A Quote by James Key

Two contrasting attitudes: non-math person: "Math is so abstract." i.e. "hard to understand" math person: We abstract *in order to understand.* Part of our job is to teach people this latter mentality.

James Key

Quote Topics

Abstract Attitudes Contrasting Hard Job Latter Math Mentality Order Our Part People Person Teach Two Understand

Quote Author

James Key
Born: January 12, 1972

I thought about majoring in Math, Chemistry and English, but Math had the fewest requirements, so I went with it. I knew I wanted to teach, and Math was my field, so I studied Math.

Tom Lehrer

I noticed there were so many people, especially women, who would come up to me having recognized me from TV and say, 'I heard you were a math person, why math? Oh my gosh, I could never do math!' I could just see their self-esteem crumbling; I thought that was silly, so I wanted to make math more friendly and accessible.

Danica McKellar

I think we need more math majors who don't become mathematicians. More math major doctors, more math major high school teachers, more math major CEOs, more math major senators. But we won't get there unless we dump the stereotype that math is only worthwhile for kid geniuses.

Jordan Ellenberg

If you want to understand science, you have to understand math. In business, if you're enumerate, you're going to be a klutz. The good thing about business is that you don't have to know any higher math.

Charlie Munger

You’re not exempt from math if you’re a Republican, and you’re not exempt from math if you’re a Democrat. You’re not exempt from math if you’re a liberal, and you’re not exempt from math if you’re a conservative. You still have to do math.

Dave Ramsey

Yeah, Silver and his math are jokes, because math has a liberal bias. After all, math is the reason Mitt Romney's tax plan doesn't add up.

Stephen Colbert

There are two versions of math in the lives of many Americans: the strange and boring subject that they encountered in classrooms and an interesting set of ideas that is the math of the world, and is curiously different and surprisingly engaging. Our task is to introduce this second version to today's students, get them excited about math, and prepare them for the future.

Jo Boaler

I'm a strong believer that you have to have an equal opportunity to fail and to try things that are hard. I always tell my students, "Don't just take things that are easy for you. If you're really good at math, don't take just math. Take classes that make you write. If you're a really great writer, but bad at math, take math and make yourself work your way through it."

Condoleezza Rice

Homework's hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, 'Okay.' And then I sit down and they say, 'It's math.' 'No! Not math! English, history, anything!'

Angelina Jolie

There's a branch of math called the foundations of math. It's kind of like quantum mechanics. It's about how this very complex theory of math can be built up from very basic parts.

Tristan Perich

The idea here, of course, is, you know, mathematics is the language of science, it's the way that we understand the natural world. And there's definitely been a push to sort of study advanced math and kind of reawaken the love of advanced math.

Anya Kamenetz

I think about all of my students who were math-phobic, who didn't believe they could learn math, who didn't understand, who didn't think they were smart enough, and by the end, they understood that they already had the gifts, and my job was to help them access them, and I believe that.

DeRay Mckesson

When I tell people I'm a space scientist studying asteroids, they sometimes assume I'm a super-smart math whiz. The kind of person who skipped a bunch of grades and went to college when they were sixteen. Although I am good at math, school was difficult for me, and I didn't get straight A's.

Carrie Nugent

There's a tendency for adults to label the math that they can do (such as identifying patterns, choosing between competing offers in a supermarket, and challenging statistics published by the government) as "common sense" and labeling everything they can't do as "math" - so that being bad at math becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Robert Eastaway

Math was always hard for me, but my dad would come up with ways of making it fun. I remember playing 'Number Munchers' on our old Mac... That counts as math class, right?