<< I was a pretty good math student -- at least thru college
> calculus -- but I always thought the key was just practice
> practice practice. The more problems you solved, the easier each
> new one became.
>
> mbs
Aaaaaagh! No! Learning math is not about acquiring mechanical skills
-although that is the way it is taught in this country, where you find
lots of students who can integrate a wide set of functions, without
having a clue as to what an integral is.
Progress in math is not a continuous function of the amount of time you
put into it. You progress in jumps - you try to solve a difficult
problem, or understand a difficult definition, you pace around the room,
you go take a pee, you pound the desk, and (almost) all of a sudden you
get it. Until you solve that one difficult problem, it doesn't really
matter how many easy, mechanical exercises you perform. Once you do, you
are done for the day. >>
Enrique,
I appreciate your approach - however, I'm with Max on this one. When I was in junior high, I was put in an accelerated math class where all the kids seemed to "get it" without working. In fact, if you had to study at all you were considered dumb! It took me a long time to live this down, and it was actually from learning to play the drums that I accepted the idea that you had to SLOW DOWN to figure how to take a derivative (this is also how I learned to cop John Bonham licks off LZ lps - slow it down to 16 ips!). This simple idea is lost on most math teachers because they come with a "natural facility" for the stuff and tend to mentor those with like skills. I've also found that by slowing down, you gain greater insight into the structure of the problem; this is especially true in drumming where losing/adding an accented 1/8 or 1/16th note totally changes the feel.
Jason