Bad at Maths or bad at English.......

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I am terrible with numbers. Mathematics was the subject I struggled the most in. I got quite good grades for every other subject in school, except maths. I was in one of the lowest classes in my year. Sometimes it would take me hours to properly understand a mistake I had made (and it was always some really stupid mistake as well). Being bad with numbers has had really awful consequences for me because a lot of the time, other subjects require some basic math skills (which I barely have). I couldn't believe how much I struggled in biology because I would forget something in maths (something very simple, like percentages or fractions, etc). I was good at Biology until numbers really got involved.

I've been harrassed because of my lack of math skills. For example, there were these two men asking what 18 x 18 was and I couldn't answer. Then one of the men asked if I even went to school. I've also had people shout at me for struggling with change and get really angry for using up their time because I couldn't figure out something as quickly as they could.

I have a friend who's dyslexic (and also has AS) and I remember he told me about a time when he was harrassed by someone in the street after explaining that he couldn't read something because he was dyslexic. The person just laughed at him. I remember a similar thing that happened to this man when I was a child. My family were waiting for a train and this guy needed help from the guy at reception. The guy at reception was just shouting at him and was being realy rude. He was saying things like "THERE'S THE TRAIN TIMES THERE! READ IT YOURSELF". When the man explained that he couldn't read, he was all like "WELL THAT'S TOO BAD! JUST FIGURE IT OUT!! !"(I actually said to my mum "That guy should get fired- he's not doing his job"). My mum was the only one who helped him while the a**hole at reception winged and emoed about how his job is so hard and how he hates "idiots" (well, sir, the feeling is f*****g mutual!).

I also get really angry whenever someone thinks a good arguement in a debate is "well you can't spell". Sorry, that's not an arguement! I agree that literacy is important, but an arguement isn't better because of good spelling. That's bull. That's the same as when someone says "well, you're fat". A person is not stupid because they struggle at a particular thing. They may have the reading and writing skills of a five year old, but they could be a genius. Same thing with my math skills. People think that if you're bad at maths (and especially if you hate that subject) then you're ignorant,stupid and have no depth.




Anyhoo, I read somewhere that people think that being bad at maths is more socially acceptable than being bad at reading. I have to disagree. While my friend has been abused, more people are aware of dyslexia and few people are even aware of dyscalculia. When I went to my college to get my support sorted, they went though a dyslexia questionaire thingy with me because I mentioned how I struggled with organisational skills. I told them how insecure I was about my math skills, but they were just like "oh, I'm bad at numbers too". Not that I think I have dyscalculia- I was just surprised that they didn't consider going over that with me. I have found that there is a hell of a lot more support and understanding for dyslexia than there is for dyscalculia.

What do you think, though? Either way, discrimination for struggling with literacy skills and or numeracy skills is terrible.

I think you're quite and totally right to speak about it
Life is very hard for people who have those problems.
They can even be ashamed of themselves, as if they dit it on purpose

One of the first jobs I had when still at school was in a restaurant.
The other waitress was strongly dyslexic
The cooker was from North Africa and didn'nt read nor write much (in my language)

But we all managed quite well for the all summer

whole summer!

I have all my life been extremely bad at math, beating my level of suckage at that takes efforts, i get 1 or 2, in english is would be F or E, but my english is almost flawless, not my accent, but writing, i get 5+ AT LEAST and in advanced english i get 6 mostly, and that in english is B+ and A

It’s definitely worse to have dyscalculia. I often see articles about how hard it is for aduts who can’t read properly and what an ordeal school is for children with this problem. The experts seem so worried about them I could puke.

See, I just have dyscalculia, which is less known and therefore I do not have a problem other than being stupid in math. Forget about high school, I still don’t even get all the math I went through in elementary school. (fractions.) But that’s alright, it’s fine for girls to be stupid in math. Never mind that I’m 32 and never could finish high school despite 3 efforts.

Anyway dyscalculia is (probably) more common in females while dyslexia is more common for males, which means they get all the focus, help and attention. And since they have the oh-so known reading problem we must help them. And since they’re boys we know that the school system isn’t cut out for them, poor things. Never mind that others of us have hated school since 1st grade, despite being female. It’s not pc to say that.

Bitter? Oh yeah!

I needed to rant. It’s all true, though, and it ****s. There should be equal opportunity for all learning disorders.

This is one of very few things I have felt really bad about in my life. Since junior high I haven't understood anything in math, leaving me with the feeling of being a ret*d, despite intellectuallly knowing that I'm not.

I suck horribly at math, but excel in English and social (political science, economics, and history)

I HATE the slur ret*d,....I was called that alot in school when I was younger.

In a way Im bad at both math and English. But when all is taken into account, English is worst overall. With math: Im good up till Algebra II, Im ok at Pre Calc and Trig but Calc and beyond, Im horrible I have so much trouble. Im really good at basic number crunching and algebra.

As for English, its always been my weaker subjects as a kid. I hate reading, I dont get literature. My writing is ok, but for my school standards my writing skills sucked. I had to take a Sophmore writing seminar which was a requirement for people that didnt pass the standards for the Freshman seminars. I dont know whether Im actually a bad writer or my freshman writing seminar really really didnt work for me. I had lots of trouble freshman year.

Well, I am truly dyscalculic, and thought it's caused me many problems, I'd still sooner have dyscalculia than dyslexia. I remember phone numbers by the shape on the dialing face, rather than the numbers, but I do remember them. I have my own letter code for numbers if I have to write numbers down. And if I get stuck with maths, people just do the sexist thing of assuming I'm bad at maths because I'm female.

I've met very few people who've heard of dyscalculia though (a few more seem to have heard of dyspraxia, which I also have.)

My son is just dyspraxic, I'm glad he's got neither of the other two. But still, despite all the problems my maths blindness has caused me, I'd sooner have dyscalculia than dyspraxia.

I find that at times I can have quite a lot of trouble with some maths and english.

When I was in Primary school I was always in one of the lowest maths classes and I couldnt quite understand a lot of the things taught the way they did, it is like I think totaly different to everyone else. I don't know but I think at some point I began looking at maths slightly diferently, and my brain somehow wired things, and by losing my my calculator I somehow developed an equation technique. I still had problems with a lot a bunch of things like beeing unable to remember big equations, but through through I began to memorise some "rules" or theory, and somehow I could cut corners in maths and even see things that others do not. But on a very common bases I make a mistake, I see a number wrongly, get mixed up or I blurt out things wrongly, kind of makes it hard when I make these mistakes when I do accounting, which I am studying for and is the only thing I can do.

My litercy skills also has some problems, and have a tendency of being unable to think of certain words, and have mixed up grammer, in fact I probably have done it several times already in this post. I am actualy being held back in university as I can not pass a subject based on me be good at writing critiques and (forgot word), and my poor ability and the way I think makes what I write often come up as being writin illogicaly. And my hand writing is so attrotias it is made even worse that i write slowly and university forces students to take notes at a fast pace so it can look like scribles, and when I want to say something I often say word conected to what I want to say but different enough it makes me look like a fool.

I've never been good at math(s). What seemed logical to me was always the wrong answer. English, on the other hand, has always been my strong point. I never really cared for English classes, though, with all the boring books we had to read.

Numerology is fascinating, and I tend to add license plate numbers and clock times to find the base number. I see 11:11 and 9:11 a lot.

I think it is socially acceptable to be bad at those two (by some sector of society), because lots of people (students) put more interest in things like parties, clothes and all that than correctly using a language or learning how to do mathematical operations.

dey may not blame u if u dont rite well cuz dey dont care about there own riting skills

Having a condition that makes it harder to be good at those is bad, because it takes the choice from you (or at least the choice to do it with less effort). In that case, I imagine people with those conditions who would want to be good get extra frustration at not showing the competence level they want for themselves.

But I guess they should not worry that much if the school king and queen think less of him or her because of these topics. It would not surprise me if they were bad at both those subjects, LOL.

What we learned today is that if Math or languages get hard, we can always get fancy clothes, LOL (just kidding).

I think in some ways it's worse to have dyscalculia because there is more help available for people who can't read, even for adults who have left school. I see advertised in the paper all the time for adult reading classes but have only ever seen one ad for math tutoring & that was only for 5-8 year olds. It wasn't until my maths was tested last year that I found out I was working with numbers at the maximum level of a 10 year old. I have struggled with math all my life even though I excelled at english when I first started school (although my progress became more average in middle school).

I don't think it's more socially accpetable to be dyslexic though. I mean, there are some people out there who will reject you no matter what the reason whether it be your lack of reading abilities, that you are bad with numbers or that you are wearing the 'wrong' clothes.