10th Quick Step: Gibberish math (aka garbage math, rubbish math, junk math)
The non-sense of Gibberish ahMt.
Take a look at the image below, or you’re stuck at my misspelling of math in the sub-title, ‘ahMt’?
What’s going through your mind?
“Looks hard,” or “Complicated,” or “I don’t think I like math’ or “Scary” or “It’s nonsense.”
If you looked at it and thought, “IT’S NONSENSE”, Well done. It’s not a math question or even part of any math answer. It’s not math!!! It’s gibberish! That picture accompanied an article in Canada’s national newspaper, and the intent was? Well, what’s the problem with the picture?
It looks like math, but it is not math!
Yes, it has math symbols (e.g. a, 2, -, ( ), =, +, dx), but it’s arranged in a way that makes no sense (it’s nonsense). Designed to stress you, which then upholds the belief that math is hard. But it’s nonsensical math garbage!!!
Purposefully written to make no sense, to mislead, to confuse, to confound.
The problem created is that when ‘math’ is written to be non-sensical, suddenly a student's self-talk goes inwards, and self-doubt creeps in, and that junk of a picture convinces them, "That's why I can't do math, Math is hard." And sadly, photos like this continue to intimidate and perpetuate the 'belief' that math is useless and needless. Why create a picture like that?
It's like me showing you a picture with the English 'words':
ahMt, esdr and rntoyqwe and E?r, r!rreee … You'd yell, WHAAAAAATTTTT!, those aren't English words … they make no sense EH!
ahMt esdr rntoyqwe E?r r!rreee …
You'd think that's nonsense – it's mixed-up letters. It's not English. If I write, Pu too by near toe?, You'd think, EH, why are you showing me that gibberish? And you know it's gibberish - yes, they’re English words, but they don't form sensical sentences.
There would be an uproar if there was a newspaper article or an online article on Why students struggle to read or write, and it included a picture with gibberished English words. That would never ever happen! Not allowed. Parents and students would question it, they would be a revolt. Then why do we allow this to happen in math? Why isn’t Gibberish math questioned in math?
Why isn’t Gibberish math questioned in math?
But here’s the thing: someone took the time to design, create and put the math symbols in a non-sensical order, to influence you. And if it did, that means the ‘influencer’ who wrote that gibberish has … influenced you ☹. Noooooooo!!!
It’s actually not math. It’s rubbish … garbage math.
I am writing this 'Gibberish math' article to counter those gibberish math photos and pictures that do more harm to undermine a student's view of math and their math-self. And hopefully, my words have convinced you, yeah, it is non-sensical 'math.' I got it! I’ve gone a step further by emailing the journalist that used this image - I explained to them in a very polite manner the downside of their image.
That image and the thousands similar to it are usually part of a math article in a newspaper, online magazine, blog post, or social media. And the title is something like, "Why students struggle in math," or "We're failing our students," or "Our country is falling behind other countries in math," or "Math scores are dropping," or …, and will usually have a picture of a stressed-out kid/child/student. The image above was in a Canadian newspaper and part of an article on math testing :(.
Summary
As you can now deduce, these gibberish math pictures are a beef of mine, a pet peeve, and feel like a punch to the gut to a math learner as their sole goal is to try and convince past, present and future math students (and parents) that, 'see math looks complicated, so must be hard.'
It's a form of bullying that scares math students into convincing them, "If you do not understand the 'math' in this picture' then that's why you find math hard." But that's rubbish! That picture is not a question, not part of a solution; its math symbols are thrown into a blender and spewed out – heck, a 7-year-old student could have created it.
You should question what I’ve written above with that ” 3 x = …” as yes it has math symbols, but it’s not math. It makes no sense.
Just as, esdr and rntoyqwe and E?r, r!rreee aren’t English, similarly what’s in that picture is not Math.
NEXT STEP
Once you get math, you'll start to laugh when you see gibberish math and think nice try; it won't work on me anymore. If it looks like nonsense, it is nonsense.
If it looks like nonsense, it is nonsense.
The next time you see one of those gibberish 'math' pictures, look at it closer and ask yourself, what’s the purpose? And diss and dismiss it! Email me the link and picture, and I’ll contact the journalist and convey how there’s little upside.
It’s mumbo jumbo. Gobbledygook!
Quick step of the day: Don’t let Gibberish math psyche you out, instead question it, eh?
EH
Who’s EH? That’s me. EH is for my name, Edison Hopkinson.
What’s ‘eh’? ‘eh’ is a part of Canadian culture - it’s how many of us people in the frozen tundra called Canada, finish our sentences.
It’s mumbo jumbo, eh. Gobbledygook, eh?