I raised my grade in Geometry by giving weekly five minute lectures on great mathematicians of history. My first example of plea bargaining and public service time.
The young lady shows promise as an artist although perhaps not in calc class.
Friends in High Places
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I corrected a my Geometry Teacher (a Sister) in high school when she misstated a theorem. She henceforth named the theorem after me.
Could have used Divine Assistance with French.
You must be afflicted with bad math genes as I was. I changed from the goal of becoming a doctor, which was a family thing, to be the first black sheep in the family to become a lawyer. Calculus did me in.
True story, Don. The funny story is that when I was taking a bar review class decades ago, the instructor asked for a show of hands about how many there decided to become a lawyer because they had trouble with math. Half the class raised their hands. Needless to say so did I. I even had trouble with statistics. My dad used to do calculus for fun, which was really weird, and maybe his genes skipped a generation because my daughter not only had no problems with mass but aced all her classes. She thought they were easy.
Goes to show how God sprinkles, different talents to different people .
The only time I use math on the job is when I prorate property taxes for a real estate closing. I could do advanced math but I hated every moment of it. Logarithms and I still have a blood feud going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVbCGOagnMs
My lack of prowess in “higher” math is impressive.
While impressed with the ability to *do* higher math, exceedingly few can *teach* higher math. Most instructors I had simply could not grasp that the subject was neither enjoyable or easy to the majority of their students. Indeed, most branded us lazy or inattentive. The person who can compassionately and proficiently teach math is rare and should be lauded – highly!
Bruised in right. Aptitude is not sufficient without good teaching, and there are few good math teachers in grade school. Very few..
-If only a circle were described as a closed figure with infinite sides and the equation for area within a closed figure of N sides were shown, then PI can be easily understood as infinite.
-If only acceleration were explained as the derivative of velocity, then calculus can be seen as dealing with rate of change.
-If only the natural logarithm were explained as the number of which has a simple derivative 1/x, useful in the calculation of growth or decay.
And most importantly how these things are Useful and how math is the natural language of a Created Universe.
Dry teaching without explanation and appreciation is a killer.
I’ve always enjoyed math–do the math puzzles on Youtube. My wife was a mathphobe–her stomach knotted up when numbers/equations were presented. Any math talent from me has skipped a generation, 3 (or maybe 4?) of the 11 grandchildren are good with numbers and like them.
My Dad Bob always quickly solved the cryptograms in the newspapers. It is intriguing how skills descend in a family or do not descend.
I never really grasped math until Naval Nuclear Power School. Then the choice was learn it or your submarine doesn’t surface after a scram. We did everything with a sliderule back then: estimated critical rod positions, core nuclear fuel burnups, etc. Then calculators came, then computers, and now AI. People have gotten lazy and stupid, having lost critical thinking skills which math tends to inculcate.
Just recently I had a doctor’s semi-annual appointment. Being diabetic, I track and trend blood sugar four times per day every day. I did a 90-day average and used the mg / dl to A1C equation to compute what my A1C level should be. My doctor’s instruments and my calculation agreed to two decimal places. She was amazed. I said simply, “It’s just math.”
The math gene skipped me. My brother and sister were very good at Math. I got the creative gene. Im exceptionally good at drawing and painting, even as a child, and I’m pretty happy and thankful for that.
Leonardo da Vinci was good at Math *and* Art. He must have joined multiple queues when God was giving out talent. I don’t think there is another human being in recorded history that had the talents of Leonardo Da Vinci. He is someone I would invite to a dinner party.