I always hear that some people “think in numbers” and others don’t. I personally believe that this is just a cop out excuse for people who don’t understand how learning works. The same as with language, I believe that if math is taught and fostered at a young age correctly, anyone with average intelligence can become “fluent”. Thinking in numbers is a skill that can be developed. Just my two cents!
Comments
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
No
Math is scary because it’s unknown, but it’s way simpler than people give it credit for
Not everyone is familiar with Maximums, Minimums, Constraints, Functions and Derivatives.
Similarly, most do not know of or understand the relationship between Bank Angle, Turing Radius and Velocity as it pertains to an object moving through a fluid.
Is it all learnable, absolutely it is but, knowing why the mathematical concepts are important and why they should know them are different things. Some don’t care and therefore won’t pursue the knowledge.
Calculus helps explain why most power lines are above ground and why most soft drink cans are the shape and dimensions they are. The fluid stuff is why your drink doesn’t slosh around and spill even though the plane you’re in made a left at 550 mph.
I did college calc 1 and calc 2 in summer I and summer II.
You’re way fucking wrong, bud.
And yes, some people think different. Some don’t even have an inner voice. Math comes easy to some and impossible for others. You’re just completely wrong.
Honestly, I agree. First year calculus really just takes work. Usually more work than people are willing to put in though.
There’s a form of cognitive bias where people tend to assume that because things are easy/obvious to them that they should be easy for others. There is a large percentage of the population that is genuinely unable to pass a college level calculus class, I think it either requires a relatively above average IQ or an abnormally high work ethic.
Most people with at least average intelligence know that college level calculus is not required in everyday life or in most jobs.
Sometimes I have trouble visualizing sinusoidal functions from word examples 🙁 and sawtooth graphing is hard for me to convert into programming languages bc I’m dumb 😞
Basically anyone can learn calculus, and virtually no one needs to
I assure you I do not
IQ is really a smaller part of being able to do things like that. There’s a lot more factors than just IQ.
Some of us are born to be trash at math.
It all hinges on having the right teacher for the student. The wrong teacher can’t teach a student anything complex.
Ofc it can be taught. Everything can! But some things come naturally to others. It’s just like sports. You can practice all you want, it’s very unlikely you’ll be Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo or whoever is the star of your elected sport. You not realizing this shows a lot about your own intelligence.
Basic calculus, maybe… But Calculus 2 blew my brain at first.
It took me 3 times to pass math 2 in high school. (Algebra 2)
I graduated 6 months early with a regents degree with a merit collar.
My brain does not compute math.
Wrong if not unpopular.
Easy. Kids get screwed with early algebra and geometry because they don’t understand why they are learning what they are learning. They should start out with algebra much earlier, 3 cookies is $9, 3x=9, the x is the cookie. Problem is middle school math teachers aren’t paid nearly as much as they should be. 7th grade math teacher everybody hates you. If you are good at math, you can be doing literally anything else for more money and be treated better.
Calculus finally clicked for me in college level chemistry doing labs where we mapped non-linear relationships and made equations with the data. All the classes before that were just memorization. I’m not going to say it’s possible but I do think math labs would help a lot for people like me.
What’s the point?
Nope. I have a clinical doctorate and graduated with 2 bachelor’s degrees in 3.5 years. I got through AP Calculus by the skin of my teeth and am thankful to this day that my college accepted 3s, because otherwise I would have sucked at freshman year calculus as well.
Sorry dude, this is just flat out wrong. I was a way above average high school student, all honors classes, etc. Got to college and completely Flunked out of my first Calc class in my engineering track. I actually wound up retaking PreCalc in college the next semester before retaking Calc again and finishing out my Engineering degree after taking 4 more levels of Calc. I had a pretty good aptitude for Math outta high school and above average work ethic, and I still did not pick up College Calc on the first go.
I mean yeah if taught it.
Ohhhh boy, allow me to introduce myself; the guy you claim doesn’t exist who simply does not think in numbers.
I mean have you ever heard how cooks are bad at baking and bakers are bad at cooking? Obviously it’s not universal, but often times if you are a cook or chef…you have an innate understanding of making food. you feel it in your bones and can improvise. In that case, many cooks get derailed by the formulaic dictates of baking recipes and temperatures. Conversely, the theory goes….skilled bakers….thrive with the formula and struggle with the “winging-it.” At the heart of it, everyone’s different. Those not skilled at math, might hypothetically be wired to be more gifted at music….where feeling your way rather than following a formula helps you excel.
>if math is taught and fostered at a young age correctly
This basically says not everyone can do it. It also depends on who’s teaching. I had a professor tell me most students struggle with derivative but do ok with integral. While I, of course, was the exact opposite. I can’t remember if I passed the class on the first try.
The big deciding factor is less of can they and more of are they motivated to and willing to learn it.
I was diagnosed with dyscalculia in my teens and never made it past basic math. I really tried but my brain was just unable to do anything beyond that.
Given, motivation is part of mathematical ability, no.
My college Calc 2 class was at 8am. Alas, I couldn’t do college level calculus.
My brain is definitely not compatible with numbers. I have number blindness/dyscalculia, it’s like dyslexia but for numbers.
And it’s not from the lack of trying. I just can’t do that.
Also I still don’t know what calculus is and at this point I’m afraid to ask lol. We’re not taught this here.
I think almost anyone can do it, but IMHO calculus courses tend to be fast paced and it’s very easy to fall behind and very difficult to catch up once that happens. If they took what is one semester of calculus right now and spread it across two semesters a lot more people would be able to hack it.
I agree.
I find with math, it’s all about the teacher. I had bad teachers in high school and thought I was bad at math.
I had some great professors at community college and found out I’m actually fine at math. It takes someone who’s flexible enough to teach you different ways to do things and allow different mind sets. My high school teachers were hyper fixated on doing things one specific way.
I find in business, there’s multiple ways to skin the cat and no one cares how as long as you produce the desired outcomes.
Mechanical exercises of reiterated applications of basic calculus rules like the chain one? Sure
Mathematical proof of theorems? I think that’s a bit harder
I imagine that most people are capable of a lot of things that they don’t feel like doing
I dont know what that word means, but it sounds like satanic devil worship witchcraft spell! Quick someone throw this person in the pond with the ducks!
[deleted]
I know plenty of people with learning disabilities that make math hard while being “average intelligence”
Some people think in numbers and others don’t think at all
That may be, but 1) I’m bad at drawing circles, so the “new math” they try to teach kids nowadays doesn’t work for me. Judging by the trouble the drive-thru workers have giving me change, it hasn’t worked for them, either. And 2) anything beyond basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division is pointless and un-necessary unless you’re specifically wanting to go into a career that necessitates advanced math.
Laughs in discalculia
I believe people aren’t dumb. They’re either lazy, or just understand things differently. It takes their own effort and a good teacher to learn something.
How do you know?
Across all learning, it takes effort to learn, especially when it involves solving them. Like it’s easy to learn that dinosaurs exist, but to actually learn “how” dinosaurs exist is different. The latter needs effort and time to understand it, and most people, putting that effort is not pleasant. Of course, there are people who can learn things easier than others, but the effort and time put into it, almost always is needed.
It’s actually lazy to frame it as a “cop out,” as if a struggling student usually knows they have the ability to master the subject they struggle with but simply “doesn’t want to work.” The classes that I struggled with in school were emotionally demoralizing precisely because I was a conscientious student; when I struggled despite my efforts, and had no insight as to what I was doing wrong, or how I might be able to approach it differently, it just left me ashamed and resigned.
Today, with the internet, you might find 25 different videos with explanations for the derivative, and one might finally resonate; but back in the day, you had your textbook, which you could read over and over again, expecting a different result, or you could enjoy staying after school and having your teacher try to explain it to you one more time as they keep checking their watch: “got it now?” “Uh… yeah… I guess…”
No trauma there, though; not one bit, LOL.
The main problem is that the school system rewards the highest performers in math and leaves everyone else behind. Without a solid understanding of algebra, calculus will be difficult for anybody.
It also seems that most math teachers (especially advanced placement teachers) absolutely lack empathy for struggling students, which does not help.
I get your general point, but memory and processing disorders and other non-intelligence issues can interfere with executing math operations, whether or not the person is able to understand the idea. Therefore, someone not being able to do math despite having been taught it is not necessarily a lack of intelligence.
Average intelligence is significantly lower than you think.
If you don’t understand there are different kinds of intelligence and that IQ is the determining factor of what intelligence is, you don’t have an opinion you’re just misinformed.
But what if I have ADHD
Half the people do not have average intelligence. Yet, they’re in college bc it’s the expected thing to do after high school no matter how dumb you are
You clearly don’t understand the meaning/implication of “average intelligence.”
This has always been true. People are just unaware. You miss an important lesson or two in math after being sick at home, it’ll just cause issues for you with future mathematics unless you go back and study what you missed, which a lot of people don’t do. I didn’t
Not if they haven’t learned the mathematical building blocks on which it’s founded.
Not at all true.
I think you have a pretty basic misunderstanding of what “average” intelligence is.
Like the average college student is above average intelligence. And there are PLENTY of college students that si.ply don’t think like that.
What you are saying is the same as saying every person of average intelligence can learn ANY skill. Which is simply not true, and everyone knows that to be true if they think about it.
It is more like interest not intelligence, if you have no interest it in, it will be miserable to study anything
I agree. The biggest issue I saw when tutoring was people shutting down once stuck on a problem. Once a lot of them got over the hump, it got a lot easier to do it again
Can I do it? Yeah, will I use it? No so personally there’s really no point in me learning it.
College calculus is 95% high school calculus
This is coming from someone with a degree in astrophysics
Once I got into the Chain Rule, advanced integrals, and derivatives is when it stopped making sense
As someone who was a math major, I agree, it just takes time and practice to better nail it down.
Okay, but have you considered dyscalculia, which is a real thing that affects a person’s ability to learn math.
There are always other factors that need consideration.
Dyscalculia
It’s not even really an opinion, it’s just an incorrect statement. Human intelligence isn’t as simple as smart/dumb. People have different aptitudes. That isn’t really up for debate; we’ve seen it for centuries. Some people naturally excel in math, others do not, and others struggle with it. Same for any other subject or skill. Of course being taught well and committing to it will improve your chances of becoming good at any of them, but it’s not a guarantee.
For example, I am a try-hard student. I do very well in most classes, but ones that deal in abstract subjects that can’t be visualized cause me a great deal of stress and struggle, no matter how well I’m taught or how long I work at it. No amount of “well did you try harder?” will help that.
The same people who judge you for not breezing through statistics class.
It’s largely useless for the vast majority of people. Im not going to force people to learn what is considered by lots of the general population as hard level math. Why do they need to? Because some people think it’s beautiful/fun?
No. Different brains work differently.
I got a 3.8 graduating college but could not pass calculus to save my life if someone had a gun to my head.
Some of the most math minded, “book” intelligent people I know have the social and emotional intelligence of a brick.
So many comments here from people who found calculus easy, so they think it’s easy for everyone. I promise you, it’s not. You just happen to have an aptitude for it, and it’s coming off as a very privileged opinion. Like how rich people scoff at poor people because “getting rich is so easy, anyone can do it.”
Honestly, calculus is like any other subject or skill. Doable for some, but not all will be proficient. Some people struggle to learn a second language, but do fine in other areas. Some people are uncoordinated but do fine elsewhere. Some people have zero musical talent, but are perfectly average at other things. Why would calculus break that trend?
If the opinion had been about more basic math like algebra or something, I’d have been slightly more inclined to agree, but calculus is a whole other beast. It’s literally the class people take as the entrance to advanced math.
As an educator, I sort of agree, but mostly don’t. I’ve seen tons of students of average ability who had great math teachers just not excel in math. They did fine, but college level Calculus would’ve been a stretch on top of other college classes.
Not if they’re an average intelligence person who was never taught basic math as a child.
There’s a difference between doing well in the class vs actually understanding it. Learning the power rule, chain rule, and integration tricks can help you get an A, but take a real analysis course, and you will see how little you may have understood. The first calculus class isn’t usually a great indicator of what the math really means and how it works. It doesn’t really explain the motivation behind it or how the math can be applied to different scenarios (unless they also take physics or engineering classes). Students can succeed in the plug-and-chug type math courses in their early years with just hard work and memorization, but later math courses involve a lot more creativity and unorthodox thinking. This is where many students who have done well in previous math courses hit a wall. But for most people, they just need to learn how to use the tools, not how they work.
I have to agree. I’m not saying there aren’t people out there that can’t. There’s people that can’t read well due to dyslexia and I know there is a numbers one as well. But I have to agree that a lot of people just don’t want to do math.
Person I know has an iq of 115. ACT score correlated well with this. He just couldn’t do it.
Also had a math teacher in high school who just couldn’t pass it.
I think you are way overestimating an IQ of 100. Just won’t be able to do it.
I don’t understand how you can have this belief. You are only inside your own head and only understand how your own brain works (or don’t), for everyone else’s brain you have to trust their words and their actions, and their words and actions are that it’s hard and complex for them. I know people in scientific fields who had to learn advanced math in university and barely scraped by.
Generally speaking, I think it’s hubris to say “I know how all of your brains work, they work like mine!”
Unless you really have a psychological problem, most of just boils down to interest. When it can’t be made clear to you why it matters and that you need it in daily life or your preferred career, it’s just another hurdle to go over and finish school.
I think there are different types of math brains. Practical thinkers, abstract thinkers, and those who can understand both.
I cant understand raw math. I failed grade 10 math 3 times. When i did my required math courses in university i barely scraped by with a 60. If you put a gun to my head and an algebra book in front of me I’d pull the trigger myself.
Meanwhile my accounting and statistics grades were minimum 85, usually in the 90s. Because those are practical situations that i can process properly.
I’m someone who thinks in numbers, but language is something I have tried very hard and still suck at, so I understand that there are people who are the opposite of me.
You’re either math brained or English brained..
I passed English with an A without even opening the book. Math, I failed and did all the homework and tutoring I could.
understand how learning works
I struggled in with math in school, but when I grew up and mastered a completely different skill, I learned how to learn. Now I know I’m capable of learning anything given enough time.
I hate math with a passion. I’ve also never had a good teacher that was able to get me to understand it or give a shit.
Statistics I liked because I could reason it out and figure out how it applies to life. I could picture it. Algebra was just lame. Here’s letters now and we need to know x for some reason and here is an imaginary number for some reason.
If im gonna imagine something it’s gonna be something a lot cooler than a number!
I agree. I thought I was shit at maths in high school but at University I was getting straight A’s in calc. Turns out I just hadn’t been trying
Who really even cares
Pre Calc is way harder than Calc
Dyscalculia, Its real, people.
I think most people would be able to create new words and continue to develop their native language into a credible dialect if they are marooned on an island say at the age of 9 or 10.
I don’t think most people would be able to discover a new way of doing integrals and derivatives. Maybe even Newton wouldn’t if we marooned him on an island with pen and paper at age 10. If only we had a time machine…
Yes. It just takes effort and a teaching method that clicks for you, which a lot of people never get
discalculia exist and has nothing to do with intelligence. the same way dyslexia exist with or without intelligence.
Naw dawg this aint it. My brain does not comprehend the concepts of calculus. I’m really solid with statistics, spatial analysis, and I work in Climate science and urban planning, but pre-calc and calculus have been incomprehensible to me my entire adult life. Sure I guess I could learn it, but I’ve found significantly more valuable knowledge in other things, someone else can do calc.
>Anyone with at least average intelligence has the ability to do college level calculusAnyone with at least average intelligence has the ability to do college level calculus
My question is why would everyone want to? Or rather, why would anyone want to?
Most smart people exist in a bubble of other smart people and are isolated from the reality of how unintelligent a large number of people are. Presumably you’ve taken college level calculus. That class, and the university where you took it are not filled with average people.
Get to know/interact with people working low end jobs in less affluent areas and you’ll learn not to take your intelligence for granted.
Everyone is different and is better at some things than others. Many types of math are harder for individuals because they’re more abstract and not put into real-life instances. I had a really difficult time in high school algebra, but I got an A in college “math for clinical calculations” where I learned how to measure dosages and do conversions for medications and feed amounts. Doing math for the sake of just flipping numbers around doesn’t make any sense to me, and without context I have no idea if I made a mistake because I can’t tell if my answer makes sense or not. Doing math to figure out the answer to a very specific question with real-world implications is completely different, because why would I be giving 20 pain pills to a deer when it would make more sense to give it six?
There was a professor who once published a study on this.
Technically, any individual that isn’t categorized as “mentally handicapped” can get any bachelor in any field.
The struggles would be more or less depending on the individual, but possible.
However, the line was blurred when it came to research and how average people would succeed or fail in it leading to an inconclusive summary for grad school
Numbers are abstract concepts to me. I have a really hard time memorising and using things that I can’t attach to a picture in my mind (no the shape of the thing doesn’t count). Numbers (and mathematical operators) are too abstract and meaningless by themselves for my brain to easily do something with them. It feels like using a tool I’m not meant to use, like a tool that’s meant for people with 5 fingers but I only have 3. I can do it, but it fights me every step of the way, which is exhausting and not good for my mental health. Also, it is incredibly boring and I don’t need it for anything. So why should I spend time on something that a) is incredibly hard for me to do b) is unnecessary for my daily life and c) does not bring me joy in any way?
The hardest part of differential equations was not the calculus, it was the algebra.
Yooo my dyscalculia would like a word
I think it mostly revolves around work ethic, most people can probably learn it if they spend enough time but it will take a while so most people aren’t willing to spend the time required to understand it
Those are two very different things. I’m confident in my ability to do college level calculus but I’ll still be writing it all down because I cannot do the math all in my head “Thinking in numbers” I can’t even make change in my head without writing things down. I need to see the numbers to keep everything together.
With a good professor I agree, but from my experience a lot of them are bad at explaining things. I’ll be hella confused after a 3 hour lecture, then after find a 15 min YouTube video that explained it better then they could in the 3 hours they had to teach it.
Maybe the basic concepts. The algebra is hard, though. A lot of people can’t even get through that, much less trig.
I think “the ability to” do anything, of course I agree with. If you find the right way to learn it, that works specifically for you, then yes.
But I think it’s very nuanced. Most people hate Statistics classes. When I took it, I immediately loved it because it just made sense to me. But calculus and the math involved in Chemistry i absolutely cannot seem to get a hang of. Whenever I think I understand the rules, I quickly realize I indeed do not.
I think it comes down to a matter of resources available. If Chemistry was taught to me the same way Statistics was, then maybe I would feel differently.
You really understand estimate how dumb people are. I know people in my industry who need a calculator for grade school math.
it’s taught correctly from an early age, probably, but most kids seem to be taught in a way that doesn’t work for them. i’ve tutored kids in math and it’s challenging to be trying to tutor them in say, algebra ,and realize that they aren’t getting it because they dont even understand division or multiplication. unfortunately, there’s no foundation there , so they continuously struggle.
I’ve met so few people in life who were actually irredeemably stupid, and they probably had actual disabilities. Everyone seems to have a very similar level of innate intelligence. Some people are well read, more literate, more skilled in some areas. But I feel like if you give illiterate people a bunch of books at age 5 and a good school to go to they turn out fine.
CALCULUS IS FUCKING USELESS FOR MOST PEOPLE.
Schools need to stop making it a requirement and start making STATISTICS a requirement instead. Most people don’t understand how to read and comprehend stats yet they are everywhere and unavoidable.
No shit anybody can be taught up to calculus if they have been carefully taught from a young age. I think you’ll find in most cases, the people who aren’t faring well in their college math courses were not straight A students throughout their lives who suddenly hit a wall when they got to calculus.
Individual circumstances (including just not wanting to do the work) lead to not being able to pass calculus. And they might say “I don’t think in numbers” and mean “the thought of doing the hundreds of hours of work it would take to get good at math makes me want to vomit”. One just sounds nicer in a conversation.
Everyone is capable of learning everything. But not everyone has an affinity for / an interest in everything. That’s why you likely can’t fix a computer AND fix a car AND operate a farm AND design the blueprints for buildings AND strip and clean a gun while blindfolded AND organize a union strike etc etc.
Everyone picks what they want to actually focus on, and some subset of those people get really on their high horse about how the thing they’re good at is easy, and everyone else should be able to do it too.
My wife has grade 8 and does all kinds of a math in her head in seconds. I finished school and barely passed math every single time. The only reason i didn’t fail was government had to add 10% because they messed up the exams somehow. I can’t even do basic math in my head without lots of time and paper. Can my wife write essays? Does she have a good vocabulary? No. Does she understand scientific concepts? Not at all. We just are not created equal.
It’s very insulting to call it a “cop out”, it’s dismissing and diminishing the efforts of anyone who put genuine effort in and still struggled. Just cause it worked out for you, doesn’t mean others aren’t trying
Not american, what’s the general difficulty level of college level calculus?
People need to remember that 50% of the entire population is below average intelligence, and 50% is higher. Kinda what average means.
I agree in concept, but most people are so far behind in math education that they even struggle with algebra, which is absolutely required for calculus. It’s the first level of math that isn’t about memorizing numbers and operations that are done with calculators and involves abstract thinking with things like variables and functions. Many kids in high school have to retake it, and many just don’t seem to pass.
I think the real problem is most people don’t find it useful, and therefore don’t want to put the required work in to learn it.
For example, I do coding and graduated with an engineering degree, so calculus (multi-variable, actually) was required (I actually finished all calc in high school though). But after leaving school, I’ve never had to use it. It’s still in there though and I don’t feel bad about learning it.
I tutored calculus and chemistry in high school and college. 99% of the people who were “bad at math/science” literally just had horrific teachers in elementary/middle school and were building more complex skills on a terrible foundation. (Ex. Blindly expanding polynomials using “FOIL”, not knowing how base UOM combined to make compound UOM, memorizing answers instead of learning to recognize patterns and reapply principles in a different setting, etc)
I’d always tell my students they weren’t bad at a subject they just haven’t had a teacher explain it in a way they understand.
Yes, no and maybe. It kind of depends on what you mean.
I work in education in international settings. Read a lot of research.
From a learning perspective pretty much anyone can learn college level calculus unless they have a mental disorder like dyscalculia.
There are two things that can stop people from learning it though. First is that it can be taught wrong according to the person learning. That is that the progression is to fast or expects the student to have background knowledge or abilities the student does not yet possess.
Secomd the student can refuse to engage in learning. This often happens because the student think or believe that they can’t learn the material. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
You womt actuelly need to be able to think in numbers to learn college level calculus.
Thinking in numbers is a skill that can be developed and nurtured though and it just comes from having good number sense. Nothing points to students having to engage in math from an early age to learn that though.
Language is a bit special, because we are physical hardwired to learn and understand language very well when young and we become less and less able to differentiate between sounds as we get older.
Math on the other hand is kind of opposite. In many ways you learn it faster the older you get. So you can build up good number sense relative easy even relative late in life.
I have a Masters degree in History and never made it past Statistics in college. Calculus absolutely breaks my brain.
I used to meet four people daily for business in Silicon Valley and the only two I met that used calculus in their jobs — after asking people this question for 12 years — one worked at Loral and one at Ames Research
Does it have a use outside of satellites?
I had to study like I never studied before to pass it for college, with C-. Just barely passed it to graduate
I was in algebra 1 for all four years in high school. Did after school tutors every year. The school was very frustrated. Just could not get it. My senior year my teacher gave me a “study guide”. And he told me “this is your final memorize it”. Only credit I needed to pass and here I am
Insists that the average person has the ability to do college level calculus…
Doesn’t understand high school level statistics.
I disagree. I had problems with anything else but mathematics. I graduated with honors. Mastered 3 languages, and have some other achievements. I could barely manage anything math-related, but everything else went smoothly. I had to attend hours of extra classes. Even as an adult, I never remembered the multiplication table. For me I would learn it by studying by heart for days only to forget in hours. I never remembered my own phone number, bank card pin, the order of the months, or traditional clock. I’m completely unable to estimate the price of my shopping, and have to carry around a calculator. I also can’t retype those short confirmation passwords that come via sms to log in without seeing them. I was diagnosed with dyscalculia. The number of days I spend with tutors is ridiculous, but it didn’t help one bit. So, for me, it’s not possible. It’s sad that this blocked me from going into computer science or anything cool, but I did graduate with a design degree.
:c
I have a math minor, and I have tutored many people. I used to agree with you, but there are many people who learned basically no math before college (due to bad teachers), and I needed to teach them algebra and how graphs work before they even had the chance to grasp calculus. Some of these people are not even dumb, but they just have so much to learn, that they cannot pass university calculus.
I have a masters but math always scared me and I avoided it. Well at some point in college I had to take a class. I had chegg and quizlet and a few other things. Well sometimes I’d spend an hour trying to find the answers only to be forced to do the actual work. That would normally take 10-15 minutes.
Meh I think it’s teacher dependent
In my multivariable calc class in college (which is like calc 3)
The professor I had across the board had student averages of like 60-70, while another teacher my friend had had averages of 90-100
Some teachers are a lot better at getting the material across, providing useful examples, explaining things well
I put in the time, went to extra office hours, studied my ass off, etc
But still failed that shit
I went on to have the other professor for another class and he was amazing
Math lost me at pre-cal. I stopped liking math then and there.
People don’t have the time to study math or read books, but always have the time for social media, 4 hours of gaming a day and chillin’
you are aware there are many, many many reasons why learning calculus, or math in general can be difficult? you will not downplay such difficulties. its extremely insensitive and rude. invalidated.
I think you’re overestimating average intelligence. That being said, I think most people could do college calculus with the correct education, but the correct education would also be increasing average intelligence.
I agree. When people say “I’ve always been bad at math” it’s viewed as something relatable, people say it jokingly. In contrast, being bad at sports, languages, etc. is usually associated with being ashamed of it. I hate that.
Maths, especially calculus, is a valuable skill that more people could and should learn, and with the right teacher probably anyone can learn it.
It just means it takes them more energy and they would rather use that energy somewhere else.
Ability is very different than desirability.
If someone doesn’t have an interest or motivation to learn something, it becomes surprisingly difficult to learn
Truth. I was always bad at math in school. Even through college I had to take “business calculus “ and got a C.
One summer, a couple years after college I decided on a whim to see if I was actually bad at math or if the way I had always been taught was bad. I got a Calculus 1+2 book from the library and worked my way through the whole thing. And to my utter surprise…I REALLY enjoyed it! Especially the complicated partial integration in calc 2! The problems went from “tasks to overcome “ (like they had been in school) to “fun puzzles to solve”. It was such a transformation.
I haven’t really stuck with “casual math” as a hobby, but Ive definitely noticed that my day to day algebra is wayyy improved from that one summer of deep diving on calculus even years later.
“Average intelligence” means half of the people lie beneath it.
So, your statement is accurate.
I agree. Though as an adult I am still annoyed that I never applied myself to math since I never really got what I was solving exactly. It just seemed like they presented rules and formulas and you were expected to do a party trick to solve them. As an adult I now think math is kind of cool, and think about things like Pythagoras being some weird occultist who understood the way math is expressed in nature and I wonder why my high school math teachers weren’t selling it to me like that.
“Anyone can do it”
Describes the circumstances in which anyone may not be able to do it which applies to most people
I would go even farther than this. I suggest calculus can be taught in elementary school to many young people.
Hard disagree. If this were true, College Calculus would have a 100% pass rate.
Sure. But why? Nearly everyone who has taken Calc one doesn’t EVER use it