old blogs.
I've decided to teach myself algebra and geometry. I flunked algebra three times, and I never took geometry. Math has always been hard for me because I have dyscalculia. So why do I want to teach myself these subjects? For the challenge, and to stretch my mind.
Why do I want to teach myself, rather than taking an online (it would have to be online,
because traveling is so difficult for me) course?
1: I need to be able to work at my own pace.
2: I am not doing this to get a grade or a degree.
I should say that this isn't my first, or even second, attempt to teach myself these subjects.
I tend to go gangbusters with my studies at first, and then gradually lose interest. That could be because, in the past, I spent too much time at it each day. This time, I'm setting a limit to how long I will study at one sitting by using an online TIMER.
2 comments:
This is a great idea. I don't know what dyscalculus (sp.?) is but I applaud your efforts to learn math. I've forgotten most of the algebra and geometry I learned, but here's a tip: learn the basic formula behind the problems and then you can employ it anywhere. The only thing I just couldn't get my brain wrapped around were vector problems, but then, I wasn't meant to be an engineer!
Dyscalculia is like dyslexia, except the problem here is with numbers rather than letters.
However, now that I think it over, I may not actually have dyscalculia.
It's much more likely that my difficulties stem from my perceptual problems. I had trouble seeing which column a number was in, if there were four or more columns. Having different colored numbers in each column (red in the first, blue in the second, and so on) might have helped. (I just thought of that last night.)
Perhaps the real difficulties started when I was in the third grade. That's when the schools switched from arithmetic to New Math.
(THAT calls for a whole new post!)
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