Understanding Math

I am not sure whether you are one of those who find mathematics a hard subject, whether in elementary or university/college education. During the days when I was in high school, over 95% of the students in my class feared math, and few of us were left to do the assignments on behalf of the rest. But after high school, I was offered a training opportunity as a trainer in basic math in a neighboring high school, and realized that math does not need to be difficult when proper mental reasoning has been put in place.

The main reason why math is seen to be difficult is basically the enormous calculations involved in the computation of some problems. Topics such as statistics, linear and compound algebra, and calculus require very many steps before one is able to arrive at the answer. But these need not to worry anyone if the fundamental principles of all mathematical problems have been understood.

The basic principle of math is the logic behind it. For example, all the complex formula of statistics lies on the reason of central tendency and measures of dispersion. Now, any statistician knows for sure that central tendency measures come from simple reasoning for data collection, arrangement and simple computation of mean, mode and median. When one will understand that mean simply means adding the given data together then diving the sum by the total number of data collected, one does not need to worry much on other formulas where mean is a constant or a variable, and the problems would just be to understand how other variables or constants were arrived at.

On algebraic equations, applied in calculus or other areas of math such as geometry, reasoning will be to be put your mind understand from the beginning the steps taken to arrive at these equations. A long and complex mathematical formula can be understood simply by logical understanding of the various parts which form the formula.

To make my article simple and realistic, especially for those in elementary levels of education and below, let us take a case example of someone who does not understand math. My sister is in primary class seven. She has a lot of problem and trying to assist her has made me teach her math in involving her mind in the calculations, rather than give her the formulas to cram and apply during her examination period.

The other day I was training her on how to calculate distance traveled by a vehicle moving at a given speed for a given period of time. To make her appreciate the relationship between distance, speed and time, I asked her simple questions as follow:

1. "What is the distance between here (our home) and the town center?" "Twenty Kilometers", she answered.
   
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3. "How long do our passenger vehicles, on average, take to reach the town center?" "10 minutes", was her answer on this question.
   
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5. "So, how far would the vehicle have traveled if it was driven for only one minute?" and she said, "Half a kilometer."
   
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7. "How did you arrive at one kilometer?" She could not answer this one.
   
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Looking closely at how the questions were handled, I told myself that my sister is not mathematical minded. After all, she has been performing badly in school in math, and getting her to appreciate the relationship between logical reasoning and math was a difficult task. But, after letting her mind compute the distance by her own logical reasoning, letting her understand the formula of calculating distance given time and speed was easy.

In a nutshell, for problems in mathematics, it is only training our minds to logically fathom and apply the mathematics that will lead you to fully loving and appreciated this subject that has be said to be difficult.