Talk:What makes Mathematics hard to learn?

high school anecdote

I had a friend who, one year behind me in high school, was already very talented at mathematics, excelled in math competitions. after he had taken first-year high school math, he was taking geometry. he didn't like it. Every year we would have the same conversation.

10th grade : why should I learn this geometry? I already know everything I need to about algebra and trigonometry and mathematics - everything my calculator can do, very useful stuff. why should I learn this? it's a waste of time.

11th grade : why should I learn this calculus? I mean sure, you have to know how to take derivatives and integrals to evaluate some basic physics. But most of that is mechanical -- unless I'm going to need that level of detailed analysis, why should I learn this just to be 'educatd'?

12th grade : why should I learn abstract algebra? How could this ever have meaning in my life? Sure, Calculus has turned out to be useful in most of the rest of science, but this is just manipulating sets -- I already know how to do everything.

On the one hand, he is right -- today he doesn't use anyof the above math on even a weekly basis. On the other hand, it took him about 6 months into the year before he was loving what he was doing and seeing relevance in everything else he studied. The teachers and books never inspired that in him, however, he had to internalize it and start seeing the world differently before he found inspiration to carry on. --Sj talk 22:06, 26 February 2008 (EST)