meet me in the Indian summer?

[kleenexwoman]

Hah. Okay. So, my Algebra class starts tomorrow instead of three weeks from tomorrow like I had planned. The good thing about this is that it's 055, which means it's all stuff I learned in the eighth grade, because my dyscalculic brain can't handle anything more complex.

Wow, okay, I was sort of joking, but I just checked the Wikipedia article for dyscalculia, and lookit all my symptoms:

* Frequent difficulties with arithmetic, confusing the signs: +, −, ÷ and ×.
* Inability to tell which of two numbers is the larger.
* Difficulty with everyday tasks like checking change and reading analog clocks. (Change, sometimes. Analog clocks, most of the time.)
* Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting, sometimes even at a basic level; for example, estimating the cost of the items in a shopping basket or balancing a checkbook. (This is why I get balance reports from the ATM every day.)
* Difficulty with times-tables, mental arithmetic, etc. (Actually, I'm pretty good at this because it is very very simple.)
* May do fairly well in subjects such as science and geometry, which require logic rather than formulae, until a higher level requiring calculations is obtained.
* Difficulty with conceptualizing time and judging the passing of time.
* Problems differentiating between left and right. (I just point anymore. It's easier.)
* Having a poor sense of direction (i.e., north, south, east, and west), potentially even with a compass.
* Difficulty navigating or mentally "turning" the map to face the current direction rather than the common North=Top usage.
* Having difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance (e.g., whether something is 10 or 20 feet away).
* Inability to grasp and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences.
* An inability to read a sequence of numbers, or transposing them when repeated such turning 56 into 65.
* Difficulty keeping score during games.
* Difficulty with games such as poker with more flexible rules for scoring. (I can't even remember how to play Euchre.)
* Difficulty in activities requiring sequential processing, from the physical (such as dance steps) to the abstract (reading, writing and signaling things in the right order). May have trouble even with a calculator due to difficulties in the process of feeding in variables.
* The condition may lead in extreme cases to a phobia of mathematics and mathematical devices.

ETA: I'm reminded of the stereotype of girls not being good at math. Do you think having dyscalculia is a valid condition? The result of gender-based social programming, or a shitty educational system in general? Does being verbally gifted necessarily mean being mathematically deficient? Discuss.

The class isn't very long, and there's homework, but I expect the homework won't be particularly difficult, since the syllabus lists things that I've already learned but haven't thought about for years--Order of Operations and such. Probably a refresher course, good for keeping the mind sharp during the summer but not too taxing.

I can't believe how many things I want to do right now and how many things I could do. I have novels and stories to beta-read and now a screenplay to co-write (co-adapt?) and short stories to finish and E-mails to send and vague ideas for pretentious fan essays that will just have to wait. And I'm almost done with the hardest thing I have to do for school this summer. It's due tomorrow anyway. And then I CAN LIVE AND DO THINGS.

\o/

Also, Adult Swim is tonight and Seth and I have a bunch of movies that need watched before we incur massive late fees at the video store. BAD US. Um, we watched Wonder Boys, which was unexpectedly funny, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was an excellent postmodern parody of the noir genre, and then...well, we've been lying around watching movies and going out for walks and generally luxuriating in having the apartment to ourselves, since Sammi is gone for the next three weeks. Also, I have to clean the litterbox. :/ Because I am taking care of the cats now, you see.

Comments

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

I think that the ability to teach Math well may be abnormal, but the ability to do it well is most usually the result of bad teaching.

For some reason the East Europeans are really good at Math and the teaching of it. This is borne out by statistics, and all I can put it down to is tradition, because they are not so very different from anyone else in other ways. Every outstanding teacher of Math I have had has been from the east of Europe - Cerkeliunas and Wyszecki. The rest were dross.

I was nothing much above normal in Math at school, but under the enlightened later tutelage of those two giants I learned enough to take the subject into my own hands, and then finished a badly taught Physics degree by being able to work out the Math when nothing else was capable of being reasoned out of the gibberish taught. Similarly when doing a Control Systems MSc, I was able to swim through the treacle presented because I knew that it must be possible to do so, whilst half the intake could not remotely cope, and failed the degree.

But I've been able to get others through often enough myself. The key is that people's minds work differently, and they respond to one to one tuition - as far as I can see. I've got people who are Math averse through exams before now, and I really do think that the issue is mainly with the teaching, and not with the learners.

Teaching Math is in crisis in the western world, and standards are plummeting. We aren't getting stupider. We're being taught worse.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

You may be on to something. The way I was taught to do math was very much like the way Victorian public schools apparently worked--lots of memorization, very little explanation. The only higher math I've really retained involves the X/Y axis, which I had taught to me several times until the correlation between the formula and the placement of points on the grid finally clicked.

I still can't remember left from right immediately, though.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

I might be a bit combative at the moment; please bear in mind that an online friend killed herself the other night, and I'm just furious with a society that brands women with problems as whiners, and fills them with drugs. You never know, I might bite someone's head off, but if I do that will be why - preoccupation.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see--I haven't gone through my friendslist yet today, so I have no idea what's going on in the larger part of the world. I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. Your fury is eminently justified.

[ironychan.livejournal.com]

You just articulated why I prefer to wallow in depression rather than seek help for it.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

Then this is your gilt-edged chance to whine at someone and find that they actually care ;)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

*offers hugs?*

It's why I never tell my parents if I'm depressed, anymore. 50/50 chance of being flaked off or sent to someone who will prescribe me something that won't help.