Have you ever met anyone who feels, "I hate math", or "I don't understand math at all", or "I'm not a math person" ?
Wonder when and where those feelings got started?
I recently read an article called Formula to bring back thrill to math.
The author argued that calculus should be reserved to college studies, not high school. His point was, while the nation is suffering from a shortage of math teachers, the good math teachers are needed, not at advanced-placement calculus classes, but instructing 'the masses' so that they would learn to love math.
He also said that besides a drastic shortage of math teachers, there is also a severe shortage of math majors. In other words, fewer and fewer kids are studying math as their major in college, and there are fewer and fewer (qualified) math teachers... Of course the result is that schools then hire just about anyone to teach math.
I just wonder, is there a connection between the lack of good math teachers and the common feelings of students of not liking math? And then, less and less youngsters choosing to study math? Is this a vicious cycle?
So what makes one love math or hate math? What makes people hate math?
Categories: philosophy
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