Anyone still struggle with numbers?

[Flubble]

i'm terrible at working stuff out in my head, but this is why we have calculators

 

[Blackjack Davy]

My lack of understanding numbers and ability to do mental arithmetic has troubled me for years.

I can do basic addition/subtraction and work out percentages in my head but ask me to do multiplication or division and my mind goes blank. When I'm under pressure, it's even worse...say someone asks me what xyz plus xyz is out the blue...my brain dies.

I can read/do the balance sheet for the company and work things out with a calculator and a spreadsheet but it doesn't come easily or naturally. You'd think it would get better over the years...

Embarrassingly, I also failed maths at school! Thankfully I've got by in life and done okay..

I can't do those things either and I can't even do % on paper. Unless you're the company accountant I wouldn't worry about it and luckily by the time I was in school calculators had already been invented.

Apart from the odd embarressing occasion (actually, quite a lot) when I accidently hand over too much or too little money to a shop assistant I havn't found it a problem.

I've even had extra maths lessons I paid for as well as after school tutorship from a teacher but it doesn't make any difference. Its almost like a mathematical dyslexia, my mother has it too so I figure its genetic or something. A bit galling for my father who won prizes for mathematics at school but there you go.

We all have out strengths and weaknesses, I guess maths just isn't your thing.

For me, it's spelling. Luckily, spell check has got my back 99% of the time.

Funnily enough spelling was one of the things I never had any trouble with got all the spelling tests at school I never had to use a dictionary don't even have one in the house now.

 

[Dj_Jestar]

Also it's sometimes not that it's a struggle, but you have to pause whilst you metaphorically dig for the method in your brain.

Percentages are a big example for me - I have to think over which method I need to calculate those for a few seconds before I can do it. Used to be able to just look at the numbers and work it out immediately.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Of course you don't just magically get better at something over time! If anything you get worse...

I'm technically allowed to include "Master of Mathematics" in my title if I want to (seriously) but arithmetic when not written down has never been my strong-suit and I can't remember and don't ever use a good 70%+ of my degree

The problem a lot of people have with all maths related things is how incremental it is... Each bit you learn, right the way to the highest levels of the subject, is built on the parts you've already done. This is why it's so easy to have one bad teacher or year at school, fail to properly learn some element of the subject and then never really catch up with it

 

[Scurra]

I've even had extra maths lessons I paid for as well as after school tutorship from a teacher but it doesn't make any difference. Its almost like a mathematical dyslexia, my mother has it too so I figure its genetic or something. A bit galling for my father who won prizes for mathematics at school but there you go.

You'd be correct, it's called Dyscalculia. I was diagnosed with it when I was a child. I managed to scrape a grade C at GSCE maths and never did it again.

I'm not a stupid guy though, it just feels like my brain isn't wired right when it comes to maths.

 

[TaKeN]

Lots of free courses for maths on the Open University as I discovered this morning whilst trying to get an education based email for Amazon Prime Student (which didn't work!)

I'm terrible at maths, I pretty much failed it.

 

[izzop]

Play darts

You'd think...

I knew a Management Accountant who I played darts with a few times and he couldn't subtract

I'm not kidding, whoever he was playing against would have to do the scoring.

 

[new boy]

If someone couldn't read would you say 'I guess reading just isn't your thing'?

If they had attended school for 12 years and they still couldn't read then sure.