<p>I disagree that Algebra should be needed to graduate, but I highly doubt I’d find much use for many other general ed classes…but that’s a separate rant lol. I think that some basic math should be required in high school, but there should be options to take math courses focussing on realistic matters, such as budgeting or interest (which some schools do offer!).</p>
<p>I am a math person, my brother is not. I help him with his math homework (he’s in 6th) and I’m pretty sure I can sometimes get through to him when his teacher doesn’t. When he was in elementary school I’d use marbles to explain things to him all the time, particularly multiplication. Now I do try to make him understand why he does things (like why he’d use LCM and GCF).</p>
<p>I glided through Algebra 1 and I haven’t had much trouble with self-studying Algebra 2. I like to do quick Algebra “proofs” for myself, although I usually do the “reason” part in my head. I like to understand <em>why</em>. A favorite strategy of mine was replacing variables with numbers but then treating the numbers as the variables…a lifesaver for when I forget simple rules on a test! Should I ever forget the quadratic formula, I know how to derive it… </p>
<p>Of course, I’m biased in this because I love math.</p>
<p>@tangentline I hate S as a variable! I also dislike t and z, but slashing the z and curving the t helps.</p>
<p>This is just the motivation I needed…time to go learn more Algebra 2!</p>
<p>I think a lot of it has to do with the teaching methods used in earlier math classes. Oftentimes teachers focus too much on memorization as the class may contain a wide range of students (from your 8 year old prodigies to your 20 year old super seniors) and they typically have to resort to conforming to the lowest group.</p>
<p>@DogsAndMath23 additionally, o, O, e, i, l, and many other letters can be really bad choices for variables lol. The first two being that they can be confused with 0, or big-O or little-O notation especially if o/O is used as a function (e.g. o(n)). e and i are pretty obvious. u/v can be easy to mix up with some handwritings, and d can be used for differentials. Pretty soon we’ll run out of letters to use as variables.</p>
<p>@MITer94 Oh, for sure! My u’s and v’s look basically the same…we need more symbols! My handwriting isn’t as precise as I’d like it to be, I have to watch my 2’s and z’s so they don’t look the same, same with i’s and 1’s; Khan Academy seems to be very fond of 11+i/1-i type problems…</p>
<p>foolish: I don’t think I would ever forgive your teacher haha…ouch</p>
<p>@DogsAndMath23
OH GOSH. z.
I forgot to mention that, but that’s the other big annoying variable.
In electrical engineering used are
The Laplace transform
and the z-transform.</p>