Growing up, I was notoriously bad in math. Simple, complex – it didn’t matter. I religiously sought help after class to the point of being obnoxious, and even attended Huntington Learning Center to nudge up my math grades..but nothing worked. What was holding me back from ‘getting it’? Why was all this math stuff even necessary?

It wasn’t until I took a post-college math course at William Paterson that my math mystery unravelled.

I learned about teaching “whole math” to elementary students. This meant teachers no longer would just teach math, but actually tie math concepts to interesting stories where a math concept was relevant, and to use “manipulatives” -(items such as skittles or small blocks) to further demonstrate the correlation between math concepts and actual “things”.

Whole math was also about tying a math concept to an entire lesson including writing, science and anything else you could relate. So as I learned to teach math to students, I was learning to teach it to myself as well. And I finally realized math was never relevant to me. I didn’t understand how formulas and theories were used in real life. I saw most every math lesson as something I either was or wasn’t going to be tested on. I was grade focused…not learning focused.

And yes, math is incredibly necessary and the foundation for engineering, architecture, science and a host of other incredibly important and prestigious careers. But if you’re not learning about these careers in school, it may be much more difficult for some students to fully understand and appreciate math’s importance.

Bottom-line: When any school subject seems irrelevant, don’t just give up, drop the class, fail or do enough to get by. Ask the teacher WHY…pay attention to the goal of the teacher’s lesson. Maybe the teacher didn’t clearly convey the lesson’s objective, and others could also benefit by you asking for clarification. The worst thing that can happen is you confirm you’re not interested in that topic, and want nothing to do with it ever again. The best thing that can happen is you find something that DOES interest you, that you can be passionate about and futher pursue in the future.

Taking the time to make the most of what you learn in school, regardless of the subject matter, can mean the difference between getting a diploma and earning a diploma. Which one would you rather do?