There’s Something Wrong With the Way We Teach Mathematics
There are countless images like this spread across the internet. There are even Facebook pages dedicated to hating mathematics with over 40 thousand likes. Personally, I love mathematics, but I totally understand where the people behind these images and Facebook pages are coming from. Doing maths at school sucks, I just happened to be one of the lucky ones that was able to see past the dry maths taught in school and find the beauty of mathematics.
Before we get into why school makes students hate maths so much, I should give a disclaimer. I am not a teacher, nor have I been formally trained in education. All thoughts that I’ve expressed in this essay stem from my experience as a university mathematics student and the negative experience I had with learning mathematics during high school.
Thousands and thousands of high school students are sitting in maths class right now, absolutely hating what they’re being taught. In fact, millions of people live their whole life post-school hating maths, as evidenced by the popularity of images such as the one above. If you tell nearly anyone that you study mathematics, or work as a mathematician, there’s a high chance you’ll be met with one of these responses:
- “Wow, you must be really smart!”
- “I hate maths / I always hated maths in…
