I Sing the Mind Alebraic

What in the heck is a quadratic, and why in the world should I care how to solve it? When am I, a non-scientist, non-economist, non-engineer, ever going to need this stuff?? And why doesn't the answer make sense to me even when by sheer dumb luck I happen to stumble upon it?

These are the questions I am pondering at the moment.

That is, when I'm not screaming computative obscenities ("you quadratic, trinomial, conflicting, squared, factoring----special product!!") or throwing wads of paper across the room because, once again, I did everything the book and homework helps tell me to do and I still did not get the answer they want. I just do not get this stuff.

I think you have to have a special kind of brain to process math. And God didn't give me that kind. And I'm about to go insane trying to make myself think like a math-brained person. It just ain't right.

I told my academic mentor in an email last night that I'm a math virgin -- and if I could have my way I'd stay that way (I did not tell her that last part!). The most math I've had was year of algebra and a semester of geometry in high school. And we don't talk about how long ago high school was. It frightens people (namely me). Anyway, the class I'm taking would be great for review for the experienced math addict. But for me, the not-math-brained Math Virgin, trying to shove the basics of algebra, geometry, trig and stats into my brain by January 23rd just may prove to be impossible.

Oh, and now I'm even dreaming about math. This morning I woke up literally trying to solve a quadratic problem by using the FOIL method -- and I can't even remember what FOIL stands for. Lord have mercy on my soul brain!

Comments

[Debbie Kaufman]

Ha ha ha. When I was in High School that is exactly what we said about English Lit, Algebra, Biology, History....... :)

[Larry]

I believe that the failure to learn mathematics has more to do with the teaching style than the difficulty of the material. I think that with some effort a good teacher could put these concepts in terms that you could understand. The problem is that those terms will look different; it's really a task in translation. English to Greek, perhaps.