On 8/20/2011 3:49 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> At the start of the book, you get to do really easy stuff like 3+7. They
> would have several pages of adding, and then a few pages of subtracting,
> then a few pages explaining how multiplication works, and then some
> pages of multiplication, then how long multiplication works, and then
> several pages of progressively harder long multiplication questions.
> Then they might get you to do sums involving multiple numbers of
> increasing size. Then they have a couple of pages explaining about
> negative numbers, then you do progressively more complicated sums
> involving multiple negative and positive quantities. Then they might
> talk about long division, and get you to do a few hundred of those. And
> then division and multiplication with negative quantities as well. Then
> maybe they start talking about fractions...
>
> Can you imagine anything more MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING than staring at a
> sheet of 40 long division problems? YES, I GET IT! I KNOW HOW LONG
> DIVISION WORKS! STOP BUGGING ME ALREADY! >_<
>
> Seriously. If you know how it works, do you really need to do it 200
> times over just to *prove* that you know how it works? It's not even
> like it's particularly important to be able to *do* long division; it
> isn't something you're going to need to do every day of your adult life.
> You just need to have a firm grasp of /how/ it works and /why/ it works.
> Once you've got that, practising it on endless question sheets is just
> an utter waste of time.
>
Uh, no. The reason you have to do sheet after sheet of utter bullshit 
like that was because your school, like mine, catered to the one idiot 
in the room that didn't grasp the idea after the first 3 times. I 
refused to do any more of them, they sent me to a school psychologist, 
where they then jumped to several screwed up conclusions, based on, of 
all things, the fact that crayons got handed out alphabetically, so I 
always ended up with the black one (they later adjusted this so people 
got the chance to use other colors, but one wonders how many others 
where misdiagnosed with some sort of disorder over that silly thing), 
and my house **actually** had boxes around the trees and windows, so I 
was "disturbed", because I, "drew boxes around things and used black to 
do it". By the time the idiots figured out that the real problem was 
that I was bored to death of the crap they kept handing me to do, they 
had managed to put me a whole year behind in math. Luckily, I was like 
6-7 years *ahead* in reading. lol

> I was always quite bad at arithmetic. I still am. The difference is that
> today, I use a frigging *computer* to do the work for me. :-P My job is
> to figure out what the actual calculation is; the computer does the
> mundane work of actually *running* it.
>
Yeah. Same here, more or less. I can't do math in my head worth shit, 
and I hate doing it by hand on paper. Shortcuts would help, but you 
don't get those in school. You are lucky if you a) stumble over one 
yourself, or b) pass the class while still having difficulty 
remembering, by rote, certain parts of the times tables. The ones that 
"are" good at math, tend to be the ones that do (a), or just have 
stupidly good memories.

> It wasn't until I got to college that I discovered, mainly due to DKJ,
> that "mathematics" consists of something other than just doing hundreds
> of identical long division calculations over and over again. Mathematics
> provides a systematic way of solving puzzles and problems. It lets you
> manipulate and analyse hypothetical entities who's identity (or, indeed,
> existence) is as-yet unknown. Through tools like FractInt, I discovered
> that mathematics can be beautiful. I spent almost all of my time at
> college sat in the library, absorbing everything I could lay my hands on.
>
Should probably do that myself. The problem is figuring out where the 
hell my gaps are to start with, then finding something that doesn't bore 
the hell out of me reading it, like, I don't know, something directed at 
"application" of the math, not just how the hell you write the 
equations. I think this is a huge damn failing in "text books", and 
classes in general. Its one thing to hand someone a formula, or even a 
stupidly simply thing you want someone to do, like graphing a line, but 
give no possible context for why the hell anyone would bother to do so, 
save maybe some historical context. Its quite a bit different when you 
"need" to know, for your own purposes, how thick a rope will get, wound 
onto a spindle, and thus how big the spindle needs to be, versus just 
having someone hand you a problem, and ask you to give them a result, 
when your only thought is likely to be, "Why the hell do I need this?" 
Mind, that was physics class, while the normal math classes don't even 
give you problems that come even remotely close to that interesting. In 
any case, I don't remember the equations. lol

> I suspect it's some combination of math being taught badly, a cultural
> expectation that math is impossible to understand, and a society where
> stupidity is seen as desirable.
>
Nah.. Stupidity desirable? How could that ever be the case. I mean, its 
not like, at least in the US, there are politicians banking on it, 
products sold based on playing fast and loose with as little information 
as possible, or active attempts to undermine education. That is just 
absurd! Or, in reality, as I put it a bit ago when talking about the US 
version of libertarianism - "The concept is simple, lower taxes, 
resulting in poorer schools, resulting in closed schools, and since its 
everyone's 'right' to choose to be ignorant, the fact that 90% of the 
population is stupid has nothing to do with the failure of the system, 
its entirely the fault of people not moving to where the only two 
schools still open are located." Dear old Madison would be having a 
heart attack at this shit, if he hadn't had the sad misfortune of dying 
in 1836.

I seems only fitting that by 2036 the US might be so fucking stupid that 
they couldn't build a log cabin from his time, let alone work out why 
living in one would be preferable to huddling under a tree, or wearing 
animal skins in a cave... Or, so it sometimes seems the trajectory of 
some of this stupid shit is headed.

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