Have you ever thought about how some five year old's are able to do extremely complicated math, but the majority of the population struggles with basic algebra? This is because at a young age, when your mind is still developing, these children are shown the correct way to think about math. They are shown how to simplify the problem and try to not overthink it, which is what the majority of the population that struggles with basic algebra does.
There is a reason why people always say they suck at math and it isn’t because it is hard, it is because it is so simple. It is so simple that we as humans have trained ourselves to overthink it and make it complicated, because it is human nature to be creative. Math is the complete opposite of creative, it is so simplistic that everything, from multiplying 2 x 2 to finding the rate of change of water draining out of a cone, can be broken down into basic addition and subtraction, and that is what makes it so beautiful. How can something so cut and dry as adding and subtracting be proclaimed as beautiful you might ask? The same way that a single brick sitting on the ground isn’t considered beautiful, but when you stack brick on top of brick you have the ability to create a beautiful structure. The way things come together and create something so magnificent but are still so basic when broken down is what makes it beautiful.
When people begin to realize that they do not need to read in between the lines and infer what the author is trying to say to understand the concept, will be the day they realize they can do anything in math. Math is a subject like no other taught in school, to understand math you need to ignore that feeling inside you that tells you there is more going on than there really is. That feeling that your English teacher tries so hard for you to explore to understand the deeper meaning in Shakespeare's work. While school is important for teaching students basic information about different subjects it is equally as important, if not more important, to teach students how to think.
As crazy as that might sound, the ability to get into the right mindset to learn a subject is just as important as learning the actual material. You wouldn’t go into gym class with the mindset of dissecting Shakespeare, when the gym teacher tells you to run a lap you don’t think about if this lap has a deeper meaning or if it connects to that pushup you did before, you just run the lap. The same thing applies to math, when you add 2 + 2 you don’t need to think about how the plus sign might have a deeper meaning than simply adding two numbers, or how the two is really just composed of 1 + 1 and 2 + 2 is the same thing as 2 * 2 or 22. This thought process of not overthinking things in math is often overlooked when teaching at a young age because kids are so creative and their minds are developing so much. Just because you show students a different way of thinking you are not going to ruin their creative ability, but give them another way to be creative.
There is no other basic subject that is as simple as math. It is straightforward and isn’t going to try to trick you by having you read between the lines. We as a society have grown to being as creative as possible that we have forgotten how to think simply. When we think at the basic level we will understand math. Math is a simple subject, we just over-complicate it.
