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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not understand why some people thinks its funny/acceptable to not be able to do simple maths

140 replies

leandro · 01/03/2011 14:27

I was talking to a group of women at playgroup this morning and one was talking about wanting to get a part time job. I said look at shop work and she said she'd like to but that she doesn't do numbers and so couldn't do it. Another one said I don't do them either and she has to get her husband to do anything mathematically related.
I don't get it, if you said I can't read then people would be Hmm so why is it acceptable to be hopeless at arithmetic.

OP posts:
TotemPole · 01/03/2011 21:20

I thought there was a recentish study that showed girls are better at maths.

bamboobutton · 01/03/2011 21:23

i suspect i have dyscalculia, no idea how i'd go about getting it properly diagnosed though.

numbers just dance and rearrange themselves in front of my eyes. i have to be very, very careful when dialling phone numbers, had quiet a few embarrasing mistakes.
have to super careful when using the calculator, i am not allowed to do the books as i would make too many mistakes.

i can do basic maths if i can use a pen, paper and my fingers. any mental arithmetic harder than single digit + single digit is impossible.

camerondiazepam · 01/03/2011 21:24

I'm just being meddlesome! Grin

BuzzLiteBeer · 01/03/2011 21:24

I failed GCSE maths, Totem, but now I can do fairly complicated statistical formulae by hand.

TotemPole · 01/03/2011 21:46

Buzz, that's interesting. Are you using the formulae for work? I wonder if it was the way you were taught that was the problem.

Maybe some should be allowed to do the GCSE over a longer period so they can go at their own pace.

TigerseyeMum · 01/03/2011 21:54

I score borderline for dyslexia and high for discalculia.

I have a fear of maths and struggle with most math concepts. Apart from statistics, which are patterns and shapes so I can cope with them.

I wouldn't say I am proud of it but I am open and jokey about it, though at school I was terrified and spent a lot of time crying and hiding.

I'd rather people joked than cried.

BuzzLiteBeer · 01/03/2011 21:55

Student, just done an advanced statistics module but will be using it a lot from now on. I do it on software mostly but you need to know the formulae and be able to check it and spot errors etc.

huddspur · 01/03/2011 22:00

YANBU I've often wondered why people find it funny to be totally innumerate.

osd · 01/03/2011 22:05

TigerseyeMum, I also have discalculia, also scored high, I am not scared of maths, but no help was offered to me at school and i only found out about discalculia at uni. By then i had worked out how to do maths well enough for myself, like i remembered the rule below.5 round down, above .5 round up, so thats how i count, i make a whole number lower or higher so my shopping is always on budget and i learnt the clock at 14 but can't do percentages don't understand them but can picture a clock so i say we need 15 minutes of pie for each person or we won't have enough i can picture that so it's all good, and my DH understands. It's not easy i would love to do maths but have accepted my lot, got an E in maths and was proud as was predicted an F. Would love to teach RE but that is never going to happen because of the maths, and it easier to joke it off than admit you are a failure at something.

Mahraih · 01/03/2011 22:14

Interesting thread.

I'd like to know what these tests are for discalculia, and how one can go about doing them?

At 14, I told my maths teacher I suspected I had it, and he laughed me out of the room. I managed a 'B' at maths GCSE (intermediate level) - I literally memorised all the concepts as words, so I could whisper them to myself, rather than numbers. I still can't do my times tables, can't work out percentages, anything more than simple addition is difficult and when faced with a mathematical problem, my brain just seems to seize up.

I've always tried to view it as the trade-off for being very, very good at anything to do with words.

Back to the OP: as someone who does joke about how 'crap' they are at maths, I do it because the alternative is saying, "I can't do my times tables, and it makes me feel like crap."

pointydog · 01/03/2011 22:33

Some people think it's funny and preferable to portray themselves as a bit stupid. Seems to be something in British culture. The public loves the silly daft ones on reality shows who admit to not knowing the simplest of things. And I think it's an attitude which is prevalent among pupils in schools throughout the land.

pigletmania · 01/03/2011 22:36

YABVU some people just find maths concepts hard, and cannot understand them. I am diagnosed as having Dyscalculia which is like dyslexia with maths, though i can do basic maths, I cannot do the harder more complex stuff, its the way my brain is wired I am afraid. Reading is totally different you are not comparing like for like tbh.

GiddyPickle · 01/03/2011 22:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pigletmania · 01/03/2011 22:43

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and some people are just not good at maths, no amount of teaching can improve that. I think as long as people have a working maths skills that is all you need, unless you want a maths based career.

pigletmania · 01/03/2011 22:45

My dyscalculia was assessed by an Ed psych

madonnawhore · 01/03/2011 22:55

I've always been shit at maths. I had to have extra tuition just so I could scrape a C at GCSE.

However, I am ace at languages and spelling and I feel the same way about people who can't spell as OP does about people who can't do maths, which I realise is entirely unfair and unreasonable of me! :)

JaneS · 01/03/2011 23:51

I'm another dys- person (dyslexia more than dyscalculia as there's other things to it).

I find it really annoying not being able to hold numbers in my head too, it's not especially fun and my bag is always full of bloody coppers because I end up paying with notes far too much of the time so I don't have to work out change.

Ah well, life is short and if you think it's unacceptable for me not to manage a basic skill, that's your problem, not mine.

pigletmania · 02/03/2011 00:15

OOOOh my purse is always full of them littleRedDragon, when counting money i give them what i think it is and wait for them to tell me i need to pay xp more or less.

JaneS · 02/03/2011 11:16

I do that one too - holding out a handful and letting them pick - but it does take ages sometimes!

camerondiazepam · 02/03/2011 13:14

Come on LittleRedDragon, there's a difference between having a genuine difficulty with something and being a simpery/giggly "oh my husband deals with the sums" woman, the OP is surely referring to the latter not the former?

Ephiny · 02/03/2011 13:24

Actually I've heard men say 'oh I'm terrible at maths' and seem proud of it. Often when they're more 'arty' types and the implication is that maths and the people who do it are boring and stuffy and without imagination.

camerondiazepam · 02/03/2011 13:30

Epiphiny you're right, but IMO it is part of the same thing - "I'm not going to say I'm good at maths because it means I must secretly have leather elbow patches/really hairy legs" (delete as appropriate). It's not the same as having a genuine difficulty, it's just an incredibly lame thing to do.

TryingVeryHard · 02/03/2011 13:46

Shit - I have hairy legs (should shave them more often Blush) and I'm OK at basic maths.... does that mean I'm boring and stuffy and without imagination Sad
... but I really do like art and I know the difference between Renaissance and Baroque!
Confused

Ormirian · 02/03/2011 13:52

It's part for the eternal imaginary divide between the arts and the sciences. if you are creative you can't be good at maths. And if you are arty you can't be a scientist. So much steaming cattle-shit of course but it is used by some people to explain why they are so poor at something as basic as adding numbers together. Oh I'm a free spirit! I can't be expected to shackle myself with something as boringly earthy as numbers dahling! Hmm

Of course some people genuinely can't because they have discalculia and dislexia and the like and a lot of people are embarrassed, but some do think it nmakes them better beings in some strange way.

Ephiny · 02/03/2011 13:55

That's the ridiculous thing - I like art and music and literature as well as maths, there's nothing to say they have to be mutually exclusive. In fact I'd say there are far more mathematicians/scientists who appreciate and are knowledgable about art etc than the other way round.

'The Music of the Primes' by Marcus du Sautoy is a good book about how maths can be beautiful and fascinating and driven by human passion and ambition.

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