This is my first post since some "had-to" posts when I started this for a class.
I have two thoughts about beginning to blog. 1: How cliche. 2. Seriously, how cliche.
As with every blog that currently exists, this one is basically about me, and written for myself. If anyone ever ends up reading it, and gets something out of it, all the better.
I'll post interesting articles about my field of college students affairs; random thoughts/insights about living as a Christian in a faith-unfriendly world; cute kid stories; and my progress in learning math.
Yeah, math. I don't know how I arrived at this, but I decided at some point recently that I want to learn calculus by the time I am 40. That gives me a few years, and feels like a safe goal. Step 1: e-mail a friendly and popular math professor at the college where I work, to get advice on getting started. She directed me here, and it is basically the most amazing website I have ever been on.
The math professor's advice was: brush up on arithmetic and algebra. "Nobody fails at pre-calculus and calculus," she wrote. "They fail at arithmetic and algebra." Sounds smart. And since arithmetic and algebra are really easy, hey, I should be ready for pre-calc by fall, right?
I have spent almost four hours on the site, now, and I am just now considered proficient in addition and subtraction.
The good news is that I can keep trying. Got something wrong, or don't understand because your particular fifth grade didn't do number representation with pictures of blocks? Click on the "show me" button and they'll break it down for you. Forgot that subtracting a negative number is the same as adding a positive number? That's all right. Get it on the second pass.
The thing is, learning should be like what I have been experiencing in my math adventures this week. There are videos for instruction, you can literally look at a map of how skills build on each other, and if you don't understand something you can access multiple ways of looking at the solution until you get it. There's no time limit. I've been doing it for fun, and it is fun (except when I lose track of all those carried 1's in long subtraction). We'll see what happens when I jump back into algebra, but for now I'm having a blast.
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