Myths

I was recently reading an alumni magazine when I came across an article by a professor that was enumerating the common math myths and I thought it would be good to pass along…

Myth 1 – Men are better at math than women

There has been no research that proves this to be true. It is true that the mathematical sciences are filled with men, no question. The real question is why aren’t there more women there? There are so many theories out there; Nature vs. Nurture, The math classes are boy centric, the list goes on. The bottom line is: get the girls out there!

Myth 2 – Math is not creative

Math IS creative. You need to have a creative, problem solving mind to attack a lot of the math problems you encounter in the real world.

Myth 3 - There is one way to solve a problem.

There is no one “right way” to solve any problem, there are multiple ways to get the right answer. Think about planning a party, there are many ways to decide how much cake everyone will get.

Myth 4 –  You need to memorize a lot of facts, rules and formulas to be good at math.

Memorization is not nearly as effective as understanding the concepts. Think about the multiplication facts that most of us memorized as kids. We know from memorization that 4x4 is 16, but we also know conceptually that his also represents 4 groups of 4.