This was
not my problem in school, but I can see
where it should be discussed more widely:
Described as the mathematical equivalent of dyslexia, dyscalculia is a little-known disorder that makes it extremely difficult to learn math. While dyslexics struggle with reading and interpreting words and letters, dyscalculics have a hard time with basic arithmetic and understanding the meaning and concepts of numbers.
Although often a forgotten stepchild to its well-known relative dyslexia, dyscalculia affects the same number of people -- an estimated 5 to 7 percent of the population, suggests new research in the May 27 issue of Science.
Often first discovered by low scores on math achievement tests, both children and adults who suffer from dyscalculia have trouble grasping the size of a number and its relative value.
Unlike dyslexics, however, they don't reverse the order of numbers when reading them. "Typically, dyscalculics don't have problems with the order of symbols, but anything with numbers could cause anxiety or even panic," says Brian Butterworth, an emeritus professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, and lead author of the Science review article.
No, my problem was that I got behind in math in the
9th grade and never caught up. I ended up in an algebra class and, by that time, I had lost interest in school and had no real ability or desire to engage academically. I just wanted to survive and get out because we were 9th graders thrown in with "
high school" kids. School districts should avoid throwing 9th graders in with high school kids. Most high school kids are borderline criminal sociopaths anyway; why expose anyone to them when they are young enough to be terrorized or corrupted? I think that
Elementary School should be Kindergarten through 6th grade;
Middle School should be 7th, 8th, and 9th grades; high school should be 10th, 11th and 12th grades. To throw 9th graders into a high school is a reflection more of poor budgetary prowess and facilities planning rather than a desire to get kids to learn.
Ultimately, that's where my academic career fell apart. I do not talk about where I went to school, for obvious reasons. As soon as you do, a flood of friend requests, unwelcome solicitations, and general inquiries come in, and I have no time for that nonsense. It's going on 25 years since I graduated from high school. It's time to move on. I'm happy to talk about going to the
University of Maryland University College and taking online courses. Once I'm done, I should have enough material for fifty or so posts. You never know.
I was fine in school until 9th grade and, after that, I was all but done. I took the required "consumer math" course offered and didn't see any more math at all until college. And, in 1993, when I tried to take that class, forget about it. I had to drop it.
My biggest accomplishment of last year was taking, and passing, college math. Somehow, I got over my fear of algebra and got a "B" in a class that, by all rights, I should have failed. I chalk that up to a very fine instructor from Great Britain who was not versed in the American way of teaching mathematics; anyone who has struggled in an American math class can probably relate to what I'm saying.
For about three weeks, I battled with the quadratic equation. Absolutely fought with it, relentlessly, ruining my pad of graph paper. I went online and found sites that would kick out randomly generated equations when the examples in our textbook ran out.
The battle was more of a result of my own inability to grasp the subject as quickly as I should have. I went through exercise after exercise, and I still couldn't get it right. I got it to work a little, and I may have gotten one equation to work the right way. But, I understood enough to know where I stood by correctly assessing where I was falling flat on my face. And that was enough to get me a "B." That's the best "B" I have ever gotten, and I value it. Not only was it fair, it was the result of me not giving in to the temptation to "blame math" when, really, it was my own academic shortcoming that needed to be corrected with regards to math.