To be slightly horrified at how poor my basic skills are?

[primrosesandmaths]

In my professional, graduate profession, I have just been told I have to work out something as a percentage.

I have no idea how to do it.

I shall google - it isn’t an advice thread as such, but my maths is just dire and I can’t help wondering if this is common or whether I am an imposter in my role.

I wasn’t educated in this country, and it probably shows, what with me being illiterate and so, but my children were.
I don’t know what changed, and how, but even though I wasn’t very good at maths then it seems I manage nicely now.

My children, however, are useless at it.

Ime the school teaches the syllabus, the child doesn't necessarily absorb it, the class moves on.

My mother was a maths teacher. She took a law degree largely for fun in her late thirties, which involved a compulsory module on billing/VAT or something.

The instructor told the class to add 17.5% to each item, then add them all up. Mother asked if perhaps they could add them first, then add 17.5% to the total. "Oh no," said the instructor in horror. "You'd get a completely different answer."

Now, unless you round up too early, erm, that really isn't right. But mother kept her own counsel (and passed the unit and the degree).

It's not just about maths, you do forget what you are not practicing. You could apply that to a foreign language, or some computer skills. I forget my own mother tongue sometimes, and I only started to speak English 20 years ago!

I teach my DD good mental maths skills depend on

1. Knowing the times tables very well, instant recall,
2. Being able to double and halve the numbers. The rest is easy. Comes with practice.

I totally love the idea of Pi Day!!

I find myself so baffled by my daughter's Year 5 maths. I am dreading the GCSE years. I'm not to bad on general adding up and taking away etc. %'s I can sort of do if the numbers aren't too big!! Like many others here have said I can't do Long Division. When I was doing my GCSE maths I asked my teacher if she could show me how to do it but she said "it's not on the exam"!!

drspouse it makes perfect sense..a very clear explanation...I just know that 5 mins from now I will have lost all the information again.

As people say below about maths, I just don't seem to retain it! I don't know why not though. I've had to pick up information on all sorts of things across multiple areas of science and even social science and the only things I've ever encountered that I cannot even slightly retain are about grammar...and possibly greek derived words...like diathesis. Still no clue about that every single time I read it (which happens on average around once a week).

i know you weren't asking for help, but in case it does help, I usually 'say it out' in my head. So if I was trying to find out what percentage 42 is out of 168 I would say: 42 'out of' 168 'as a percentage'...then you just replace 'out of' with a division sign and replace 'as a percentage' with 'x100'. So any percentage is this over that times a hundred. IYSWIM

Literally don't worry about it - blame the schooling system - if they didn't spend so long forcing Pythagoras Theorems down own throats and taught valuable things like how to do percentages and taxes properly, none of us would have these issues. I am a hopeless case - failed every maths exam I ever sat, still got into uni and obtained a great degree and am now in a job I am proud of. While it is frustrating (I know) it is not the be-all and end-all - you'll rarely be stuck without a phone or calculator.

A dyslexic acquaintance cannot add 9 and 14 and doesn't know any times tables, but can understand and use matrices for space transformations. Another failed completely at school maths, but met trigonometry in the army, and took to it like a duck to water.

I found A-level maths easier than O level, and university maths easier still - more emphasis on concepts and making links between apparently disparate concepts, and less pissing around calculating answer to 4 decimal places or 3 significant figures.

In my day, the second half of the A level paper was "answer 3 out of 6" and one of the questions was designed to test mathematical competence - a topic you haven't studied, but they took you through it bit by bit "by doing X show Y=Z; now show p

the connection between percentages is not perhaps as conceptual obvious as you might imagine. My 6 yo DD could estimate percentages several months ago and spent many a happy supermarket trip working out all the 25% 10% 50% off values. But she is adamant that 2/3 should be the same as 1/2.

Odd in my opinion...but then she's also refused to learn any phonics and can as a result read words like 'suddenly'. 'beautiful' and 'catastrophe' but can't often tell the difference between 'was' and 'saw' or 'b' and 'd' most of the time

brains are strange.

I absolutely sympathise with people who say they can't retain the maths.
My DDs are both like this, though interestingly I think eventually things did stick with DD1 as 3 years on from GCSE she does seem to have retained quite a lot.
My 13yo however has real problems retaining not only times tables, but also left and right and time telling. The next 3.5 years are going to be a hard slog I fear.

I went to school late 80's finished early 90's.

Spelling and grammar weren't taught but you were supposed to just pick them up.

Maths was much better taught – but I still had gaps in teaching and understanding.

When children needed help with long division I had to sit and watch the mathsfactor tutorials with them– same with multiplying fractions as couldn’t remember how to do but I did remember BIMAS from secondary.

Forgetting percentages does seem odder to me though – it is something used in everyday life – 10% more or less in shops is common.

My children seem to do a lot more applying maths to everyday things than I did – but we turned to mathfactor because their early years teaching of maths was very poor they hadn’t grasped place value. We were told they weren’t mathematically minded which as we were above average with maths seemed wrong to us the school did lot of “fun activities” round maths – while they seem to need clear explanations and lots of practise which thankfully mathfactor provided.

Khan academy is good for explanations and free to use.

It’s not you, it’s the educational system

So true. Far too many maths teachers just plough ahead despite their pupils not having the fundamentals. It's just setting up kids to fail and causes the "I'm no good at maths" culture that's so prevailant.

I've got clients with A levels in maths and a degree who can't work out the simplest of percentages such as the 20% VAT on a transaction. It means their book-keeping is full or mistakes. (One of whom is an IT consultant!).

Heaven knows why schools/teachers think kids can do algebra, long multiplication/division, simplifying fractions, etc when no-one has bothered to teach them their times tables and prime numbers. Yet the teachers just continue on and watch as the pupils get further behind.

If you can't work out percentages, how do you know you're getting a good deal in a sale?

It actually horrifies me how so many people are so lighthearted about not having basic arithmetic skills, never mind maths skills. I’m the first to admit that algebra beat me, but working out a percentage and long division is rock bottom basic arithmetic skills. I’m not ancient (47), and I despair at how badly the education system, which uses to be world class, is letting people down

My career involved explaining maths to non-mathematicians 1-1, and so often what was holding them back was lack of confidence rather than lack of ability.

I'd have to agree with that. I sit down with clients pretty regularly to "teach" them book-keeping, invoice creation, etc., and the sessions usually start with blank faces and a lot of stress, but I really enjoy seeing their confidence grow in very short timescales as I show them what to do and explain why. I think the key is using real-life scenarios so that the numbers are brought to life in a way they can relate to. Working through a real invoice can show them how simple they really are and that gives a massive confidence boost, which leads on to the more complicated things.

Amount times % divided by 100 will give you the answer.

I hate maths, nothing sticks. I am appalling at it.

Mind you, I did work out the other day how many units were in a certain amount of alcohol for an assessment. I was well chuffed. I couldn't remember how to do it again without the instructions though.

I did work out how to calculate percentages last year, but I have already forgotten how to do it. It took me ages to wrap my head around it the first time and I didn't find it easy.

I get frustrated and just want to cry.

When I was doing my GCSE maths I asked my teacher if she could show me how to do it but she said "it's not on the exam"!!

We got this in languages as well! Especially during GCSE and A-Level ('umm well you don't need to know that, it's not topic specific, they'll only be looking out for the topic specific vocab so focus on that', literally this phrase became a chant in the end) but even during Y7-9 - 'oh we only do that in Y9' or 'it's not in your textbook so I'm not sure it'll be useful'.
Not teacher-bashing, these were state schools obsessed with trying to push Ofsted grading & exam results up.

Snowqueen that's fantastic, thanks so much! Looking at their website now!

OK the legs thing makes much more sense now I think about it I was stuck on the "Bill Gates moves to my village and increases the mean average earnings" example...!

My 13yo however has real problems retaining not only times tables, but also left and right and time telling.

I worried younesgt wouldn't retain them. Other two school and time tables modules on mathfactor were enough - not her. She has spent years day in and out at home working out or asking when it's come up with other topics and suddenly last month or two she knows and she know them all very quickly.

Same with spelling for her and other DD - so much over learning, splitting up adding prefixes and suffixes, word families writting out and they still struggle.

SheSparkles Dragon box Algerbra is a fun way to master algerbra.

bigKite suddenly last month or two she knows
You have given me hope!

Amount times % divided by 100 will give you the answer.

It's the grossing up and netting down that causes the problem. People think that VAT at 20% of something costing, say, £100 is £20. It isn't. It's £16.67 because the £100 was VAT inclusive, so you have to divide by 120 to get the correct figure.

£83.33 plus 20% vat £16.67 is £100. If you take 20% of £100 you get £20 which is wrong.

Far too many people don't understand that fundamental issue with percentages and that's what sounds to be the OP's problem.

I can't remember my own kids dates of birth or where I parked the car! But then that's not really a skill as such, just a lack of basic faculties! 😕