#can't remember the answer to 5x8? let's count 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5 instead | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

i-havenothingelsetopost · 4 hours ago

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genuine question, do you like maths?? i have a vague feeling i saw your post of tags or something that said something about it but i cannot figure out if it was in fact you or if it was even positive ahahah

Yeah that was me! I don't go looking for math problems, but when I happen to do them, I tend to enjoy it. Wasn't always this way — elementary school math was about speed and memorization and I hated that — but I had a really good teacher in upper secondary school, and it became about creative problem solving. It feels the same as writing a poem in meter or managing to untangle a really bad knot in a ball of yarn.

#i can't do math in my head or memorize formulas #and i'm not precise‚ which is bad for questions that are only numbers. like. 5+6=? type of stuff #because if all you need to is write the final answer‚ then if that answer is wrong‚ youve failed. don't get the points for the exam question #but! upper secondary school math! my beloved! (specifically lyhyt matikka‚ idk what pitkä is like)#there's a book that has all the formulas in it and you can use it and look them up even during exams. no memorization #it doesn't explain *how* the formulas are used but still #and there was more time than there ever was in my previous schools. and finishing fast did not mean you were better. i could take my time #and there were so many... worded questions? like instead of pure numbers they present the problem to you in words. phrases. prose #here is a situation. solve it #and you get to choose HOW to solve it #sometimes i could not remember how a formula worked‚ or hadn't quite figured out a recently taught technique yet #and i just. figured out a different way to solve the problem #can't remember the answer to 5x8? let's count 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5 instead #38/7? lets draw 38 little balls in the margin and separate them into groups of 7 and see how many there are and how many strays get left out #like that but applied to lots of stuff #and it was enougj! it was fine! it was a valid way to solve it! i got the right answer!#unless i messed something up! a + turned into a - by accident somewhere in the middle of the equation #but! part of this level of math was that it was encouraged to write our whole thought process down #and i‚ unable to do it off the paper anyway #i wrote down ALL OF IT #and the teacher saw where i went wrong and that it was little precision things but that i had the techniques down and #i still got most of the points for those questions instead of losing everything because of an incorrect number at the end #these differences have meant everything #math is puzzles. puzzles can be fun #some of my first memories of math class are of me sobbing under my desk #i cried a few tears in all my matriculation exams too‚ even for my favourite subjects. but not math #one of the most important questions was a geometry one. i shine in that area #i grinned doing it

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