Agreed, I can't stand the way we teach math in the US. I love math enough to have accidentally gotten a minor in it, but especially high school does nothing but train kids to hate math. My calculus class in high school was a net negative, since teaching to the test just caused many of my friends to switch away from STEM majors in college (if Calc 1 was that horrible, why become an engineer ahd have to suffer even more?).
One of these friends went on to become a forensic accountant, so she obviously couldn't hate math that much, but that calculus class was traumatic enough that she summarily dismissed a biology major in college. I think one of the main pain points, which my dad was able to tutor me through, was understanding why. Learning calculus (or any math, for that matter) as just a list of mechanical steps is awful, whereas learning why we perform the mechanical steps allows one to glimpse the beauty behind math. I wonder how many children we've ruined this beautiful subject for?
One of these friends went on to become a forensic accountant, so she obviously couldn't hate math that much, but that calculus class was traumatic enough that she summarily dismissed a biology major in college. I think one of the main pain points, which my dad was able to tutor me through, was understanding why. Learning calculus (or any math, for that matter) as just a list of mechanical steps is awful, whereas learning why we perform the mechanical steps allows one to glimpse the beauty behind math. I wonder how many children we've ruined this beautiful subject for?