Math Haters are Common

[Gilly]

I should have graduated high school with an A average but finished with a B average because I failed trig my senior year. I never took a math course again. My advisor talked me into it, saying that it would look good on my college applications but it's not like I was trying to get into an Ivy League school. All it did was make for a stressful last semester and a lot of parental screaming. I could have done without that.

[Julie]

You're absolutely correct, Julie:  there are a lot of people out there who hate math.

If my eldest sister were posting this, she'd comment that she hates it when people say "math" when they mean "arithmetic."  Does this bother you, DfK?

I absolutely can't stand it when people say math and mean arithmetic.

[Julie]

If you wrote a full manifesto against math haters, I would read it.

i'll put my mathematics manifesto (rant) on my myspace page this weekend.

[Julie]

I'm one of those people who was good at geometry, okay at my probability and statistics class (that's the math class you take in high school when you're too lazy/artistic/stupid for pre-calc or whatevs), but Algebra 2 was one of the first times I was like "I am honestly not smart enough for this.  I cannot understand what is going on."  I even tried to do tutorials after class with my teacher, and my dad would try to help me at home, and I still technically failed Algebra 2 out of sheer not-getting-it.  I honestly tried my best, and my best was honestly not good enough, but my teacher passed me with a D because he told me he knew I tried my best.  That was like a defining moment in my life, where I realized I had a very specific kind of brain. I was also like kicking ass in Advanced Placement Literature and shit at the time, so it's not like I was a dummy.  Just not a math guy.  So No, Math, I do not hate you, but you and I have separate paths to follow.

A.P. Biology also melted my brain.  Our teacher would anthropomorphize molecules and say they were carrying buckets full of smaller molecules around with them.  This was really hard for me to "get", because I kept thinking "A person is the walking, talking, bucket-carrying accumulation of molecules.  Molecules cannot have personalities or qualities that we understand.  How can a molecule 'carry' smaller molecules?  Am I to believe molecules have temperaments?" and then I would just imagine some proto-Osmosis Jones fantasy world and get distracted.  Also, science text books are poorly written and often eschew all laws of grammar, making them impossible for me to read.

if you were trying that hard and not getting it, it was the teacher. I noticed that most of the Math-Ed people in my classes were as clueless as most of the engineers in my lower level classes when it came to seeing the bigger picture.

[buffcoat]

It was then that I learned how close math is to mysticism.

Now you can build the trireme and The Pyramids.  Just a few more discoveries from JS Bach's Cathedral!

[Forrest]

[dave from knoxville]

Forrest just slagged my whole reason for living, but it was funny, so I will forgive him.

I totally get people who DON'T get math. I've met many of them. I often say in my classes that the ability to do math or not do math has absolutely nothing to do with how good a person you are. It just means that some administrators designing your program have decided for whatever reason that this course is a necesary hurdle for you to prove you can jump over. My job is to help you jump that hurdle, particularly if you are working really hard at it, and participating in class, and attending regularly. But even given all that, I can't let you through unless you do prove you can do it, but even if you don't make it through, it makes you no less of a good person.

Sorry about that horrible grammar, John Junk, but Andy from Knoxville's pressuring me to take him to the basketball game.

Later!

[Susannah]

I had a professor in college who talked a lot about "innumeracy"--essentially, a kind of mathematical illiteracy.  We talked a lot about the double standard that innumeracy brings: people talk about "being terrible at math" or being unable to do simple arithmetic without batting an eye, but admitting one can't read is a whole different story of shame.

I enjoyed math classes enough in high school, but I resented having to do problem sets when all I really wanted to do was read novels.  I was one of those kids who loved stuff like "Flatland" but could only be bothered to pull Bs on tests because I'd rather be reading.  Now I really wish I knew more calculus!

[Emily]

i don't hate math. math hates me.
it refuses to give me the right answer - ever.
thankfully i was able to fill my college math requirement (at Purchase) by taking The History of Math.

when i got around to taking the GREs, it had been like 5 years since i had seen a math problem. I went in with this optimism, "I just have to visualize the problems" and i went through the practice test with the utmost confidence and i was like "Finally ! I get math! It all makes perfect sense!" but then it turned out i still got all the answers wrong. 

i guess i'm innumerate. no worries though, my trusty cell phone has a calculator!

[dania]

I kind of hate math rock. 

[Dorvid Barnas]

I kind of hate math rock.   

On behalf of Slint, Smart Went Crazy, The Vehicle Birth, Shudder to Think, The Dismemberment Plan, Medications, Robots, Trans Am, Lynx(Boston), and most of the music I grew up with, you're wrong!

(or rather, I disagree, and possibly may have long forgotten the difference bewteen between post-punk and math-rock.  I might need help from Chris L. or Josh on this one.)

Point is, I love math rock!  And math!
[youtube]-TZHDpMatAM[/youtube]

[<<<<<]

(or rather, I disagree, and possibly may have long forgotten the difference bewteen between post-punk and math-rock.  I might need help from Chris L. or Josh on this one.)

I think it's probably safe enough to say that all math rock is also postpunk.  Postpunk is the greater umbrella under which math rock would most reasonably fall.

[masterofsparks]

I was always really good at my math classes (I pretty much ruined the curve for the rest of the students in my college Integral Calculus class) but was never sufficiently obsessed by it to do anything but take the required classes.

When I watch the movie Pi, though, I think maybe I should've pursued it more.

[Sarah]

You yearn for headaches that drive you to take a drill to your skull? 

[Julie]

Math geniuses are the new mad scientist.