cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (:X)
Cimorene ([personal profile] cimorene) wrote 2009-12-02 06:28 pm (UTC)

My intelligence is more verbal - I've always considered myself bad at math, even though I have always tested around the 85th percentile in maths; by my standards as a child, I could only count myself "good" at something if I effortlessly bested not only my peers, but frequently my teachers (so, you know, anything related to languages then).

(True story! We had to take an 'aptitude test' for the 7th grade "pre-Algebra" course at the end of 6th grade. I scored higher than my then-best friend, and neither one of us was tracked into the class; I didn't care because I've always disliked math. My friend's parents complained to the principal to have her put into the class anyway; my ordinary "advanced math" class turned out to be more fun and engaging than hers, though, because I happened to get a good teacher. And then we were both put in Algebra in 8th grade anyway. She was always very proud of her math skills.)

I was fortunate to have a dad who took hours of time to give me extra math work and write up sheets of problems for me at home when my math at school was too boring (he introduced me to fractions, negative numbers, and one-variable equations all at least a year before they were covered in school), and then later, when we did the kinds of math that were genuinely challenging to me, to sit and explain the stuff over and over.

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