In defense of math (from a humanities major)

insomniac-arrest:

Math isn’t evil, and it’s not something to hate

it’s just numbers guys, it’s just another subject, it’s just logic

the hatred of math stem most likely from the social symbolism we give to math as a ‘special’ subject, not the actual topic itself being bad. You see, we put math on a pedestal and say only the privileged few can do it, we MAKE it a more significant subject

but that’s the thing about social constructs: they are fake

if a kid couldn’t read we wouldn’t say ‘well, readings just not for everyone :)’ we’d sit them down and walk them through it. Why is math so different? No one says ‘some people are just too left-brained to read :).’

We don’t make up excuses or actively steer them away from it to spare their feelings, we just help them through it. I know this, I had dyslexia and that’s exactly what they did to teach me to read and write.

Math isn’t evil, and it’s not superior to other subjects. It’s just another thing to learn and another tool we can all do if we sit down and try our bests

One of the reasons people have so much trouble with math is the symbolism we give it, it’s hard to study when our anxiety is so high, when the consequences to failing are more than just ‘oops.’ Failing means something more, it means we’re ‘an idiot,’ and that makes trying itself harder.

Failure is scarier, trying is scarier, succeeding is harder.

SO! Let’s try and change that, there’s no reason to hate math as well as no reason to call it better than anything else