Why Most People do not like Mathmetics ?

[pollocky]

I like mathematics as a subject , I have experienced from many people that they do not like the maths because of it contains the difficult calculations and technicalities . I found it very interesting subject . I would say it wonderful subject .

 

[matematikawan]

That because you haven't seen yet the $$\epsilon - \delta$$ rule in mathematics.

 

[micromass]

There are, in my opinion, two reasons why people do not like math

1) Math is difficult to grasp. I have really struggled through the first year of math in elementary school, I found it quite difficult. But I persisted, and suddenly it all clicked. And suddenly, I found it all easy and I liked it. However, most people don't have the patience to persist and to wait until it clicks. It also requires so maturity, which most people don't have at that age.
Furthermore, it takes a little while to get to the interesting stuff. You need to do boring addition and multiplication first, solving linear systems, solving quadratic equations,... When the math finally gets interesting, many people have given up.

2) Math is very uncool. If I tell other people that I like mathematics, then they always get very blank stares and they look like I'm crazy. And then there are always some people who exclaim that they never understood math, and they're proud of it! It's a cultural thing that people are proud because they can't count, I guess. I guess I would have liked to live in ancient Greece, where mathematics and philosophy were still considered necessary tools for any person...

 

[HallsofIvy]

I'm puzzled as to why you think "most people don't like mathematics". My experience is that most people enjoy math puzzles- though they may sometimes be daunted by them. As for telling people that I am a mathematician, I find that most people are impressed. They tend to assume that means I am very smart (and I prefer to leave them with that misconception).

 

[KrisOhn]

They tend to assume that means I am very smart (and I prefer to leave them with that misconception).

Same thing happens with a lot of the pure sciences. When I tell people I'm studying physics, they treat me like I'm some kind of super genius. I also like to leave them with the misconception .

In my experience though, most people do not like mathematics because most people learn by concrete examples. Once you get into the abstractness of math, where concepts are very difficult to visualize, people start having trouble learning.

 

[Curd]

I think it's because they are forced to learn it too quickly and in noisy environments, and are not shown the money earning advantage of being able to do it, are shoved through too many classes per day and have no real time to focus on it in grade school (thereby creating excess pressure on the student and making it harder than it need be), and have the retarded monkey see monkey do attitude which allows them to embrace the common mentality that math is hard.


It's not hard if you start slow and learn it right is the point. I noticed that while in school and college they try to ram as much into your work as possible. this may make some sense in college but not in grade school. this causes anxiety and that generates the impression of difficulty.


it's not difficult and unpleasant. the way it's taught makes it difficult and unpleasant.


well, and many people are just snooky stupid as they say.

 

[Curd]

There are, in my opinion, two reasons why people do not like math

When the math finally gets interesting, many people have given up.

when does that point occur?

 

[Pengwuino]

And then there are always some people who exclaim that they never understood math, and they're proud of it! It's a cultural thing that people are proud because they can't count, I guess.

I usually consider this the first sign of a mental disorder. That's like a fat person saying "I've never run 5 miles, WOOOO!".

 

[danago]

There are, in my opinion, two reasons why people do not like math

1) Math is difficult to grasp. I have really struggled through the first year of math in elementary school, I found it quite difficult. But I persisted, and suddenly it all clicked. And suddenly, I found it all easy and I liked it. However, most people don't have the patience to persist and to wait until it clicks. It also requires so maturity, which most people don't have at that age.
Furthermore, it takes a little while to get to the interesting stuff. You need to do boring addition and multiplication first, solving linear systems, solving quadratic equations,... When the math finally gets interesting, many people have given up.

A completely agree with this -- I hated maths up until about grade 10 of high school, because all i was doing was the "boring" math like finding an angle in a right angle triangle or drawing histograms from sets of data. Furthermore, the fact that the questions we were assigned were all just variations of the same problem made it really monotonous. I clearly remember a point while i was solving linear equations and something "clicked"; i realized that math was really just logic! It was from here that i started to enjoy and appreciate mathematics. My interest really gained momentum in my final two years when we began studying the basics of calculus, i was amazed (and still am) at how well things just fit together.

 

[khemist]

Many people do not find applications for math. I have found that the "interestingness" of math comes from the applications and the ability for it to describe real world situations. The problem is, in 3rd grade, the real world situations consists of apples and oranges, which no 3rd grader cares about.

 

[Drakkith]

Many people do not find applications for math. I have found that the "interestingness" of math comes from the applications and the ability for it to describe real world situations. The problem is, in 3rd grade, the real world situations consists of apples and oranges, which no 3rd grader cares about.

I think this is probably a big part of it.

 

[ATranPV]

"When am I EVER going to need to use this?" is a phrase that unfortunately I have heard way too many times.

There are, in my opinion, two reasons why people do not like math

2) Math is very uncool. If I tell other people that I like mathematics, then they always get very blank stares and they look like I'm crazy. And then there are always some people who exclaim that they never understood math, and they're proud of it! It's a cultural thing that people are proud because they can't count, I guess.

This statement is dead on. It might be an American thing where its cool to have the ability to shotgun a beer rather than doing multivariate calculus...

 

[Calrid]

It's cool to shot gun beer is it? Oh dear I have been uncool a long time.

Some people just aren't very good at it and it takes a great deal longer than average to learn anything, so they fall behind the averagely apt pupils and way behind the gifted ones. This generally means they are moved into the lowest able groups, in my school it was set 1,2,3 I seem to remember. I started in set 2 on my first day in a new school of school and was moved up to set 1 within about 20 minutes of being there. Imagine though if I had of been moved down to set 3 after 20 minutes. That's the sort of ego denting thing that makes people build up resentment towards a system. It's also commonly held that rote learning benefits kids, ie times tables and so on. However some kids don't learn well at all that way, some need to grasp why things are what they are, some don't, some can just do it with little or no learning. Basically what I am saying is resentment towards maths is something that sadly our education system only seems to fuel. The reason why say people don't say they hate geography, is because maths forms part of nearly every other subject and it does have use in every day life. Like English it is a core subject. Of course there are crappy teachers, but all things being equal people will resent the subject if they are not good at it.

I am bad at English btw. I don't really resent the subject although I did when I was at school because I was often marked down on neatness, spelling, grammar etc etc, although I was moved up to set 1 on my first day, probably because of being moved up in maths ironically enough, as if there was an intrinsic link.

 

[paulfr]

As a High School Math teacher I must deal with this "don't like Math" bias all the time when I am trying to figure out how to motivate the disinterested students.

Some of the things I have found are ...
1/ The S's do not see that Math is all around them; from the beating of their heart to the fact that their face is covered with countless trigonometric entities [EM and Acoustic waves]. When they see it is the language of nature some become interested to know more.

2/ Few texts or teachers attempt to show the cohesiveness of the various topics in Math.
Learning one rule after another endless rule gets boring and this is because the texts are written to impress other professors rather than simply teach the student the higher abstraction from the very beginning. For example I teach my new Algebra students the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra right away. It is difficult and is usually taught several years later, but I think they can then see why we learn all these techniques for solving polynomials; linear & quadratic, and later Factor and Remainder Theorems.

3/ Proofs are also shunned in most modern progressive classes when they are the backbone of the Logic that underlies Mathematics. And this logic is invaluable not only in the Sciences but also all of the Arts. The Arts are about COMMUNICATION and nothing communicates better than a clear logical sensible idea well presented.

4/ Of course there will always be some S's not willing to do the work necessary but these people usually do not work in most other courses too most often because of the values or emotional considerations they bring from their home environment.

JMHO

 

[Curd]

As a High School Math teacher I must deal with this "don't like Math" bias all the time when I am trying to figure out how to motivate the disinterested students.

Some of the things I have found are ...
1/ The S's do not see that Math is all around them; from the beating of their heart to the fact that their face is covered with countless trigonometric entities [EM and Acoustic waves]. When they see it is the language of nature some become interested to know more.

2/ Few texts or teachers attempt to show the cohesiveness of the various topics in Math.
Learning one rule after another endless rule gets boring and this is because the texts are written to impress other professors rather than simply teach the student the higher abstraction from the very beginning. For example I teach my new Algebra students the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra right away. It is difficult and is usually taught several years later, but I think they can then see why we learn all these techniques for solving polynomials; linear & quadratic, and later Factor and Remainder Theorems.

3/ Proofs are also shunned in most modern progressive classes when they are the backbone of the Logic that underlies Mathematics. And this logic is invaluable not only in the Sciences but also all of the Arts. The Arts are about COMMUNICATION and nothing communicates better than a clear logical sensible idea well presented.

4/ Of course there will always be some S's not willing to do the work necessary but these people usually do not work in most other courses too most often because of the values or emotional considerations they bring from their home environment.

JMHO

Actually, the arts are about people learning about art to impress other people who know about art.

Outsider art is about communicating... at least more often than art is anyway.

 

[Samuelb88]

In my opinion, I believe the main reason why people do not enjoy mathematics is because of the way it is taught. I tutor all mathematics at a community college and from what I have observed, the type of problems that are assigned in combination with the quantity of problems that is assigned to students completely kills any potential interest in mathematics whatsoever. For example, students in precollege mathematics are assigned about 70 problems on factoring quadratics, then 70 problems on solving linear systems of equations, then 70 problems of graphing inequalities, and so on... Furthermore, students in calculus are given no introduction to mathematical thought or reasoning, and are never asked to prove statements such as "If P then Q." Instead students are assigned about 40 problems on finding limits, then 40 problems on finding derivatives, and so on... While they may excel in using the chain rule, when I ask them what it means to take a derivative, they don't know it is the rate at which a function is changing with respect to an independent variable. Don't get me wrong. I believe that the concepts that are taught are all important. It is the way that it is taught that kills any mathematical interest.

- Sam

 

[Theorem.]

I think most people are afraid of mathematics, at least rigorous mathematics.
Also, it is important to note that most people have only been exposed to "useful" mathematics (in the everyday sense).

 

[Brandon_R]

Bad experience when they are young mostly due to "bad" preschool teachers, bad mindset from the start ie this What will this do to me in the real world.

As Euclid would say, Give him a penny for he must make a gain from what he learns.

 

[jhae2.718]

"A mathematician, native Texan, once was asked in his class: 'What is mathematics good for?' He replied: 'This question makes me sick. Like when you show somebody the Grand Canyon for the first time, and he asks you `What's is good for?' What would you do? Why, you would kick the guy off the cliff'."

 

[micromass]

"A mathematician, native Texan, once was asked in his class: 'What is mathematics good for?' He replied: 'This question makes me sick. Like when you show somebody the Grand Canyon for the first time, and he asks you `What's is good for?' What would you do? Why, you would kick the guy off the cliff'."

Ah, isn't it every mathematicians dream to kick those people off the cliff and into the abyss of mathematics.

 

[Forestman]

I thought that I would add my story since I used to have problems with much of mathematics. I don't claim to be any kind of expert now, for I still have much, much more to learn. But in my case I did not like math as a child because I had a hard time with it. When I would close my eyes and try to do the math in my head the numbers would just constantly change places. Anyway by the time I got to high school I no longer disliked math, but did not care about it one way or the other. Never the less I managed to make A's and B's. With the help of tutoring of course. Three years ago I started studying higher math because I wanted to understand science more deeply. I started completely over and worked my way up. I am now working with calculus. Once I started studying calculus though I experienced something new. It was a type of emotion that I had never experienced before. It was similar to the emotion that studying science gave me, but was still very different at the same time. Once I started having this emotion I realized how exciting math really was. I think that people that don't like math have just never experienced this emotion before, and too since math is hard for most people, including myself, a lot of people kind of have a sense of empathy when they share with each other that they are bad at math. It makes them feel less insecure. I still have some problems doing math in my head, but even there things are improving. My goal is to one day understand the mathematics of GR and QM. I was never supposed to be able to read because of my severe dyslexia, but I read fine now, so I have confidence that one day I will make it to this level. And even if I don't I will still learn a lot of new stuff in the process.

 

[AdrianZ]

My story is alike forestman's story. I think It's hard to study mathematics without a mentor or a good lecturer. I remember that I was 14 when I started to ask myself questions about the world around us and soon I read about Einstein's Special Relativity and got interested in it. I had a very deep understanding of Newtonian mechanics at that time and knew some Calculus too, so I thought It would be as easy as Newtonian mechanics and I started learning SR and the more I read about SR the more I realized that I'm really not understanding it. lol. I grasped some random ideas about SR and proved some common ideas that anyone knows (like no object can exceed the speed of light in reality and etc). then I got interested in Geometry. I started reading about non-Euclidean geometries and after sometime I found it very difficult. I almost understood nothing from Non-Euclidean geometry at the beginning and I got so disappointed. I was unfamiliar with studying geometry with axioms and that was very confusing for me at the beginning.
I was a lazy student at high school. I never read even one page about the things they taught me in high school during the whole time I spent there, instead I preferred to read about things that were interesting for me. I tried to find a mentor who lectures me about such things but unfortunately It was hard to find a good one. I think should I had found a good private lecturer I would've been in a totally different level of maths now.
Now I'm 19 and will turn 20 soon. My dream is to understand GR and QM and start reading things about String theory and Big bang. I doubt if I can ever be a smart world-known mathematician or a theoretical physicist but I don't give up. my conclusion is, most people at the age of 14 to 16 are in the same circumstance, if they were lucky enough to be mentored by a skilled lecturer, they would have a very good chance of being a good scientist one day, if not, they may get disappointed and think that they would never be a good scientist and then they would lose interest in mathematics and physics.