Best Way To Teach Oneself Math?

An anonymous reader writes "In high school I failed two out of three years of math classes and eventually dropped out of school completely. I earned my general equivalency diploma as soon as was legally possible and from there went on to college and beyond. That was many years ago and my most basic algebra, trigonometry, and geometry skills are slipping away at an alarming rate. I'm looking for a self-guided course covering the equivalent of 4 years of high school mathematics including calculus. My math skills are holding me back. How can I turn this around?"

Comments

Re:well

[pz]

I don't think they do a great job of teaching it in school where they take a very linear approach.

I'm not currently a professional teacher, but I have been one, at a Big Technical University that you have heard of, for four years. My skin crawls when I hear people demeaning a linear pedagogic approach because, frankly, and you can take this as an expert opinion by someone who has won awards for teaching, there is no better way. Period. People learn depth-first by cycling down from coarser details to finer ones. They learn in steps. To quote Prof. Patrick Winston of AI fame, you only learn that which you almost already know. Trying to teach in fuzzy alternate ways, teaching by trickery, emphasizing word problems or case study, teaching two or three paths at the same time, all of that stuff does not work for technical and mathematical subjects, pure and simple.

For the basic mathematics that the original post is inquiring about, the concepts are reasonably simple and straightforward. What they require, however, is what often appears to be mind-numbing repetition. It's work. While I applaud this fellow's current initiative, the effort should have been put in when he was a teenager because it's a lot easier then. It sounds like he's understood the mistake and is currently, as an adult, trying to correct that, which is definitely commendable. Unless he's the sort of person who developed phenomenal self-discipline later in life, however, the best bet is to get to a classroom. There are any of a large number of adult education services in every city I've been to. Often local high schools will have evening adult-ed classes as well. Or, as another poster suggested, the local community college can be a good resource. But basic mathematics requires a lot of rote work. It can be a joy to know that you've learned everything that was used to get mankind to the moon, a tremendous joy in fact, but it takes work.