Stanley Tucheetos posted:

US math classes were memorizing multiplication tables of 1x1 all the way to 12x12 along with memorizing whatever formula is being taught at the moment until you forget it when moving on to the next.

hawowanlawow posted:

yep that's basically what math class was when I was in school, graduated 07

literally just rote memorization of formulas with no attempt to even say why you would need those formulas, much less how they work

Slaan posted:

Most kids go up to at least geometry and basic algebra and some schools offer stats and calculus. But they didnt teach any of them very well. They go over how you make a graph or use a formula, but not really why you do a thing instead of another formula or why it matters in the real world

The_Franz posted:

A huge chunk of our 5th and 6th grade math curriculum was studying flashcards with equations like this on them with the goal of memorizing the answers. We then had timed tests on them where you had maybe 2-3 seconds to write down the answer and if you didn't have everything memorized you had no chance. I still have no idea what any of that crap was supposed to teach us, other than that math was stressful and sucked. I have never in my life had to arbitrarily recall what 154*11 is, although I can do it in my head in a few seconds.

Funnily enough, a lot of people who were good at that stuff and were tracked into honors math courses because of it quit after Algebra 2, because once it became more about real mathematics than arithmetic a lot of people just didn't get it.

Ralph Crammed In posted:

I had poo poo like this in the first and second grades for addition and subtraction. Just sheets full of dozen of equations we had to do in timed drills and it gave me intense, blistering panic to the point I'd hid in my closet and cry instead of doing math homework. I managed to coast on rote memorization until algebra where they got out the graphs and points and letters and I no longer knew what going on, and it was incredibly frustrating because I tried and I should have been good, because I was honor roll and advanced placement classes at everything thing else. Our math teacher was actually the football coach and his method of teaching was "well what does the text book tell you? x goes there, because that's where it belongs? Why don't you get it?"

I too was put into business math so I could graduate. At least I learned what interest and balance sheets were. I wish I could say when I went back to college in my late 20s I understood it, but I struggled with pretty basic stuff there too, like economics and accounting formulas.

Shamino posted:

From about 5th grade on all of my math teachers were also athletic coaches. They would just read the book verbatim and then grade against the answer sheets in the teachers edition of the book.

I am not good at math.

Framboise posted:

I remember the year I started really falling behind in math: 7th grade, taught by the loving golf coach.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

I stopped at high school calculus because my principal taught it, had just learned it over the summer, and frequently had to take the class to meet with her teacher because she didn't understand it.

NoWake posted:

Catholic schools in the early-early 90's had literal nuns laying the foundations for kids' literacy in math. I learned to add & subtract numbers by counting imaginary dots, one by one.

The dots were arranged like this:


For each number you come across, you tap your pencil on each dot and double-dot while counting up or down in your head. "one, two, three, four, five, tap, tap, tap, tap..." This process is excruciatingly slow, and the only release was moving on to memorize multiplication tables. Those loving flash card games.

I did this "counting by dots" method up through college. I was an engineering major.

Bonzo posted:

12th grade pre calc class, 1991-92. Everyone in the class has been in AP for most of their time in school but everyone has a D or worse in this one class.
Finally one kid spoke up and said, "I don't think you can teach. This entire room is filled with AP honor roll students but we all have D's. Sounds like it's the teacher, not the students".
He got sent to the office and his parents called. His parents asked the principal the same thing. As far as I know she did not return the following year.

We had coaches teach at my high school but they mostly taught the classes for kids with "behavioral issues".

bird with big dick posted:

I went to an all boys school and if you did bad on your math test the teacher would yell at you but if your did REAL bad on your test he’d take you into the closet and I don’t know what happened in the closet but the boys were always crying when they came out so he must have said real mean things to them or maybe hit them with his belt or something

Devils Affricate posted:

My 3rd grade teacher got off on some kind of power trip by giving us all ridiculous amounts of math homework. 3rd grade so it was really simple stuff, but just so, so many problems. It would be like "11 + 25 = ?", "80 + 34 = ?" but 50 of these things, every day as homework. I was a stubborn child so after I went through the first 10 or so of them with absolutely zero difficulty, I just got fed up and considered it a waste of time. loving teacher responded by having me checked for a learning disorder because of it.

QuarkJets posted:

It was extra hilarious because upper-division physics classes were the following year, and while we had all taken DiffEq I was the only one who remembered how to do any of that poo poo.

QuarkJets posted:

even in 3rd grade that should have been like 15 minutes of work that you just crank out right before class starts, and now here you are, a goon posting in GBS

all signs point to a real learning disability

Devils Affricate posted:

I didn't had a math-related one

Resting Lich Face posted:

Yeah obviously you've got a language processing one.

Schweinhund posted:

How is memorizing multiplication tables bad again? How are you supposed to learn how to multipy? And not just because of that but that thread is trash.

Aishlinn posted:

Whooping Crabs posted:

I too was forced to watch this

Pawn 17 posted:

Do kids not memorize times tables anymore? We memorized up to 12x12 in maybe 2nd grade. Also the counting dots for addition was one of the first math things I can remember learning as a child.

I was lucky to go to a high school with good math teachers who did more than have us memorize a formula and plug in numbers.

Common Core Mathematics Standards posted:

Multiply and divide within 100.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.C.7
Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division (e.g., knowing that 8 × 5 = 40, one knows 40 ÷ 5 = 8) or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.

QuarkJets posted:

In college I took DiffEq via a correspondence course because why the gently caress would I go sit in a classroom for hours every week when I can just teach that poo poo to myself over the summer? It was cool I just e-mailed the professor my homework and there were 3 exams that I took at the library

It was extra hilarious because upper-division physics classes were the following year, and while we had all taken DiffEq I was the only one who remembered how to do any of that poo poo.