The problem with learning math, providing the student has at least average intelligence, is the way it is taught.
Americans have enough recognition of the differences between verbal and math cognitive skills that they actually have separate testing for both. What we don't understand well enough is that people who excel in math and science seldom have or use sufficient verbal skills to explain the subjects to those of us who are more prone to verbal knowledge. So, they send a math brain to teach a verbal brain and never the twain shall meet without a struggle.
When I was an undergraduate trying to learn Business math, I actually had one teacher who got it. He would make a verbal presentation of the math concepts which made sense to those of us who didn't have his particular talents. For example, he would say something like "when you are trying to find the value for x, remember that if a number multiplies on one side of the equation, it does the opposite (divides) on the other side. Then he would show a simple formula on the board. Now compare this approach with the teacher who teaches by proving equations on the board with little or no explanation. Einstein could use this latter approach when speaking with other scientists and mathematicians about formulas. They had the ability and the knowledge to be taught or shown concepts by equations and formulas. People who are more verbal than mathematical simply do not. You had might as well write something on the board in Russian or Greek to those of us who speak only English. Math formulas and equations are a foreign language to us. Until you teach us the language, we can't speak or write it.
Perhaps mathematicians would prefer to keep the traditional cultish teaching methods and leave the rest of us in the dark. But, for those mathematicians who see teaching as a sacred trust, you might want to try using verbal explanations to inform the rest of us concerning your knowledge.
Get it? I hope so. I have great grandchildren starting school.
*Thank you for your patience with the hiatus. Thank you Alan Jones for getting it!
