[KC]

MATH???

And I'm a scholarship student pursuing his degree, not someone uneducated. Sometimes some things are just beyond me...

[AJ2011]

You are awesome! That is a really cool way to put it. I have been getting there while trying to think of reasons I would want to know about it, but you sped up the process! Thank you

You are most welcome!

One of my favorite applied mathematicians is Steven Strogatz TAM: Faculty Bio

If you look at the bottom of his page, you see so many different applications, some amusing and some extremely useful. He has an awesome way of explaining mathematics.

One of his books on chaos even describes romantic relationship between Romeo & Juliet with a differential equation. People may not like rote process of solving equations but certainly it could be fun to appreciate it.

[EsotericPrincess]

eh, I'm fairly decent at it but don't really like it. I utterly despise fractions and having to work with them...I like to round up...must be that INFJ "big picture" thing lol idk. Geometry, however...now that I can get with. I have a very high aptitude for visual/spatial interpretations.

[Collossus]

I'm good at it but I don't like (it is more about the professors that I had and not the science itself). I prefer Chemistry. The chemical reactions are easier to understand through intuition that going forth-back through infinity. My Ti/Te is also, from the tests I've taken, very low.

[Elwin]

If I can find where I buried the essay, I'll post it.

I found the essay. It's called A Mathematician's Lament by Paul Lockhart. Below are some excerpts, but you will probably enjoy reading it for yourself.

The cultural problem is a self-perpetuating monster: students learn about math from their teachers, and teachers learn about it from their teachers, so this lack of understanding and appreciation for mathematics in our culture replicates itself indefinitely. 06

Many a graduate student has come to grief when they discover, after a decade of being told they were “good at math,” that in fact they have no real mathematical talent and are just very good at following directions. Math is not about following directions, it’s about making new directions. 06

The impression we are given is of something very cold and highly technical, that no one could possibly understand— a self-fulfilling prophesy if there ever was one. 06

Everyone knows that poetry and music are for pure enjoyment and for uplifting and ennobling the human spirit (hence their virtual elimination from the public school curriculum) but no, math is important. 06

There is surely no more reliable way to kill enthusiasm and interest in a subject than to make it a mandatory part of the school curriculum. Include it as a major component of standardized testing and you virtually guarantee that the education establishment will suck the life out of it. 07

Mathematics is the music of reason. 08

It is far easier to be a passive conduit of some publisher’s “materials” and to follow the shampoo-bottle instruction “lecture, test, repeat” than to think deeply and thoughtfully about the meaning of one’s subject and how best to convey that meaning directly and honestly to one’s students. 10

But the fact is, people learn better when the product comes out of the process. A real appreciation for poetry does not come from memorizing a bunch of poems, it comes from writing your own. 13

As Gauss once remarked, “What we need are notions, not notations.” 13

Mental acuity of any kind comes from solving problems yourself, not from being told how to solve them.14

The ladder myth is a false image of the subject, and a teacher’s own path through the standard curriculum reinforces this myth and prevents him or her from seeing mathematics as an organic whole.14

How sad that fifth-graders are taught to say “quadrilateral” instead of “four-sided shape,” but are never given a reason to use words like “conjecture,” and “counterexample.”15

“I was made to learn by heart: ‘The square of the sum of two numbers is equal to the sum of their squares increased by twice their product.’ I had not the vaguest idea what this meant and when I could not remember the words, my tutor threw the book at my head, which did not stimulate my intellect in any way.”Bertrand Russell 16

If we honestly believe that creative reasoning is too “high” for our students, and that they can’t handle it, why do we allow them to write history papers or essays about Shakespeare? The problem is not that the students can’t handle it, it’s that none of the teachers can. They’ve never proved anything themselves, so how could they possibly advise a student? 17

The textbook presents a set of definitions, theorems, and proofs, the teacher copies them onto the blackboard, and the students copy them into their notebooks. They are then asked to mimic them in the exercises. Those that catch on to the pattern quickly are the “good” students. 22

The result is that the student becomes a passive participant in the creative act. Students are making statements to fit a preexisting proof-pattern, not because they mean them. They are being trained to ape arguments, not to intend them. So not only do they have no idea what their teacher is saying, they have no idea what they themselves are saying. 22

Historically this comes out of working on a problem, not as a prelude to it. 22

[indieandsoul]

I don't like math. I was never really good at it. In fact while I was in middle and high school, that was the subject I did my worst in. There were some courses where I did 'okay' in, but I really didn't enjoy doing it.

[emerald sea]

The only kind of Math I like is Algebra.

me too!! :D i did fine in most of the math courses but that was the only one i actually liked. ;)

[Unspoken]

I can go through the motoins of a math problem, but it always feels foreign. If you asked me how I did it, I wouldn't know how to explain it at all. Geometry was the worst. x.x All of the shapes looked like pictures to me. And proofs. Oh proofs, how I loathe you. Story problems weren't too bad though. Although, why were Johny and Sally always trying to find the ratio of oranges to apples? These darn kids are growing up too fast!

[unsung truth]

The irony to me of INFJ's hating math, is that math is the one subject that always provides closure when you finish. That should be the most satisfying experience ever. But I guess you need to get to the point that you can actually complete problems to get there.

I am a mathematician, I can probably help. :P

My personal feelings as to why so many hate math is that mathematics teachers are not able to use F when teaching. Students who are Fs can't relate to a T teacher nearly as easy, because it has no connectedness to people or feelings. T students can relate to the T instruction. In other subjects, the teacher is almost always in the F camp, especially more female teachers in non-mathematics. Since mathematics is a process of building a tower of knowledge, there is no way to build higher if the lower levels aren't solid. I feel strongly that education reform should start with emphasis on F in instruction.

I really love math as well. I would totally do a minor in math if I had the time, but I don't so I'm just gonna go ahead and study group theory, topology, and Lie Algebra on my own :)

I can somewhat relate to what you're saying about F types not liking math due to T based instruction. I often linked my F side to mathematics and other subjects through the idea that I want to be well rounded so I can help others (and my friends and classmates asked me for help quite often). But I've found the most difficulty in math classes where the teacher doesn't give me perspective on the subject. I need the lens to be zoomed out, to see where the argument as a whole is going and then to zoom in and work out all the details; I've encountered a couple teachers that just jump right into some line of thought and I end up not seeing where it's going and need to just skip class and study from the book instead.

It also helps if a teacher is really passionate about the subject and teaching it because then I get in tune with that emotion and feel passionate about the material as well. I had a professor like this for differential equations; he would sometimes pause and take a moment to discuss why a theory or why mathematics in general is so beautiful and I could almost make out the twinkle in his eye. I got an A in that class :)


addendum: Sometimes it took a lot of struggling to get through math problems. In 7th and 8th grade when I was taking algebra and geometry honors respectively I would sometimes get a difficult proof as a problem and have to stay up half the night with my dad trying to figure out how to tackle it. It was trying and frustrating at times, but success was so sweet because then I got to go to bed knowing that I fought my way to that answer and that I was improving because of that process. You just get that spark or a couple of sparks and you feel that stiff wall in your mind turning into mush and giving way to creative flexibility. Funny enough, I think those are the nights that I got the best sleep, even if it wasn't all that long.

[Carola]

addendum: Sometimes it took a lot of struggling to get through math problems. In 7th and 8th grade when I was taking algebra and geometry honors respectively I would sometimes get a difficult proof as a problem and have to stay up half the night with my dad trying to figure out how to tackle it. It was trying and frustrating at times, but success was so sweet because then I got to go to bed knowing that I fought my way to that answer and that I was improving because of that process. You just get that spark or a couple of sparks and you feel that stiff wall in your mind turning into mush and giving way to creative flexibility. Funny enough, I think those are the nights that I got the best sleep, even if it wasn't all that long.

That struggle and the sudden sparks , the wall that turns in mush is one of the most beautiful expereince i have had in life , to me , and that's why i used to love so much maths (and physics) because it gave me so many of these moments of wounderful discovery.