I’m getting ready to go back to school and had to do a math readiness exam to make sure I can do the math I need to do for a filler degree. If you ever find yourself and your job responsibilities changing, I tend to go get a degree in that new job process. This means I go back to college, get the degree, and then move on.
It’s been 6 years since my last round of college so not too bad as far as things go, but I had to do a math readiness process, because you know math. We all use it, and I’ll be using it for the program I am in, but there is a sense of humor here, because overcoming a bad instructor has proven to be difficult for me, in algebra.
Here are my scores today.
You’ll probably notice that big dip in algebra, but the rest of it is good to go, and I can do trig and calculus.
That’s funny because in 7th grade I had an instructor tell me I’ll never be able to do algebra. And true to form, 50 plus years later, I still have this huge hole when it comes to basic algebra.
So, the power of the instructor carries on, even though I can do higher math, which builds on algebra, I still have a hole when it comes to the basics, and it is expressed every time I test on the subject.
If you’re a teacher, don’t ever tell a student they will never do a thing. It will carry on long past the time the instructor retires.
To me this is just actually at this point something funny, because it has become pretty typical for me, I test a lot to show I know how to hit two rocks together a lot. But every time I test, we have that dip in math, and it always is something I have to explain to whomever I am talking to. It also raises some awkward points here because Calc and Trig have roots in algebra, so I know it, I have to know it but A2 + B2 = C2 unconsciously will kill me but finding the area of a trapezoid or a right-angle triangle is pretty straight forward.
It’s an interesting world, and even though it has been many years since junior high school, I still remember that teacher outburst, and it has its own legacy that I’ve learned to overcome. Some students won’t be able to do that, so when you are frustrated with a student, make sure you never ever tell them they can’t do something, because those words have their own legacy.