“Math lovers” can go f*** themselves
Assuming you fall for the rage bait, let’s continue.
I have previously talked about why math is perceived as a terrifying entity by many. In one blogpost, I talked about math education’s failure in teaching students about its usefulness and profundity. In another, I talked about how external social pressures may be the additional or even sole reason to why people find math (and sports) classes traumatising.
But, I haven’t talked about the people who dismiss our bad experiences. You people always argue that our so-called trauma is just a veneer to justify our laziness and unwillingness to learn. Of course, there are few reasons why that’s bullshit.
First thing first, modern formal education is all about the grades; if you don’t pass the required minimum, you have to repeat the class… or even the entire year. You don’t learn for the genuine pursuit of knowledge, you study for the formal qualifications which (may or may not) open the doors. Unless the adults in charge go above and beyond with the pedagogy, you cannot blame children and teens for detest learning, for seeing it as a necessary evil (or straight up evil).
Second, the accusation about us being lazy and uncommitted learners is unfounded. Never mind that you know little or nothing about our personal lives, we may also have genuine interests in other areas and, believe it or not, math is not only discipline in existence; we actually learn other things on our own will and not expecting any rewards, other than satisfying our genuine sense of curiosity.
And no, just because you have genuine sense of curiosity, that does not mean everything is easily comprehensible; if that’s the case, every toddler would have ended up as experts.
If I want to add my personal experiences, my math incompetence made me study harder and longer. From the third year of primary school to the end of high school, I regularly studied with tutors a few times a week. For six months before the impending national exams (which Indonesian students had to pass in order to graduate middle and high schools), I studied a few extra hours almost everyday, with or without teachers and tutors. My mom complained about spending more money because of my mathematical ineptitude.
While I did pass the math exams with average scores (70s out of 100), I still don’t have better understanding of the discipline. In fact, I end up having even bigger hatred of it…. and math education in general.
I am also confident there are others who share my personal experiences. If you can baselessly accuse all of us of being lazy and uncommitted, then I can have a relatively more reasonable assumption as well; at least, mine does not paint others with the same brush.
Of course, I am not done here. Another problem with you is your unwillingness to acknowledge your own privileges. Yes, that dreaded P word.
You always claim your math competence is 100% a result of your hard work and love of learning. Yet, in the same breath, you also say it didn’t take long for you to understand the lessons and/or you were surrounded by supportive, patient and competent adults… including parents who can teach you math themselves.
That actually debunks the 100% part, doesn’t it?
It didn’t take long for you to understand? So, math is easy for you. Whether nature or nurture, your brains are ready for math classes; not only you are prepared for the constant calculations, you find the precise yet also contradictorily abstract nature of the formulas intuitive to learn (for my adult self, math feels like philosophy but represented with symbols). Basically, you are comparable to artistically-inclined students who thrive in arts classes.
(If I want to get tangential, you are comparable to my high school self who found text analyses and basic sociology easy to learn, unlike my classmates who relatively struggled more with both; it is attributed to the fact that I read more books (escapist novels, admittedly) than they did and I was more interested in discussing social issues than they were).
Supportive, patient and competent adults? Well, my mom was certainly too impatient and incompetent to teach math to someone like me. In fact, she acted as if mathematical ineptitude was one of the worst weaknesses humans can have; it was one of the reasons why she felt ashamed to have me as his son.
And, let’s face it, while my teachers and tutors were indeed patient with me (considered I was even more volatile as a teen), they didn’t fulfill the true purpose of learning.
As mentioned before, modern formal education does not care about whether we truly learn or not, it only cares about our grades. With that in mind, most teachers and tutors only care about making us pass the exams. They don’t have the incentives to make us understand math on a deeper level, to not only acknowledge the practical uses of advanced math, but also to appreciate its so-called beauty.
No, it is not ideal. But, the older I get, the more I cannot blame teachers for doing that (even though I will shit on them if they still expect us to love math despite everything). So, if you grew up with adults who not only could make you understand any disciplines, but also made you appreciate and love them, be grateful. You don’t know how lucky you are to have that privilege.
And you get angry when I utter that last word.
Maybe, you are one of the people who believe that acknowledging one’s own privileges is the same as claiming one never works hard. Maybe, you are one of the people who cannot feel powerful unless you punch down.
Maybe, you are both.
Either way, you can go fuck yourselves. You are delusional if you think you can make math more dignified with your attitudes.
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