I'm not sure if you could consider me an intelligent person, but I'm somewhat afraid of math. I think it's mostly because of my math teacher early on. She gave me a problem that was accidentally written 3-6 or something, and I answered 0-3. She insisted that there were no numbers less than zero or something, and that convinced me for a long time that math didn't make any sense.
Later on, in some (but not all) Algebra classes, I was frustrated because I was expected to "show my work," and find the answer in a particular way, when I saw several ways I could find the answer, and often tended to find the answer in a way that wasn't easy to show in a step-by-step manner. This frustrated me because I couldn't understand why this particular method and showing my work was so important.
So basically... I don't like math because the people who teach it always ask me to do it in ways that don't make any sense to me. They don't explain why I'm doing anything, they just say that this is how you do it. And I'm not very good at understanding the how without the why. I tend to botch it badly or follow it blindly, never seeing its connection to anything else when it's presented that way.
These are some common problems. I hate the way math is taught in so many schools (often by teachers who are math phobic, themselves).
It's horrible that your teacher told you that there are no numbers below 0.
Teachers should be encouraging multiple approaches to problems, especially the approaches that give answers directly without a lot of steps.
If that skill were nurtured, your quantitative reasoning skills would be greatly enhanced. How do you think people get those 800s on the Math SATs and GREs?-- certainly not by cranking through each problem in the "approved" manner (don't have time), but by simply noticing which answer is correct.
I appreciate the value of math, and admire those who are good at it. For me, the reason I am "scared" of math is that my brain just doesn't want to work in the way I need it to when it comes to mathematics.
I have to literally work four times as hard at math. It just doesn't come naturally to me. I have to hear the most basic of concepts taught over and over before I really get them. We did some work with logic in one of our math classes. If we used letters (if P then Q, etc.), I was completely lost. If I asked the teacher to give me a sample sentence instead, I instantly understood. When I see numbers or letters, I just don't compute well, whereas a sentence or a word translates better in my brain. (I'm sure there is better terminology for this, but it's my simple way of explaining!)
This is very common. That is why so few people get the
Wason Card Problem correct but could answer the analogous problem about drinking age, and alcoholic beverages without ever taking a logic lesson.
Mathematics is essentially a systematic way of using analogy to extrapolate what is known into realms of the unknown. We have great success at using this faculty, once trained. Often, it is synonymous with "reasoning." It is in-fact the most successful of human faculties in finding out the truth--more so than empiricism, and the "scientific method" even.
I've passed all my math classes by taking extremely detailed notes. With the exception of one class where I had an amazing and patient teacher and actually learned, I have passed all my math classes by memorizing steps and sample problems from my notes. I cannot tell you why I am doing what I'm doing or why it works. I just memorize it, plug in the new numbers on quizzes and tests, pass my classes, and never look back.
It's unfortunate that so many people get into this mode. Imagine if we had similar reservations about being perfect in grammar and spelling before we wrote anything. We would miss out on learning a large part of the process that has absolutely nothing to do with being "correct."
I am taking statistics right now, and it's (hopefully) the last math class I ever have to take. I do appreciate math, but at the same time, I stay as far away from it as I can, because I'm bad at it, and I find it incredibly difficult. Who wants to sit around feeling stupid and banging her head on the table for hours? Not me...
Also understandable.
But I think in the the not too distant future, not understanding statistics will be similar to being "computer illiterate."
It will put you at a disadvantage.
We'll have so much "data" thrown at us, that being willfully ignorant of its meaning would either put us in a possition to distrust all of it, or trust all of it unconditionally.
Neither of these positions is particularly favorable.
I actually like Math, but I always get ridiculous amounts of points off for being careless and not paying attention to detail.
The theory of math fascinates me, actually -doing- math doesn't.
That being said, I'm not afraid of Math. The complicated problems you get in class just test your problem solving / application ability. No problem is really harder than another, you just have to see how to turn it into a series of simpler problems. For people that can't do this well, I can understand why Math would be intimidating.
I make plenty of stupid mistakes myself, but this is where having mulitple ways to solve the same problem helps. It is hard to solve a problem in two different ways and be wrong in the same way. Both approaches could be wrong, or perhaps share the same wrong assumption. But the more ways you can approach a problem and get the same answer, the more confident you can be of its correctness (again checking for shared assumptions).