…oh, wait, this is from 1929.
To be honest, I didn’t really learn anything past the most basic of Algebra until college (when I found a teacher who was able to open my understanding of it). As an engineer who volunteers to help kids understand math, I get real annoyed with educators who demand teachers follow a specific curriculum instead of letting them try different ways to get the kids to learn math.
H/T The League, whose post on this is also worth reading.
“until college (when I found a teacher who was able to open my understanding of it). ”
Same here. In high school it was “plug your numbers into this formula. If your numbers match my numbers you pass.”
In college I ran into a teacher who actually wanted his students to understand how the formulas were developed then challenged us to figure out where and when to apply them.
For me, I learn math visually. When I took college algebra, the instructor made a habit of plotting every single equation on a graph. It took about a week or so for it to sink in, but suddenly I understood how equations work and why I was trying to find y.
Now I use calculus to develop the equations other engineers plug in, and I write software so computers can approximate unsolvable solutions.