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Math doesn't suck, you do.

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Nikkoru:
If you can't use a tool well -- a buggy computer for instance, blue screens of a death galore -- it's human nature to resent the tool. Particularly when you're required to work on it for year after year with each passing one increasing the difficulty.

It's also, for many people, completely unclear as to why they're forcing such effort in the first place. It takes some time to develop an opinion on the usefulness of said tool, and usually that insight comes one way or another long after you're supposed to have obtained some mastery over it.It would be more accurate to say, people hate the associations they've developed when learning and using mathematics. Including the depth of time and effort they're required to exert, the extent to which those efforts fail to yield results, and the monotony of the task involved. Then you add the pressure of grades and teacher, it simply adds another layer of association which people find distressing.

My associations with math lead me to pursuing my skill with it further as a means of problem solving. Nothing is simply neutral in our perceptions, however far those may be from rationality.

Burkingam:
Obligatory:


I personally use algebra in a daily basis even though it's not part of my job and even without counting school, but that's just because I'm a science geek.

Bob2004:
I don't really get this argument that "Maths is incredibly important to the human race and is responsible for all kinds of important discoveries and inventions, therefore there is no reason to not like using it". Surgeons are incredibly important to humanity too - they save millions of lives, and greatly improve the quality of life for countless more people. But that doesn't mean I have to enjoy slicing people open and fiddling around with their insides.

I respect the many uses of maths, and I think the vast majority of people do. But it's difficult, fiddly, and boring, therefore I don't like having to actually do it. Whether it's a useful tool or not is irrelevant.


--- Quote from: Nikkoru earlier in this thread ---I have no practical knowledge of agriculture, in spite of its impossible importance to our civilization and species for the last 10 thousand years, I don't consider this a character flaw. I'm not going to mock farming, but I'm certainly not going to do a couple months hard labour on a farm to familiarize myself with the practice. I have no interest in it, it's difficult, and from my perspective I have better things to do.

--- End quote ---

^ Just quoting that because it's pretty much spot on, but most people seem to have ignored it. The usefulness/importance of maths has absolutely no bearing on whether or not people like it. None at all.

As for the bad teacher leads to disliking maths argument - that's perfectly understanable. The first introduction most people get to maths is in school, so it's only logical that whether it's taught well or not has a massive impact on the opinions people form on the subject. The massive effect first impressions have on people is well known - so it makes sense that if the first experience someone has of maths is four years of hell studying a difficult, complicated subject under a horrible, uninteresting teacher, then the opinions they form on maths as a result of that experience will be equally negative. The same goes for any school subject of which students don't have any significant prior experience.

Saras:
Math is an interesting subject. Without it, you can't have anything and if it's the only thing you have, you can't have anything either.

Garret02:
(click to show/hide)I liked maths class. Besides pe and computer class it was the only class where I actually did something and time passed with a normal pace in contrary to the other classes where the hands on the clock just refused to move and I was a brainless zombie. I usually had my homework done before it was even given.

And why is maths "forced" (oh noes we are brutally forced to do maths, oh the woe is me) on everyone in school? Because it teaches how to THINK. It indirectly teaches you to use that thing in your head. In pretty much all other classes you are not required to think, you are required to remember. You just need to copy information from a certain book to the paper without using this book while copying and you get max points. Take maths from school and you will increase the amount of people who don't know how much the brick weights by tenfold :P (A brick weights 1kg and half a brick, how much a brick weights?)

If ponies used more maths, then maybe someponies would have had an easier life:
(click to show/hide)

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