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I never learned to think of anything mathematical as a problem that could be coherently solved. I never "got" numerical thinking, and I was never doing anything more than applying formulae or tricks to the questions. I never really understood why anything was right beyond the most basic arithmatic questions.
When I took college algebra, the pinncle of my mathematical accomplishments, there was a particular type of problem that was just beyond my ability to comprehend. I spent hours and hours fighting with those problems, and I remember on three separate occasions "getting it," and finally understanding how to do the thing. I then forgot the next day, and had to go through the same process again. I needed to pass the course, and didn't want to take it again, so I pushed through, but when it came to the test, I STILL didn't understand the problem type. I had some time on the final, so I did my best, and without any understanding at all did a bunch of stuff to the problem that I didn't really understand, but seemed reasonable at the time, and eventually stopped, because I couldn't see anything more to do. I'd actually gotten it right, to my shock and amazement, but I couldn't understand why.
Later, I took three quarters of statistics. That was easy, really. I never came anywhere close to understanding what on earth the formulas that produced correlations or standard deviations and whatnot were, but I could see quite clearly how to plug data sets into the equations, and could understand how to use the information they produced. But the maths behind all that? Pure and incomprehensible gibberish. I thought about the people who had developed those formulae with a bit of awe, because the relations between the data going in and the information coming out was completely and totally mysterious to me.
On the other hand, I had a great intuitive sense for probabilities.
I've since gotten better at basic arithmetic, and can sometimes remember or intuit basic multiplication. When pressed, I think i remember how to do long division.
However, I find intepreting statistical data to be quite easy, and think in percentages and fractions all the time. However, that doesn't have any connection to math in my mind.
Oddly, I was quite good at word problems. Perhaps math essay questions are exactly what I need... Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
Without a bit of excitement, math is pain. But wouldn't it be most fair to recognize that pain (to a certain extent) as something necessary in the learning process? Modern education focuses very much on making learning as "enjoyable" as possible, as if trying to make the impression that you can learn anything without any pain. This is akin to the ideology that all economics can be based on self-interest, with no need to worry about common externalities.
I would say: kids, learning math will probably be a greater or lesser pain to most of you. But be not afraid - the more you learn, the greater chance you will like something there. Go as far as you can - you may not need much of this math, but you may need to learn to go forward despite resistance. Your grandpas did not do too badly after forced educations after all.
And speaking of statistics: much can be learned by examining the numbers around in the media, even in the classroom. (The meaning of correlations or standard deviations is not that deep: those are just the simplest and most handy mathematical measures of something useful. Just as you can consider arithmetic, geometric, quadratic and many other means, so you can think of other measures of variation - if only that would make your life more exciting.)
