The Importance of Math in Our Daily Lives

Everyone has an opinion about mathematics. In elementary school I feel math is taught as something fun. In the lower grades you learn to count using colorful counting bears and you sing fun songs about numbers. As the grade levels progress though math to me seemed to lose the fun factor. When I was in high school relearning some basic math concepts, like fractions, I would have loved to use those colorful counting bears again!

All too often I think math is portrayed as a necessary evil instead of as a helpful tool for our daily lives. Why are so many people afraid of math, including myself? In elementary school I was all for it, yet at the high school level I suddenly had all this apprehension. What happened? When did math become such a struggle? Part of me feels students are lost someplace between the happy days of counting bears and the much harder days of high school algebra.

Math is one of those subjects that many students need to spend additional time on instead of just getting passed through. Perhaps many of us are getting lost during the middle school years. We have finally mastered the days of counting bears yet we are not quite ready for trigonometry. For myself I know it would have helped if I was slowly introduced to new math concepts. At the elementary level math is fun. Think of all the creative ways we use to practice our numbers; jump rope, bingo, coloring by number sheets. Then all of sudden we are at the high school level and it is no longer cool to use counting bears or ask for help.

Throughout the years math has always been my favorite subject; although, I was one of those students that got lost and left behind through the middle school years. I mastered the basic concepts of additional, subtraction, division, and multiplication at that same pace as most other students. When it came to algebra though I found myself struggling putting everything together.

Math is not just about numbers like many people may believe at first glance. Math is about remembering rules and applying those rules in order to solve the problem. Do not get me started on the scientific calculator that you are required to use starting in ninth grade. I think I even had a problem turning that complicated machine on.

Like I previously stated for the most part I have always had a love of math even though it was clearly not my best subject. One example that clearly stands out in my mind is a multiple choice test. I would always get so excited when I looked down and saw the answer that I came up with. Surely I had to be right, right? Wrong! When the tests would be returned to me I was scoring 40s and 50s (all the way through Algebra 1 and 2). This leads me to believe that I was making a common mistake. Somewhere through the execution of the problem I was in error which affected the final answer.

I really did not have any positive experiences with my math teachers. I always had a big red check mark on the problem I had gotten incorrect yet there was not solution or explanation. When the teachers saw me struggling in math there solution was for me to drop the Regents course because "clearly it was too hard for me." Being pushed through math class after math class when I was not ready did leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I would often get discouraged and I clearly felt that no one wanted to spend the extra time with me that I apparently did need. Maybe things would have been different if someone showed me how to turn on that scientific calculator!

Math is something that we need everyday. I had a business class where I learned practical math concepts that I absolutely loved. The class appealed to me so much because I could actually take the things I learned and incorporate them into my everyday life. I remember that we spent a month on learning how to balance a check book. This was great and it is obviously something that I have taken outside of the class room with me. Math serves such a great purpose if we can just get over that initial fear.

My mastery of mathematics in most areas is not up to par. My skills are very limited beyond the basics of addition and subtraction. I remember back in second and third grade when we use to take those timed tests and we had to fill in the blanks for addition, subtraction, and division. I loved those weekly tests because I got to practice. It was such a great feeling seeing at the end of the unit how much I had improved.

I think that's my biggest obstacle with mathematics right now. I end up getting frustrated if I do not understand something, therefore, I do not take the time to practice. And we all know practice with almost everything is needed in order to improve your skills. If I had to pick an area where I am the strongest in mathematics beyond the basics I would have to say it's with reasoning and word problems. I always enjoyed word problems because it was like reading a short book and most the time the answers could be found right in the passage.

Mathematics to me is all around us. It's there when we go to the grocery store and check a price, its part of the calculator we use, and math is looking at our paycheck and crying about the percentage the government took out. Often I hear people saying "oh I never use math" and I always want to tell them they are wrong.

Honestly, I do not think I could get through a day of my professional life or personal life with out using math. How much time we have in a day and how much time we have before we have to get to here or there is math to me.

To truly understand mathematics I think we first have to succumb to the notion that we all need math and math is every where. Math is more than just algebra; math can be both practical and complicated.

Everyone learns math in their own style. Personally depending on the math problem I approach the learning in different ways. Sometimes I display a lot of visual learning qualities. If I am reading a complex problem with numerous steps I like to break it down and look at pictures and graphs. Other times I am more of a kinesthetic learner. The "hands on" approach works best for me when I am trying to solve a problem involving measurements. In these times I like to get out a ruler and actually work out the problem that way.

When I took a learning styles quiz online, I showed to be a verbal learner. I like to hear something and see something. I often find myself reading a math problem aloud and then studying what in the back as well. I think this fits in good with math because it's a lot of memorizing bits and pieces and applying them to what you have learned.