The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for August 05, 2022

Some of us never did ever figure it out.

I got straight A’’s in math, but if i did math my way today I would fail.

Use it or lose it!

Especially in a comic page world, where each year you repeat the same grade

I know, I’ve been there…they keep changing it….OR maybe I didn’t pay attention, I’m going with they keep changing it!

Just wait until you get to calculus. I still haven’t figured it out.

I know I would have done a bit better if I’d worn glasses back then.

And it will be a new challenge every year for many years to come.

There is a mathematical formula for that.

I didn’t see the point of math till I started trying to build things. Then it all became clear.

Math is the reason they put an eraser on the end of a pencil!

it never did add up for me…

Never really learned math. In geometry, calculus and trigonometry, I didn’t learn it so much as I learned to manipulate the formulas.

it musta falling out while you were having fun during vacation. ;)

Go figure, Wilberforce. Go figure. Just don’t ask Brutus for help. While it is admirable for one to strive to be like their father, being in the third grade for three years isn’t something to strive for.

Its all just food kiddo.. math has pies and computers have cookies…

Tell that to Sisyphus. I am sure that he would agree with you but he would definitely want to swap places…..

How bout this math Wilberforce… If the Guardians sweep the cheating Astros and the BlueJays sweep the Twins… The Guardians will in first place by 2 games on Monday!

Ah, the mind of a kid is full of intricacies!

When I was in school I found history and geography boring, but I find them interesting now.

I believe that US Common Education is still stuck in the 19th century model, started when the US was a largely agrarian country. Forcing teachers to spend the first 4-8 weeks at the start of every new school year reviewing what everyone learned the year before. Unlike every other first world country and many 2nd world countries striving to join the most industrialized, aka 1st world, countries. The husband of a friend of one of my daughters who has spent almost 15 years in Korea as a HS English Teacher visited her in SoCal in 2018, her kids are about the same age as my daughters, but looking at their school books US kids are about 2 years behind Korean kids. IMVPO the US is going to continue getting worse when measured against kids from other countries mostly due to short school years along with short school days.

It should not surprise anyone that as of 2015 about half of all incoming Freshman college students have to take remedial classes in English or Math or both before being allowed to take actual college classes.

Apparently still another feature of US Common Education in the 21st Century is that women college students now outnumber men, and that number is slowly increasing every year.

I believe that still another problem is Americans obsession with sports which greatly overshadow academic excellence. In India, Academics not sports generate stories and headlines, who won the most coveted academic scholarship beats out what kid is best at Football(Soccer) or Cricket

I was doing pretty well in math until they started adding letters to the problems.

Used to drive math teachers crazy. We’d spend ⅓ of the year (at least) reviewing the previous year. One of the main reasons I pushed for 4 9-week terms with 4 4-week breaks in between. (and NO days off during the terms.)

A metaphor for life as it were ….

That’s why do a little work on it during the summer.

Learning some practical purposes and uses would be helpful all year long.

Well said, Wilberforce!

well, 2 + 2 still = 4 so i’m okay

@rekam- Math was a PITA for me, as well. Once I got past algebra, it was an uphill struggle from then on! Geometry was a pain in the butt trying remember all those tangents and secants! Then trig brought up the rear in my junior year. Then by my first semester of my senior year I decided to try calculus and that was a different asteroid altogether!! So my final semester, I went to my guidance counselor and found that I only needed two credits to graduate so dropped calculus quick, fast and in a hurry! I forgot what main course I took, but for the other class I decided to take an elective class and I chose photography. To this day I marvel at my teacher’s in depth knowledge of cameras! And to this day I regret throwing those notes away because I could’ve been a professional photographer!

In the early 60’s after Sputnik, I was halfway through grade school when they introduced “New Math”. Remember that?

Just wait until you use that math to try to do your tax returns. You ain’t seen ugly yet

I had that problem with my child and math for a bit. This was years ago, but I gave her a real world (her world) problem, and it made sense to her. If you go into store A and they have the jeans you want for X price, on sale for 20% off, and you go to store B and they have the same jeans for Y price but for 30% off. Which one is a better deal? (except I used real numbers) She looked at me, looked at her homework, and dug in. Math (actually, arithmetic) suddenly had a purpose in her life. She kept with it through her master’s degree in a medical field.

A few years ago, I connected on social media with a high school classmate of my parents. She told me that my dad—who was good at math—would do other students’ math homework in exchange for them doing his English homework. I still have one of my dad’s college English papers on which he made a D-.

The NEW, new math.

I helped adult child study for her board exams for her advanced medical degree for about 2 weeks. It was just a little bit of what she needed to know for the exams. I was quizzing her with cards, and the answer she gave me was not what was on the (professionally made) card. She checked her textbook, said the answer had to be right according to the book. I said the book had to be wrong. She looked shocked, but did the formula again, and agreed with me. Mom scores either logic or math again! Yay! I told her to let her classmates know the issue so they would not get that question wrong on the boards.