I always thought that I was okay with arithmetic.
My brain doesn't work very well, in terms of mathematics. I'm not one of those people who can just spout off numbers for things, if numbers are thrown at me.
Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
I was in seventh grade math class, and we had this thing called Number Sense. So, I wasn't on the track team. Wasn't on the football team. Wasn't on the basketball team. I was in the Number Sense Club.
Maths is fundamentally a different process in education than it is in the real world. There is an insistence that we do maths by hand when most of it is done by computers. The idea that you have to do everything by hand before you can operate a computer is nonsense.
The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes a song, noise acquires rhythm, the spring is transformed into a dance, force becomes dynamic, and outlines figures.
Math has a lot of negative stereotypes, but it can actually be fun and incredibly empowering.
Yes, but you need to learn your maths." "I don't need to, really. I already know how to count to a hundred. And I'm sure I'll never need ore than a hundred of anything.
The way that I approached numbers, think about them, the same as for language as well-acquiring vocabulary, understanding the grammar, the structures of languages, the rhythm, the music and so-on - these things obviously evolved.
Mathematics seems to endow one with something like a new sense.
I would hope that maybe math teachers could use 'Prime Baby' as a way of establishing an emotional connection between students and numbers.
Maths should be more practical and more conceptual, but less mechanical.
Many go through life afraid of numbers and upset by numbers. They would rather amble along through life miscounting, miscalculating and, in general, mismanaging their worldly affairs than make friends with numbers.
Practising maths can be fun.
Although I am almost illiterate mathematically, I grasped very early in life that any one who can count to ten can count upward indefinitely if he is fool enough to do so.
