I never liked math. It was always stressful to me and I didn’t always get what I was supposed to do or how to do it. I was always the art and English type of student, found creativity in all that. But recently, the tables have turned, and I quite honestly detest my English assignments and love math. I think it was because I was younger, and obviously what was suitable for younger children was given to us then and there was always moments of humor and lightheartedness, even in an emotionally charged book. I also think that the books given to us were more recent (probably because what was considered suitable for children then don’t line up with the standards now), and were much easier to understand, due to the fact that they were for a young reader audience, they were more relatable because of the times they were written (most of the time) and the general language (that doesn’t make much sense, but I’m adding it because BOY does Shakespeare give me a headache). There was also the gratification of enjoying a story that entertained me. But then I move forward in the curriculum and suddenly, this gratification is gone. What I’m supposed to be reading now is challenging, and not in a fun way. I personally don’t like the type of stories we’re reading in class, no matter how influentual they were for their time (and I respect them for that, but that doesn’t mean I want to read them or will enjoy reading them). I find them boring, as literally none of them match my tastes. Add on the the fact that it’s generally harder now to write essays and paragraphs and such with little to no creative writing with a lot of boring and time consuming research that is actually painful for me to go through, and often ends up in me procrastinating until I begin to panic as due dates creep up on me and ultimately results in a not very good and rushed final product. So, not very fun. I don’t like my English class anymore. But! Math has taken it’s place. It’s still challenging, but this time in a good way, and because it is, it’s sort of like a game I get to play against myself and the “Ah ha!” moment where I finally figure out what I’m supposed to do gives me the gratification and motivation I need to move forward. At times it does get more frustrating than pleasingly challenging, but those times where it is a fun challenge is immensely satisfying.

I forget where I’m going with this. This is basically just a rant, so thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I guess if I wanted to add some message, I guess, to this, it would be to make learning fun and challenging, so that every single kid didn’t dread being at school and everyone would actually be excited to learn and be good students not by obligation but because they want to. And also to fix up our education system here where I live because it is really screwed up.