Keep it simple, stupid! That phrase resounds in your brain while you contemplate how it could ever be applied to your current course in mathematics. You remember hearing that if you kept things simple, then things would keep you. Yet you’re mired in difficulty, you need to get a decent grade in your current course, and all you can think of is failure, failure, failure. What do you do?
First and foremost, you need to stop panicking. Going into this mode will only sink you deeper into difficulty. The perfect analogy is what we have come to believe—largely because of TV and the movies—of what happens to the person who falls into quicksand. Although the reality is quite different, we have come to believe that if you struggle in quicksand, you will only sink deeper. Thus panicking in your current situation will only mire you more deeply. What to do? First stop! Next think more clearly.
You are bigger than any obstacle that a math course—indeed life—can throw at you. One of the reasons why I love math so much is because of the feeling I have as a result of having overcome this most difficult subject. You see, I too, was once in panic mode and did not know what to do with the curves and sliders that math was throwing me. I was stuck in a college calculus course and sinking deeper by the day. My grade point average was going to suffer greatly because I was looking at a D grade in this course—at best. Although 60% of my grade was still undecided, I was getting worse, not better.
Then one day, I decided I would fight back. I would go back to basics and apply common sense to this seemingly “un-common-sense" subject. Gingerly, I opened the text book to the problems that were assigned on this newest of topics: relative maximums and mininums. Who would have thought that one day I would be teaching this stuff! I told myself that I could understand this, that I would keep it simple, stupid. Thus I put on my thinking cap and went to work.
Reading the first problem, I started to apply basic principles. Fear came out of the equation and confidence went in. And then it happened. The light went on and clarity of understanding broke through the misty haze of clouds that obfuscated my horizon. I understood. What an amazing feeling. I knocked out one problem after another and got everyone right. I now had the confidence to approach any problem. The end result: I ended up getting an “A" in the course, and this outcome would decide my future: I ended up becoming a math major and math educator, the author of more than a dozen math ebooks (see here www.mathbyjoe.com/page/page/2908604.htm Cool Math Site and www.mathbyjoe.com/page/page/2924777.htm Cool Math Ebooks) and the creator of the Wiz Kid teaching methodology.
If you find yourself in panic mode with your current course of study, stop! Take a step back and apply the KISS principle. Forget all the mumbo jumbo and ask yourself, “What does this mean?" It really is quite simple. If you still don’t get it, email me and I will show the way. For nothing is more frustrating then not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
|
