Math Education is Difficult
Math education is a very challenging curriculum for teachers. In general, many students have a tendency to avoid math. Whether they think it is a tedious exercise, or fail to see the usefulness of mathematics in the real world, this stigma creates a barrier that math teachers have to cross to successfully reach students and influence them on how important math education really is.
Math Education to Me
I know that when I was younger, math was a very dry, boring subject to me. Other subjects offered some level of entertainment. Reading and grammar had stories, geography taught about exciting places in the world and history had exciting characters. Math pretty much had numbers and long, drawn out formulas to memorize. Even now, it doesn’t seem too exciting. Math education didn’t become important to me until I learned how to use it in the applications of science.
Making Math Exciting
For the most part, students aren’t shown the actual uses of math at an early age. Most young students are only taught the fundamentals of math. I even think that can be tedious and boring. I think that if students are not only educated on the fundamentals of math, but are immersed in the real world applications of math in a fun way, there would be more of an interest in math education at an early age.
In science and physics, I was able to apply math to understand how simple machines were designed. This started to pique my interest in math and how it is applied in the real world. Fast forward 20 years and that is now what I do for my “real life” job. I use math every day to apply drive systems. My day includes simple math like trying to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle, or more applied math like torque for the track drive on a bulldozer, or calculating the mechanical horsepower of a drive system. I get to work on some pretty large and impressive machines.
My hat goes off to math teachers everywhere for trying to break down that math stigma barrier.
For more information on math education and online calculators, go to CalcuNATION.com.
CalcuNATION is a website featuring online calculators and educational resources for mathematics. Other Mathematical Blogs ( CalcuNATION on EduBlogs and CalcuNATION on Blogger)
We applaud teachers who work diligently to make mathematics fun. That’s our goal, too. One way to make math more fun might be to interject some technology or a student video project. Our non-profit is a website that has student-created videos that can be used by teachers in the classroom for free. Maybe approaches like this can get more kids excited about math! http://www.mathcounts.org
Hi Amber. I appreciate your passion for teaching math. Many of my relatives are teachers and my family has always pushed the importance of math. I have been developing this site with some of my friends and relatives to support math education.
Math is important! Keep preaching that, and hopefully we can be part of the movement to get students excited about learning math!