When it comes to high school’s most hated subject, there is no doubt what it is.
No matter where you are in the world, it’s math.
Chances are your teen hates math. It’s their most hated subject. They don’t like their teacher. They don’t see the point in doing it.
I have a theory that might be able to help…
What is the point in math?
I can only speak for my own experience, but at my high school, the answer to this question was never broached.
Math was just this thing that we had done since elementary school, but no student could tell you why we were doing it.
The problem with this is that without knowing any reasons for why math is important, teens don’t think it is!
The point in math to them remains a mystery.
And fair enough, no one has told them otherwise.
Why math is math so important to your teen
The first question you can discuss with your teen is, what is math?
Not an easy question to answer.
Perhaps what can it do is a better question.
Thanks to math, we (and by we I mean mathematicians…) are able to create formulae that allow us to calculate, count, and measure.
Eloquently put, math gives us the tools we need to figure things out.
Without math, engineers wouldn’t be able to figure out where support beams should be put.
Doctors wouldn’t be able to figure out what dosages of drugs to give their patients.
Scientists wouldn’t be able to analyse their results.
Builders wouldn’t be able to figure out the angle a new roof should be built at.
Without math, we’d be screwed.
If your teen is considering going to College once they finish high school, then they should seriously consider the role math might play in their future.
At the risk of speaking too broadly, almost anyone who pursues tertiary education with find math useful. This is certainly the case if you are undergoing any kind of research, because then having at least some understanding of statistics becomes crucial.
As you can see from the list of professions mentioned above, math is crucial to a myriad of roles.
So what can you do?
You can relay all of this to your teen.
Hopefully you can help your teen realize that math is very likely to be something they need to have a solid grasp of once they leave school.
Even if they don’t like math – even if they continue to loathe it – your teen is going to be much more likely to put in some effort if they understand why math is so important and how it will benefit them in the future.
Does your teen really struggle with math? Do they know how to study for math? If your answer is yes to these questions, you can find out more about our Mathematics Video Package here. Find out how you can help your teen get their math grades up with help from people who know what it takes to get good grades in math.
Image Credit: land_camera_land_camera on Flickr
michell delos santos says
It really helps me.I’m also a teen who hate math…..
Love it
Leesa Johnson says
In this post, you have discussed on a great topic and for that, I’m thankful to you. As you have asked that how the math is so important for teen, I would like to share my views that math is only the subject which teach a student to solve the problems and it provides a confidence to face a problem. As we check around us we daily use some mathematics in our daily life, if we have gone to the market we need to calculate the money to give to the shopkeeper, here we use math so I think that math is useful for the teens also they also need to do many works in daily life which need math.