I am not good at maths, never was, never have been but I have learnt the practicalities that one uses in daily life. I had no need of math for anything I wanted to do. Naturally in my work life I had to add, subtract, multiply, measure and weigh. I understand speed, distance, fractions, division, even equations! I know quite a few “math hacks” example:
You can work out percentages 70% of 90 is 7 X 9 = 63 Times any number by 11 by placing that number like so 11 x 55 add a 0 to times by 10 and add 11 = 550 +11
I am not quick or clever I can’t work out too much in my head but then again I do know how to use a calculator and we all have one on our smart phones!
I left school at sixteen, actually I was expelled but I was leaving anyway. I then proceeded to educate myself, by lots of reading but mainly by doing. If you’re good at a subject and enjoy it great but most of us learn as we go along in life because we need to understand what it requires. I had no qualifications or ambition to go into anything that needed maths or science and yet I bet I could run rings round most young of today on any of those subjects and many more. I am naturally intelligent and I learn what I have too in order to address the practicality of whats needed. If I want to cook I have to understand fluid ounces, weights etc: If I want to build shelves I need to understand how to measure and make sure they are level. You get the point! School did teach me the fundamentals but if they had told me I had to learn maths until I was 18 I would have told them to get stuffed and probably not with those words! Instead of forcing students to learn a subject most of them don’t want, we should be encouraging them to use their imagination to explore as much as possible. You cannot engage every teen, life is not that simple. People are like firecrackers, they go off in every direction and follow any path, whether it’s right or wrong, you cannot make them follow one path just because you think it’s right!
Stay well
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