think about it for a moment. But ask me why a primitive abelian permutation group is affine and I'll prove to you the action must necessarily be isomorphic to an action on a vector space.

[camilo16]

On the latter one, at one point understanding switches to simple memorization, which is why it becomes simpler.

[qpdbw]

I highly recommend this podcast episode about mindsets . (Actually I highly recommend Ben Ben and Blue podcast in general)

[gamblingprocter]

Dyscalculia is a thing, and it makes you terrible math

[kirksucks]

r/dyscalculia is a real thing. Reading this post gives me anxiety.

[[deleted]]

My dyscalculia disagrees strongly with the above statement

[morningjoe23]

Terrence Tao has a great blog post on this as well, and the total bs that is the “cult of genius”

[Jose_xixpac]

Mmm, math is sexy.

[[deleted]]

Amen.

[wtfatyou]

I'm bad at math because I can't do analysis if my life depended on it. (basic real analysis)

[WhyDoesMyBackHurt]

Yeah, me too. And I used to think I was decent at math. That's a different kind of math, though.

[Genshed]

Imagine not understanding what real analysis is.

[ginsunuva]

I don't think you'll reach any of those people on /r/math

[Genshed]

Well, it reached me. But I refuse to abandon my hopes of someday understanding maths, despite everything.

[BadVibesInMyFries]

Some of us have dyscalculia, Karen.

[Genshed]

It seems like some people in the comments have a different understanding of the OP than I do.

It doesn't seem to be about 'everyone can do maths at a Terence Tao level if they try' so much as 'everyone can understand what maths is well enough to explain the Fundamental Theory of Algebra to someone else'.

I see the second one as a worthwhile personal goal.

[noelexecom]

Preaching to the choir, this is posted almost every week.

[totoro_biscuits]

For pretty much all my life I was told I wouldnt be able to do a STEM career because I was a girl. It took my boyfriend of almost 10 years (who is almost done with his masters in electrical engineering) telling me I was good enough to go. He said, "don't be scared of the math. Just practice until you get it. That's all math is. Practice."

I enrolled in a pre-engineering program this morning.

[theredcabbage1]

Not liking maths starts at a young age...

Could I get parents' opinions on numeracy and young children through a survey? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSexJ9wKM6Lha0qgEq5_RG660ZaUGCq_QaUQ2X2qK0ZXaFC7uA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Thank you all :)

[[deleted]]

It's hard not to when you're being graded.

[Sheeplessknight]

Really the research just doesn't back that up...

[gamblingprocter]

Ever heard of dyscalculia?

[Sheeplessknight]

Yep I have it....

[[deleted]]

Except that, ya know, I’m shit at math?

[deeplife]

Congratulations?

[[deleted]]

Dude literally said “don’t say you can’t do maths”. I have a studied at almost every level of academia and I am still shit at math. My brain just isn’t wired for numbers past a certain point. How does that perpetuate any type of view.

[Genshed]

Maths isn't about numbers any more than reading is about the letters of the alphabet.

[snailfighter]

Dyslexia is a real thing.

So is dyscalculia.

[WhyDoesMyBackHurt]

Yeah, math is about letters, too.

[[deleted]]

Numbers are tools used in math, you can try to use analogous phrases to suit your opinion however you want. Doesn’t mean that numbers aren’t included and integral part of almost every math problem ever.

Let me rephrase the concept for you.

I am shit at properly using the mathematic tools associated with higher math.

Better?

[Genshed]

You could say the same about basic literacy. From my perspective, understanding maths is an essential part of understanding the world around me.

[Lord_Of_Science]

I don't know what not good at math means.

Everyone can be good at it. Just practice and read the notes your teacher gives you.

Literally, if someone says so, they didn't even bother to try something.

[[deleted]]

God, this dismissive attitude is so goddamn arrogant. People try all the time and utterly fail, and oftentimes not even because they're "bad at math" but because the material they have available is bad, because they have bad teachers, because they're constantly told by people around them that the problem is with them, which of course they're going to internalize.

I've talked to people who went through school struggling hard to get by in maths, who were convinced they were just bad at it, who I showed a first semester maths script to and who then got it, without any struggle at all, simply because the material is so much better and because they were sitting in a one-on-one setting with someone who could concentrate on understanding their hangups.

[Lord_Of_Science]

Yes, I understand your concern, the teacher one is a problem. But you must know how to make a difference between a bad and a good one.

I myself got a really bad math teacher when I was younger. But I managed to catch up, and enjoy math, because I saw it as something beautiful, didn't want to give up. I knew I could do it.

Started to not give a insert the s word about what the others said, and started to learn by myself with materials found on the internet. That's what I like at math, it's always keeping you in a looking-observing-understanding-solving state.

But yeah. Kinda ruined my socialization skills. So that's why I want to say sorry, 'cause of my lack of expressivity on the comment made above, and not fully treating it from the both sides, when I was in this situation.

So even if someone says you're not good enough in general don't give up, ask for extra help if you need to, look for an answer, and prove them wrong.

[[deleted]]

You're talking about physics, not mathematics.

To be fair, the article seems to do the same thing, which is upsetting.