I was great at English and the Arts subjects (selective all girls grammar), ok at the rest with the exception of Maths ... I was totally flummoxed about numbers. I'd been to a tiny village school (13 children) and we older children sort of just worked through maths work sheets ... when I got to the grammar school it was as if the maths teachers were speaking another language ... it was as if everyone knew this magical stuff except me ... I floundered badly, not helped by Ma explaining to the head mistress that my difficulties with maths was due to my low forehead (Ma had been taught by some very odd nuns) ... I was not allowed to take my maths 'O' level as "it would be a waste of public money" according to the head mistress (she was a very odd and unpleasant woman). I sailed through all other 'O' levels with great grades, but was so desperately unhappy at school I left and went to secretarial college and .... again, top grades.
In my early twenties an acquaintance said he was really puzzled why I kept saying I was rubbish at maths etc, when I ran a business, and had taught myself to do the accounts, VAT and PAYE. He had done Higher Maths at Oxford and said, 'but maths is just logic ... and you're so incredibly logical' .... it was as if someone had torn down a curtain ... I did Mensa entrance application to reassure myself that I wasn't going to make a fool of myself, and then I did evening classes on maths at my children's high school and discovered it wasn't me ... it had been the appalling teaching at my school. One male teacher would sit next to me, put his hand on my knee and ask if the reason I was confused was because it was my 'time of the month?' I wasn't the only girl he said inappropriate things to, but that wasn't considered out of the way and we were told to 'ignore it' because he was the only teacher in the school with a maths degree ... thankfully he was only there for a year.
Later on I got two good Hons degrees ... everything depends on the quality of the teaching.
@Dovefromabove wasn't SGHS was it? ...... sounds scarily like my old school!!
I don't know whether to be pleased I am not good or maths, or sad. I wanted to do astrophysics at university, but realised my maths was poor, so I opted for medicine. All these years later, I am still not sure I made the right decision.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Noticed a few holes in my hostas and went on a slug hunt. It's freezing out there! I'm debating getting my winter gardening stuff out of storage. Packed them away in the heatwave. Silly me.
I quite fancied astrophysics too. That interest got parked (on the academic side at least) for a lot of years and then I did an Open University degree, finishing just about when it started to get much more expensive and much more rigid in what you could study with what (but that's and entirely different thing to be curmudgeonly about).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Unproven that there's a link between mathematical and musical skills. Anecdotally I would say there isn't a link. However two engineers/ scientists in our family were good at maths and music. One was good at maths and poor at music. We all three are from a family where there was definite musical ability with two members from two generations having studied to completion at the Royal college of music. Others played for orchestras as a hobby on top of working. One such person was really poor at maths.
I think that what is acknowledged is that skills in pattern and sequencing are common to both mathematicians and musicians ... whether that means that musicians find maths more accessible, or vice versa, I have no idea.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Engineer born not made? Utter Bollocks!!! Sorry to be so rude and offensive but that sort of comment is not just wrong but harmful.
So if a kid never shows any sign of engineering ability such as model making or lego on suppose you talk them out of engineering as a career? I bet you'd have never had a lot of great engineers with that viewpoint.
I had no interest in technician side of engineering as in hands on making things. Doesn't stop me getting two engineering degrees. The engineering subjects are so diverse that often engineers would never need so called "engineering skills".
To explain that I'll tell you what my dad got told by his future wife's family when first met He was doing a civil engineering degree. So one male relative with high intelligence and a good career high up in the police force said "so you'll be good at fixing my car". That is kind of the ignorance being a born engineer has imho. You can be born with talent but you're simply made through education, experience and hard work. Let's not put anyone off by this born an engineer rubbish.
Posts
@Dovefromabove wasn't SGHS was it? ...... sounds scarily like my old school!!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
All these years later, I am still not sure I made the right decision.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Unproven that there's a link between mathematical and musical skills. Anecdotally I would say there isn't a link. However two engineers/ scientists in our family were good at maths and music. One was good at maths and poor at music. We all three are from a family where there was definite musical ability with two members from two generations having studied to completion at the Royal college of music. Others played for orchestras as a hobby on top of working. One such person was really poor at maths.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So if a kid never shows any sign of engineering ability such as model making or lego on suppose you talk them out of engineering as a career? I bet you'd have never had a lot of great engineers with that viewpoint.
I had no interest in technician side of engineering as in hands on making things. Doesn't stop me getting two engineering degrees. The engineering subjects are so diverse that often engineers would never need so called "engineering skills".
To explain that I'll tell you what my dad got told by his future wife's family when first met
He was doing a civil engineering degree. So one male relative with high intelligence and a good career high up in the police force said "so you'll be good at fixing my car". That is kind of the ignorance being a born engineer has imho. You can be born with talent but you're simply made through education, experience and hard work. Let's not put anyone off by this born an engineer rubbish.