My Mathematics experience
Mathematics
is applied in every aspect of this life be it in our personal or professional
lives
. Mathematics is used to budget money and time, these aspects do not
require formulas. People do not even realize they are applying mathematical
concepts when budgeting. As a child I used to enjoy counting the number of stairs,
this is whenever I went up the stairs. Mathematics was interesting by then; it
involved simple concepts that did not require complex formulas. As I grew up, I
realized that mathematics was not as simple as I thought. My high school
teacher could introduce new concepts every now and then; with time I realized
that with mathematics a lot of practice was required. Mathematics during my
childhood was interesting; the teacher could make us practice until it became
almost automated without us realizing it. Allen (2001) says that teachers use
this tactic in elementary level to make mathematics interesting.
I
compare mathematics to climbing a wall, sometimes it is very easy while it can
prove be very hard sometimes. One of my mathematics teachers used to describe
mathematics as ‘a voyage of discovery’. I am opposed to this, this is because
sometimes we attempt to find solutions to mathematical problems but do not get
to arrive at the correct answer, instead, we get more and more confused. At one
point, I remember our elementary teacher telling us that one divided by zero
equals to zero, this concept however changed when I joined high school, we were
told that the answer is infinite. Could be that the elementary teacher did not
want to go into detail about this since it would have been hard for us to
understand.
In
his book Overcoming
math anxiety Tobias (2002), states that most people
enjoy learning mathematics when they fully understand the concept. This
statement is agreeable, it is common to find students doing calculations and
arriving at an answer but if asked questions, they cannot infer anything from
the answer they have gotten. I have experienced this severally, at some point; I
could completely get absorbed when solving some mathematics problems that I
even forget the time factor. This is when I can comfortably state what the
answer means. When it becomes hard to understand a mathematical concept, I
spend less time trying to understand the concept since the efforts are not in
most cases rewarding. Topic such as ordinary differential and linear algebra
gave me a hard time. It is interesting to note that most students will have
varying ideas of a topic; this just shows that the topic has not been well
presented or it is too hard for the students to understand (Tobias, 2002).
One
thing that I love about mathematics is that the formulas do not change.
Formulas that were introduced by Plato are still being used today (Allen, 2001).
This field of study cannot be compared to other field such as business and arts
where ideas keep changing with time. Some simple formulas that were applied in
elementary levels are still used in higher levels of learning. I have realized
that with a good mastery of most of the formulas, it can be easy to solve most
of the problems. To some extent I love mathematics. The main reason is that
when it becomes to easy concepts, I really get absorbed and enjoy doing the
calculations.
Conclusion
Mathematics
was very enjoyable during my childhood years. The teacher was very dedicated
when it came to teaching this subject. I had good mastery of the simple
concepts taught and one thing that I enjoyed doing most is counting the number
of stairs as I climbed up. Today, mathematics has ceased to be my favorite subject;
this does not however mean that I hate it. The thing is that I only enjoy
dealing with simple concepts. Hard concepts give me a hard time. I must admit
that I was not born a mathematician like some people. The little concepts that
I have are enough since they enable me to go about my budgeting without any
problems.
References
Allen,
D. S. (2001). Mathematics experience: contributing factors to the
math anxiety and avoidance behaviors of female elementary school pre-service
teachers. Texas : Texas Tech University
Tobias, S. (2002). Overcoming math anxiety. New York
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