Math - can means can? cannot means cannot?
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yeps. i also had such teacher who said this to me ,Originally posted by browniebaobao:I retake my O level but still failed..
I think it was bcos I was very demoralised by my darn sec 1 teacher who always chose me to solve maths problem.. and if I failed to solve, I had to remain standing for the whole period. Also, my sec 4 E Maths teacher then.. whenever he sees me, he will mock and me and say "xxxxxx, u are a born failure!". All the humiliation and emabrrassment..
I dropped A Maths, bcos I wanted to concentrate on E Maths.. but I made the wrong move..
I got D7, no matter how hard i tried.
but I dun have much problem doing accounting and business statistics..
i think it's that darn teacher I had that really killed my interest for Maths.
" i see you this kind , should be cannot go into poly with such a grade".
totally dampened my confidence. >.< -
Actually I find this linguistic problem a much more.. recent issue. My time..Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:You forgot the linguistic presentation of the problem. English is a very tricky language.
.... it was a lot more straightforward. But when I used to tutor P2 kids, wow.. their maths questions now are a lot more difficult.. and many could not understand the questions because of the way they were phrased and because their English is not good enough. 
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The teachers that really piss me off are those who think reverse psychology works. It only works if you give a damn.... and if you give a damn.. you won't be bad in it in the first place.Originally posted by lalala1999:yeps. i also had such teacher who said this to me ,
" i see you this kind , should be cannot go into poly with such a grade".
totally dampened my confidence. >.< -
i guess it's all about getting a good teacher who can actually inspire you to put in the effort.. and also technically skilled enough to show you how to view the problems with a different perspective...
all in all, math actually takes more of the "softer side" than people think..
it requires technical ability, but it also requires the finesse and ability to look from other angles, and a sensing of what it is.. much like a literature major would approach a subject...
i think that part of the subject is sorely ignored...
or maybe i'm just mad
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In a normal classroom, it's 40 students to 1 teacher.
How to expect the teacher to be able to lead the students to see the softer side of maths?
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Perhaps what you are talking about is that Maths is really a Cognitive subject and not simply about NUMBERS. And yes, I agree.
What i LIKE about maths later in life is..... how maths is everywhere.. (but we don't see that earlier on) and I guess with the more modern cross discipline approach to education there is a lot more opportunity for this... i.e. I read this book about how nature is governed by mathematical laws of symmetry and etc, music and mathematics, and... late in University, my tutor spoke about maths and ART... such diverse manifestations of a subject i used to fear... -
What's scary for me now is that I have to learn a bit of history to understand maths.Originally posted by ShrodingersCat:Perhaps what you are talking about is that Maths is really a Cognitive subject and not simply about NUMBERS. And yes, I agree.
What i LIKE about maths later in life is..... how maths is everywhere.. (but we don't see that earlier on) and I guess with the more modern cross discipline approach to education there is a lot more opportunity for this... i.e. I read this book about how nature is governed by mathematical laws of symmetry and etc, music and mathematics, and... late in University, my tutor spoke about maths and ART... such diverse manifestations of a subject i used to fear... -
Explain?Originally posted by CoolMyth:What's scary for me now is that I have to learn a bit of history to understand maths.
History is fun ma.. if you disregard the memorising of the dates (which is really about perspective, placing and time line) ... its... stories stories...
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as a 'cognitive' subject is a lot further...
but when i was doing math in school as a subject, i actually did a lot of feeling out a problem... sort of like:
it looks like vectors... but i think i can use complex numbers to solve this a lot easier... or should i turn it into matrices as it's very easy to work with matrices... or should i use a combination of these things?
stuff like that.. then i just went with what i felt could tackle the problem the easiest... it was more feel than actual computational brute force...
until today, i'm useless at arithmatic but i can still pretty much do algebra, calculus and stuff like that -
Basically, reading about how this theorem and this theorem came about, what motivation lies behind in deriving this theorem and how the theorem was used initally.Originally posted by ShrodingersCat:Explain?
History is fun ma.. if you disregard the memorising of the dates (which is really about perspective, placing and time line) ... its... stories stories...
And also, the general response by the mathematical circle as to the usage of this theorem etc etc.
The idea is to provide a motivation for learning what I'm learning now. -
history is badly tackled at schools...
i still believe history should be taught beside physical geography and a whole host of other things...
in that way, we can understand what drove the people to do what they did then... and how civilisations were constrained by their physical landscape, their philosophy and all that..
or maybe history being taught these days is different? because when i did it, it was just a huge pile of facts.. almost unconnected...
btw, the history of some mathematicians are amazing
from Sophie Germain who had to pose as a man and how Gauss was rescued by her.. to Archimedes who got run through by a soldier because he was so engrossed in his calculations.. to the tragic death by politics and intrigue of Galois.. to the shame of Pythagoras who ordered the death of his student because his student showed proof that contradicted Pythagoras' mistaken belief... and Euler who was referred to as Analysis Incarnate who served in the court of Catherine the Great..
they all make wonderful reading as subjects of history..
and all had the same overriding passion which was mathematicsOriginally posted by ShrodingersCat:Explain?
History is fun ma.. if you disregard the memorising of the dates (which is really about perspective, placing and time line) ... its... stories stories... -
yeah! I would think that would make maths a lot more interesting leh.... heee like when I was reading Fermat's Theorem.. can't say I understand the theorem but its interesting to read how people are so affected by it, makes you intrigued to want to know more about it.Originally posted by CoolMyth:Basically, reading about how this theorem and this theorem came about, what motivation lies behind in deriving this theorem and how the theorem was used initally.
And also, the general response by the mathematical circle as to the usage of this theorem etc etc.
The idea is to provide a motivation for learning what I'm learning now. -
ahhh.. the greatest ever problem..
so simple, yet so confounding...
x^n = y^n + z^n
cannot exist for n, x, y, z = integers and n>2
they could not prove that for 350 years until Andrew Wiles did about 10 years ago...
i highly recommend the book by Simon Singh.. it has been retitled Fermat's Enigma now.. it was called Fermat's Last Theorem...
very very wonderful readOriginally posted by ShrodingersCat:yeah! I would think that would make maths a lot more interesting leh.... heee like when I was reading Fermat's Theorem.. can't say I understand the theorem but its interesting to read how people are so affected by it, makes you intrigued to want to know more about it. -
Ya that's the book I readOriginally posted by the Bear:ahhh.. the greatest ever problem..
so simple, yet so confounding...
x^n = y^n + z^n
cannot exist for n, x, y, z = integers and n>2
they could not prove that for 350 years until Andrew Wiles did about 10 years ago...
i highly recommend the book by Simon Singh.. it has been retitled Fermat's Enigma now.. it was called Fermat's Last Theorem...
very very wonderful read
I like Simon Singh's books. -
ahh.. then you'll know all about the colourful histories of mathematicians..
they're all not stodgy and dusty people bent over dark corners of universitiesOriginally posted by ShrodingersCat:Ya that's the book I read
I like Simon Singh's books. -
hw did u get to offer A maths if yr maths at sec 2 was poorOriginally posted by browniebaobao:I retake my O level but still failed..
I think it was bcos I was very demoralised by my darn sec 1 teacher who always chose me to solve maths problem.. and if I failed to solve, I had to remain standing for the whole period. Also, my sec 4 E Maths teacher then.. whenever he sees me, he will mock and me and say "xxxxxx, u are a born failure!". All the humiliation and emabrrassment..
I dropped A Maths, bcos I wanted to concentrate on E Maths.. but I made the wrong move..
I got D7, no matter how hard i tried.
but I dun have much problem doing accounting and business statistics..
i think it's that darn teacher I had that really killed my interest for Maths.
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I wun say that cannot means cannot. Everyone can do maths lah.....
But i do believe that certain people do have more flair for numbers than some people. I got B3 for A and E maths in my O levels but if u ask me, whether i am good at maths, I will say no. I scored B3 becos I wanted the grades. Some of my frens can understand the formulaes very well and thus it comes easy to them... for me, i look at the formulaes, I switch off immediately liao. It is the same when i took my accounting module in poly and uni haha. I have no interests in subjects like maths mainly becos in the world of maths, most of the time, there is only one right answer...it isnt a very 'creative' subject
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Yeah and scientists for that matter... like the love life of Einstein...Originally posted by the Bear:ahh.. then you'll know all about the colourful histories of mathematicians..
they're all not stodgy and dusty people bent over dark corners of universities
Maybe inherently I'm a humanities person so the HUMANS behind all these make it interesting... while I know some friends who really like maths for the beauty of the numbers itself. -
my maths only sec 1 standard..
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Sad to say... ya. (I dont seem to have many very good teachers I'm afraid, though I do remember a couple with great affection and respect)Originally posted by the Bear:history is badly tackled at schools...
I grew to love history through.. interestingly.. my previous work. My boss... notwithstanding disagreements, is a person who could bring history to life, and I guess through him, I had the opportunity to open my eyes to the past. And ... ya.. through history, the value of something becomes very different. It's like getting to know a person, and if you know what he's been through, suddenly you can't help but respect him a bit more for all that.
But ooh.. we were talking abt maths -
I believe those who 'cannot' have this mentality, mental block which restricts their function to see and understand certain formulas.
I'm one of those who 'cannot make it', i thought i'm in the Arts Category and maths is my enemy.
Forcing myself to work extra hard, to agonized more than others.
I took twice as much time to finish a sum/question.
Yup, it was a breakthrough - i didn't hate math any longer after my O's.
But i won't want to go back to it again. Too much to bear(oops!). -
with teachers who call people "born failures", is it any wonder that some people are psychologically conditioned to hate maths ? .....
the only people who celebrate the singapore maths syllabus (other than some disgrunted americans with super dumbed down, MCQ pseudo-maths), are Singaporeans themselves .... (not me ! )
screwed up teachers aside, to a large extent, the primary school syllabus is just one big IQ test, the secondary school syllabus covers a lot of breath but not much depth, ditto for poly ...... so you have people who score distinctions from O' levels all the way through to third year poly and still don't really know much ..... for sure, they know how to differentiate, how to integrate, heck, laplace tranforms and fourier series too .... but they haven't heard of FTC ! ... -
all Express students were given the option to do either A Maths or POA.Originally posted by Chelzea:hw did u get to offer A maths if yr maths at sec 2 was poor
In the end, none of the Express class got POA. -
is A or E maths easier?
personally A maths seems more straight forward.. -
Well, it is a dry topic for starters. I'd rather spend time on something more creative, like writing fiction.
