• Question: what advise would you give to a youngster interested in math?

    Asked by jazz522rook on 29 Nov 2024.
    • Photo: Edward Smart

      Edward Smart answered on 29 Nov 2024:

      Several things…
      1. Go to your local library. There are likely to be some maths books there that you could find interesting
      2. Explore the internet. There are a lot of good websites out there. A google search of ‘maths websites for children’ produces several good options
      3. Youtube has several maths videos but it might be worth asking an adult or a teacher to choose some that are age appropriate
      4. Enjoy it! Above all, remember no-one gets everything right the first time. There will be some topics you will find harder than others. It doesn’t mean you aren’t very good.
      Personally, I struggle with geometry and mechanics.
      5. Ask your teacher for some further work. I did that when I was 10/11 and my teacher gave me a lot of helpful advice, which helped my confidence.
      6. Trust yourself. If you find a problem hard and you can’t solve it, you are not alone. Professional mathematicians are trying and failing to solve problems all the time. Some problems, such as Fermat’s Last Theorem, took hundreds of years to be solved. Others have never been solved.
      So if you try and don’t succeed, don’t worry. Take a break, read a book, play a game, go for a walk and come back to it. Maybe the answer will come.

    • Photo: Caroline Roche

      Caroline Roche answered on 30 Nov 2024:

      It is ok to use other resources than those your teachers prepare or to use different methods to solve problems. Practice different methods to decide which method works best for you e.g. an old maths teacher of mine wasn’t a fan of ‘show your work’ and preferred to do multiple actions at once to find the answer while I preferred to break it down and show each step.
      Don’t be afraid to ask for help – sometimes it just takes another pair of eyes to see the solution or even just talking through the problem with someone can help you find the solution.

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