This is Day 10 of 31 Days of Math Learning Success. Follow all the days here and check out others that are writing for 31 days here.

Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.
~Saadi

As a math student, you’ll often run into things that seem easy. But they get counted wrong just as fast as you get them on paper.

And then there are things that seem so crazy hard, but turn out ridiculously easy.

Some things LOOK easy.

I’ve seen students struggle with graphing x=3.

It looks crazy easy. But holy cow!

Until you wrap your brain around what it means, it really IS hard!

This problem comes up in the section with slope-intercept.

You’re supposed to be graphing things like y = mx + b, where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.

Why would x=3 belong in this batch? It has no y. It has no number next to x.

It’s totally out of place!

Some things ARE easy.

I still struggle with decimals. Not because they are hard. But because they are easy.

So easy, that they’re really easy to mess up.

Instead of doing decimals, I convert them to fractions.

Sounds nuts, right?

In working with decimals in problems, I often move the decimal in the wrong direction. Or too many/too few times.

I prefer do something “hard” that I have to focus and think about so I don’t accidentally mess it up.

You pick.

This is another case of trusting yourself.

If someone says something is easy, check it out. It may be. But then again, it may not.

And if you think something is easy and someone else swears it’s hard, it’s okay.

Don’t try to convince them otherwise. Bask in your success and confidence.

Work on those harder things.

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