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Anonymous October 3, 2008

How do I not transfer my dislike of math to my son? Which has become even more difficult with various ways of

Anonymous
teaching the basic skills in computations. It's so confusing there are so many different arguments for and against, for instance this review :
Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
M.J. McDermott is speaking about the current state of math education, as a private citizen . KCPQ does not endorse this video.

Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth
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Parent Answers to "How do I not transfer my dislike of math to my son? Which has become even more difficult with various ways of "

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MSMomm
MSMomm October 3, 2008
What grade is your son in, and what is he learning at the present time?

I used to dislike math, as well, because I struggled with math from 6th grade on into high school. Part of the reason why I struggled was because of my teachers (one didn't speak English very well, and it was very difficult to understand her, so I tuned out during her class), and during 6th grade, I changed schools.

My son is in 7th grade now. I bought a set of DVD's on all math subjects, so I could "relearn" all the math I didn't understand and hated during my school years. Even though I don't use these techniques in my daily life, I can now understand my son's homework, and even help him!

It's never too late to learn ... :)
onika01
onika01 October 3, 2008
he in Grade 4 thanks can you tell me the name of the DVD's that you got
blacklion
blacklion October 9, 2008
I don't know too many people who are big fans of math in school. It is always a hard subject. Having said that, I love math now. I just had to find something I enjoyed and applied math to it. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I took and accounting class. I like money, investing and keeping track of stuff. Accounting combined all of these. It was the only class I've ever taken where I finished the school year 4 chapters ahead of everyone. The teacher even skipped chapters and still didn't keep up with me. Find something you like, your job, your hobby, anything that you find enjoyable and see how you can add math to it. When you make math fun, you make it easy.

I try to use math every day. Doing a budget for your family (and who doesn't need to do one in this economy) involves math. Bill paying involves math. Just figuring out the deductions on your paycheck involves math. And those are just the mundane choices. Students of certain disciplines of math are almost guaranteed the high paying jobs in the world. I don't make that statement lightly. i'm not talking math teacher or college professors. I'm talking the little brainiacs that sit and develop the algorithms--in laymen's terms, it's a math problem no one else can figure out-- for google and encryption companies (you patent one of those and you are looking at billions of dollars). I'm talking the geniuses that created the models used by the financial industry for evaluation of all of the securities instruments used around the world. Money and math are two enterprises that go hand in hand.

As MSMomm says below "It is never to late to learn." You don't have to be a math wiz to just get the idea that math is important to your children. The most math my dad ever taught me was to pay my bills first and on time and how to do my own tax return. That was enough though. He planted the seed and it grew from there.
twisata
twisata December 17, 2008
Well, I believed not all teacher is good at explaining. Most of the time people hate math for two reasons, first they don't understand math, second they don't have a good teacher that's good at explaining. That being said, the way to get our kids to be interested in math has to start from us the parent. We could relearn math, there's a lot of resources out there. I find out the more we aged, we easier it is for us to grasp the concept of learning, especially math.

My daughter hate math since kindergarten. Whenever it's time to do math homework, she's gonna spent 2 hours at least on that particular subject. Not that she did not know how to do it. Mostly, it's because she think it's hard, that already block the mind to think. So, what I did was showing her how to do it in an easier way by matching with the daily problems that we might encounter. I went online to find all kinds of math problems and did it with her. I spent a lot of time with her math homework, keep letting her know that it is easy. With lots of practice, she finally changed her mind that math is easy. She's getting better, and during his 3rd grade, she got a very good teacher (that makes a huge difference) who is very good at math. Now in her 4th grade, she loves math. She can easily complete her homework every day on her own. Nowadays, she only come to me for help with a very difficult subject.
cdsinckler
cdsinckler July 16, 2009
Most people manage their daily lives using math. Explain to your child that math exists in just about everything we do. For example, cooking. Double a recipe, half a recipe. Play games that involve math. Most kids learn best through playing games because they don't even realize they are learning. Most people struggle with complex word problems. When students learn to apply their reading strategies to solving a math problem they become more suscessful. Advanced math involves memorizing formulas and following logical sequence of steps. This part requires practice. Students also become more comfortable solving word problems when they apply reading strategies to figure out solutions.

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