Mon cher Georges: How did you fair in Modern Math?
Posted by: adonis49 on: October 7, 2018
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Mon cher Georges: How did you fair in Modern Math?
In my class of Seconde (first high school year) we had a freshly Math Lebanese graduate. The first lesson was modern math. I scored 20/20 on my homework and no student came close to a satisfactory score. The teacher was impressed. Then modernity resumed with modern Algebra and its new symbols and notations.
I thought I comprehended the material but my scores in homework and exams were to be desired. And my image of the New Lebanese Galois disintegrated.
Same with Complex Numbers concept. Easy and straightforward. But as it is linked to modern algebra, and you are asked to draw graphs, and have to totally forget that “i” is imaginary, complex numbers were Not appreciated by me in exams.
I have to recognize that I applied the wrong methods in my exams, particularly in physics. Instead of applying the ready equations or formulas for specific problems, I had to re-invent the wheel and start finding the formula from scratch. Not a good pragmatic approach, especially if my “discovered” equation was a tad wrong.
In my class of 5eme (second year in middle school), a rotund and (jouflu) French Friar was our French language teacher. After reading one of my essay, he was arrested with my sentence “Que sais-je?“. He was under the impression that I read Montaigne. Montaigne? I still didn’t read any of his essays till now, maybe a couples.
I must testify that I was the most voracious reader in that year. I remember that I was as voracious when I lived in San Francisco: I exhausted all the books of authors from the California State.
A golden rule for me: when books are abundantly available and this availability coincide with abundance of time to focus on them, “je bouscule les livres”. Don’t even assume that I am a fast reader: I am the slowest that existed, and recently I have been taking more notes than I pages I read.
Adonis Diaries 
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