Math Horror Stories (was Ensemble Circuit Configuration Questions)

[KA4HJH]

><< Were one of those folks in math class who said, "What is this?  I'll
> never have a use for Complex Numbers!"  :-) >>
>
>I know just what you mean...It's become a real pain the behind..I'm still in
>high school, and I love electronics, but I almost failed algebra for the
>second semester (they gave me a D- to be nice, I think). Just yesterday I
>opened a book on robot manipulators, and was confronted by a mob of
>transformation matrices. My response was something along the lines of
>"Noooooooo!!!"
>
>Understanding concepts is no problem, but the math completely confuses me...

In my Senior year I had Trig/Analysis One. It was easily the most 
boring class I ever took. I routinely fell asleep, and that wasn't 
routine. The next period in the same classroom with the same teacher 
was--Physics! Wide awake now!. Straight A's. Real World problems 
solved by math!. Finished the test in half the time as all those 
folks who got straight A's in the previous class (some sort of 
robotic memorization clones, I think). Actually it was a competition 
between my cousin and I (we're both ADHD), and we drove the teacher 
crazy by gabbing for the rest of the class.

Now for the soapbox; some advice for our "young people": The world 
consists of--students everywhere shudder--word problems. That's what 
needs to be taught--how to solve words problems. That's exactly what 
they DON'T teach because everybody moans and groans so loud and asks 
the primordial question, "will I ever score?--I mean, will we ever 
use this stuff in Real Life???" The answer is...not exactly. Not in 
the form it's being taught, no.

Then again, maybe it's just me. I can do complex word problems in my 
head. Don't ask me to write down the intermediate results because 
that makes me lose my train of thought (I' ADHD, remember? It drove 
my teacher even crazier). Maybe I just don't appreciate how hard it 
is for others who don't have the knack.

My advice to you is to get the knack by whatever means necessary. but 
DO NOT blow up the school, no matter how fashionable it may seem. 
Marilyn Manson has taken enough flak already, and besides, that's how 
they weed out the dangerous minds these days. Unfortunately, 
frustrated loners looks just like those losers to the paranoid types.

And learn how to type, too. It saves a lot of time on a computer. 
ADHD caused me to get the worst grades in twelves years of public 
education in--typing class. And without it I wouldn't be able to 
write this now. What little calculus I do know came from electronics, 
stuff I could sort-of understand.

Rant over--for now.

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

ICQ: 45652354