#math teachers

[maths-screaming]

Commence the Screaming

This is a blog about innumeracy.

Innumeracy is like illiteracy, but for numbers. I have dyscalculia - or "math dyslexia," if you prefer something easier to say that more people also understand.

Like most people with dyscalculia, I've had it my whole life. I've also been functionally innumerate my whole life. I can count (usually); I can do basic addition and multiplication (kind of), subtraction (sometimes) and division (ehhh....). I hate games that involve counting money or keeping score. I can read an analog clock if you make me. I mix up my right and left more than random chance allows. I get lost a lot.

My math skills top out at "calculate a 20% tip on this bill" or "count change." I can't even reliably use a calculator for a lot of things, because calculators need the user to know what they're trying to get the calculator to calculate, and I can't always tell the thing the steps in the right order.

I'm 42, and for 42 years, I've hated, avoided, and feared basic math. I have three college degrees - not one requiring a single math course. I'm fascinated by several topics involving math, but I can't do them. The numbers knock me out of contention every time.

So why - now, when I have my own house, a stable job that requires only the occasional calculator arithmetic, a reliable car, and something resembling a savings account - do I care to change that?

Honestly...I don't know. There are certainly a few factors in play, including:

Most of my friends are math nerds, science nerds, and/or spatial-reasoning-artist nerds, and I want to appreciate their nerdery appropriately;

My students are aware that I'm a giant nerd who is interested in everything and thus love to ask me questions, and it hurts to admit to 15 year olds that I'm better at ancient Greek than at basic algebra;

I read Ben Orlin's Math With Bad Drawings and I want to be able to do the math, dang it. (I can already do bad drawings.)

But the biggest one is this:

Having learned what it is like to spend 40 years of one's life hating and fearing math, I don't want to spend another 40 years of my life hating and fearing math.

So...here we go. Middle-aged librarian tries to get slightly less bad with the numbers. Much screaming ensues. Ask me anything.

[fancyratlady]

I’d like to send an official apology into the ether for every math teacher I ever told “I’ll never use this.” I’m working on a project with box pleats and just realized that my math isn’t making sense because I’m not taking into account the number of box pleats in addition to the size. Anyway I use math every time I sew and the point of high school math classes isn’t just to learn trigonometry, it’s to understand math itself enough to apply it to novel situations. Thank you to all the math teachers and tutors who didn’t give up on me when I had a bad attitude or when I had to be taught the same thing over and over, I wouldn’t be a sewist without you.

[memeing-trombonist]

[giantjupiter]

I just realized that there's an amazing book on calculus which people can use to learn it. Some have probably heard it from the YT channel Mathologer. It's out there on the web, for FREE.

Here it is:

How good is this book? Well, check this out:

(idk if the image is blurry though... but you get the point.)

Happy calculus!

[nfinitefreetime]

In which the machinery of government moves ... quickly?

Holy shit, y’all. I applied for my high school math licensure literally yesterday and I got an email today that my addition had been approved and my license was updated. This from, remember, sending them test results from a test that took forty days to get official score results on, and in what is almost certainly their busiest time of the year. I’ve talked my fair amount of shit about the IDOE…

[arcam3]

my neice’s math teacher is a music artist who I actually used to listen religiously even tho she only had three songs scares me.

[mysharona1987]

[inkbybambi]

chemistry teacher soap catches gym teacher simon fucking you in the bathroom during a school dance, tattooed hand over your mouth to muffle the pretty noises you make. he doesn’t think either of you notice, until those dark eyes turn on him, a slight tilt to his head in invitation.

soap decides he has a better way of keeping you quiet, stuffing his cock down your throat, enjoying the way you choke on it and the way simon tugs him forward to lick into his mouth, a hum of approval low in his throat.

[clown-alchemist]

i would never use logic. that's appropriating vulcan culture.

[morganbritton132]

The cameras at the VMAs: *cut to Eddie Munson’s husband when he’s on stage to present an award*

Steve’s students, past and present, watching at home: Was that my math teacher??

[commisionofhumanrightsapparently]

MY MATH TEACHER SUPPORTS PRIDE !!!

[tamanegi-san]

Happy birthday to the ADA's full-time mother ✨

[one-time-i-dreamt]

The horrible Math teacher at my school got fired. Man, I wish.

[cosmetichorror]

Lu au where everyone is the age of their game

Wild is 7

Warriors is 10

Sky is 13

Twilight is 18

Four is 20

Wind is 22

Time is 26

Legend is 33

Hyrule is 37

Warriors and Wild are LITERALLY child soldiers, Sky is in middle school (and is more than happy to travel as it means he has less homework to do…)

Twilight is a fresh adult and doesn’t know what he’s doing with his life

Four is still as short as he is in the comic. Also much to Sky’s dismay Four basically becomes his teacher so he doesn’t fall behind in his studies.

Wind finally can legally drink…. He’s the wine aunt. He’s a nut case. The kids love him. He and Time were babysitting Warriors during the WAR and they’re both still mad they put a like, 9 year old into a war.

Time is freshly married…. He’s as bad (if not worse) then Sky ever could be when it comes to being lovey dovey.

Legend is mad he has to go on another adventure after he’s been comfortably retired for a decade. He becomes the new old man, despite Rulie being older…. And btw Hyrule is still his little brother.

Hyrule is aging wonderfully much to everyone’s surprise. He looks 25. He still can’t read btw but he has mastered life in the wilderness. He is like a mountain lion, he can hide behind anything and sneak anywhere now. Give him a leaf and he’ll find a way to hide behind it and you’ll never see him….

They would’ve never found Hyrule if they didn’t have Warriors and Wild with them, and even then them finding Hyrule was more so Hyrule allowing them to find him so he could check on the kids.

[ceaselessbasher]

My personal theory about why Colin was so annoyed at his therapists for not knowing what logic gates are (once I got over my initial reaction of "bestie what the fuck kind of expectation is that") is that he somehow got into an argument similar to the following with all of them:

THERAPIST: It can be the stress of the job and/or stress about something in your personal life.

COLIN: Don't say "and/or", it's redundant and sounds stupid.

THERAPIST: Pardon?

COLIN: "OR" is false only when both statements are false. You don't have to throw "AND" in there to include the possibility that both statements are true. You're not saying "XOR", it's not exclusive.

THERAPIST: Well, I-

COLIN: You are an idiot and this is a waste of my time.

[messervixen]

At his core Remus is just that one teacher who “has a wife and kids”