Monday, March 15, 2010

Day 110

The math part of the annual MSA test is tomorrow and Wednesday. I did my part, teaching percentages, fractions, and averages to the kids. I was given no material, so wrote my own word problems using the characters from the Bluford books we've been reading. It was actually fun.

At one time I was quite the math geek--seems ages ago! I took trig, analytical geometry, calculus, and physics in high school, and earned a certificate of achievement in math and science, but then got to college and switched from an engineering track to literature after one semester. I just lost interest, I suppose. I was, however, the only English major in my class who took college algebra, calculus II, and physics lab for gen ed math and science requirements as an undergrad. My fellows in the department took courses designed for people with no hope of passing math or science courses, but needing credits in those areas for a liberal arts degree. I remember getting up in a graduate seminar at Temple U taught by Phil Stevick and attempting to explain Hubble's constant to the class--I wish I'd retained some of that math. Anything above geometry now is a bit too challenging for me. Is there a program which re-trains those skills, the way Rosetta Stone teaches languages?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wish! I would be all over it!
:) jv