Math - can means can? cannot means cannot?

last SG · 2006-08-20T02:24:46+00:00

same! for my year more than half failed their sec 2 maths very badly.. and our maths teacher said she'll go back to the basics with us.. gg thru the whys an...

Cpt.ZR SG

i think right there is no such thing as can or cannot one la... i think for subkects like maths right just need to practise more can liao la... like me... failing maths since pri 3 then until PSLE passed then sec school fail like siao....

in the end E math olvl get b4... so all in all just need to practise la... sure ok le la... maybe you wont be the best la... but at least can get a decent grade lor...

Mr. Green

alwaysdisturbed SG

during lower sec i always fail my maths. and my dad always scold me. i told him it was the teacher's fault. she doesn't know hw to teach.

i scraped through to upper sec when i had a change of maths teacher (usually there'll be different grps of people teaching upper and lower sec) and after that i begun to get b3, a2, a1 in my maths.

Herzog_Zwei SG

You forgot the linguistic presentation of the problem. English is a very tricky language.

browniebaobao SG

I retake my O level but still failed..

I think it was bcos I was very demoralised by my darn sec 1 teacher who always chose me to solve maths problem.. and if I failed to solve, I had to remain standing for the whole period. Also, my sec 4 E Maths teacher then.. whenever he sees me, he will mock and me and say "xxxxxx, u are a born failure!". All the humiliation and emabrrassment..

I dropped A Maths, bcos I wanted to concentrate on E Maths.. but I made the wrong move..

I got D7, no matter how hard i tried.

but I dun have much problem doing accounting and business statistics..

i think it's that darn teacher I had that really killed my interest for Maths.

Cenarious SG

speaking of bad teachers my accounting teacher has a really thick hongkong british accent. he also wasnt the sharpest guy in getting straight to the point and the fact that he also likes to teach while we were copying from the board didnt help.

lalala1999 SG

yeps. i also had such teacher who said this to me ,
" i see you this kind , should be cannot go into poly with such a grade".
totally dampened my confidence. >.<

ShrodingersCat SG

Actually I find this linguistic problem a much more.. recent issue. My time.. Razz .... it was a lot more straightforward. But when I used to tutor P2 kids, wow.. their maths questions now are a lot more difficult.. and many could not understand the questions because of the way they were phrased and because their English is not good enough. Sad

ShrodingersCat SG

The teachers that really piss me off are those who think reverse psychology works. It only works if you give a damn.... and if you give a damn.. you won't be bad in it in the first place.

the Bear SG

i guess it's all about getting a good teacher who can actually inspire you to put in the effort.. and also technically skilled enough to show you how to view the problems with a different perspective...

all in all, math actually takes more of the "softer side" than people think..

it requires technical ability, but it also requires the finesse and ability to look from other angles, and a sensing of what it is.. much like a literature major would approach a subject...

i think that part of the subject is sorely ignored...

or maybe i'm just mad Laughing

CoolMyth SG

In a normal classroom, it's 40 students to 1 teacher.

How to expect the teacher to be able to lead the students to see the softer side of maths? Wink

ShrodingersCat SG

Perhaps what you are talking about is that Maths is really a Cognitive subject and not simply about NUMBERS. And yes, I agree.

What i LIKE about maths later in life is..... how maths is everywhere.. (but we don't see that earlier on) and I guess with the more modern cross discipline approach to education there is a lot more opportunity for this... i.e. I read this book about how nature is governed by mathematical laws of symmetry and etc, music and mathematics, and... late in University, my tutor spoke about maths and ART... such diverse manifestations of a subject i used to fear...

CoolMyth SG

What's scary for me now is that I have to learn a bit of history to understand maths. Laughing

ShrodingersCat SG

Explain?

History is fun ma.. if you disregard the memorising of the dates (which is really about perspective, placing and time line) ... its... stories stories... Very Happy

the Bear SG

as a 'cognitive' subject is a lot further...

but when i was doing math in school as a subject, i actually did a lot of feeling out a problem... sort of like:

it looks like vectors... but i think i can use complex numbers to solve this a lot easier... or should i turn it into matrices as it's very easy to work with matrices... or should i use a combination of these things?

stuff like that.. then i just went with what i felt could tackle the problem the easiest... it was more feel than actual computational brute force...

until today, i'm useless at arithmatic but i can still pretty much do algebra, calculus and stuff like that

CoolMyth SG

Basically, reading about how this theorem and this theorem came about, what motivation lies behind in deriving this theorem and how the theorem was used initally.

And also, the general response by the mathematical circle as to the usage of this theorem etc etc.

The idea is to provide a motivation for learning what I'm learning now. Laughing

the Bear SG

history is badly tackled at schools...

i still believe history should be taught beside physical geography and a whole host of other things...

in that way, we can understand what drove the people to do what they did then... and how civilisations were constrained by their physical landscape, their philosophy and all that..

or maybe history being taught these days is different? because when i did it, it was just a huge pile of facts.. almost unconnected...

btw, the history of some mathematicians are amazing Very Happy

from Sophie Germain who had to pose as a man and how Gauss was rescued by her.. to Archimedes who got run through by a soldier because he was so engrossed in his calculations.. to the tragic death by politics and intrigue of Galois.. to the shame of Pythagoras who ordered the death of his student because his student showed proof that contradicted Pythagoras' mistaken belief... and Euler who was referred to as Analysis Incarnate who served in the court of Catherine the Great..

they all make wonderful reading as subjects of history.. Very Happy

and all had the same overriding passion which was mathematics Wink

ShrodingersCat SG

yeah! I would think that would make maths a lot more interesting leh.... heee like when I was reading Fermat's Theorem.. can't say I understand the theorem but its interesting to read how people are so affected by it, makes you intrigued to want to know more about it.

the Bear SG

ahhh.. the greatest ever problem..

so simple, yet so confounding...

x^n = y^n + z^n

cannot exist for n, x, y, z = integers and n>2

they could not prove that for 350 years until Andrew Wiles did about 10 years ago...

i highly recommend the book by Simon Singh.. it has been retitled Fermat's Enigma now.. it was called Fermat's Last Theorem...

very very wonderful read Very Happy

ShrodingersCat SG

Ya that's the book I read Smile

I like Simon Singh's books.

the Bear SG

ahh.. then you'll know all about the colourful histories of mathematicians..

they're all not stodgy and dusty people bent over dark corners of universities Laughing

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