The Usborne illustrated dictionary of math Book

It is an illustrated math dictionary.... I know.... and I just gave it five-stars... I know....

My secret is out, I love math, I always have. I loved it in primary school, I loved it in high school, I loved it at university, and all I wanted to do was be a computer programmer (which always was a branch of mathematics) or teach math.

The thing that makes me good at math is that I am not afraid of it, and I am well aware that it can be scary.

When I was in grade 9 I slept through school for about nine months, all I remember from that period of time was that I always had a 'Sweet Valley High' or 'Babysitters Club' book on my desk and I was always reading it whenever the teacher was not paying attention. I recall my Geography teacher once taking the book out of my hands, and much to my embarrassment, reading a page aloud to the class. I also remember that in order to increase my embarrassment he took some liberties with the text.

Still I reached the middle of grade nine with rankings in the 100s (ie 103/160 in Science, 97/160 in Math, 111/160 in English... you get the picture), this was unusual because I was always in the top classes until that year.

It was during this period that missed the unit on Trigonometry. You know, Sin, Cos, Tan, that sort of thing. Well it scared me for the rest of my high school career and well into university.

I eventually picked up my grades. We had this mad American science teacher. He had absolutely no control over our class and consequently we did nothing and learnt nothing. I have a memory of him telling us a story about a jock trying to suck up mercury through a pipette (which is like a glass straw with a little bubble about half way down), he stupidly stuck his tongue over the hole in order to suck in more air (just like we might do if we were sucking something up a straw), except this was mercury (very heavy) and it dragged his tongue down the pipette. Of course he panicced and tried to remove the straw from the mercury which only served to suck his tongue further down the pipette. It was funny because all he had to do was break the glass bubble of the pipette, thus breaking the seal and releasing his tongue.

Okay so this science teacher was the reason for the improvement in my grades, he mistakenly thought I had aced some chemistry test (nope, I hadn't) and therefore negotiated for me to be transfered to a different class during the chemistry topic. I was transferred and for the last four weeks of school I put the books away and worked hard. It is funny how doing well in one subject makes it easier to do well in other subjects. I will never forget how this one topic changed my schooling. Withing weeks I was in the top 3 of all my subjects (Science, Math, English). I just started making an effort again and it paid off.

What does this story have to do with this book?!?!?

I was studying again but I never regained my confidence in trigonometry and it was a thorn in my side for a long time. I did high level mathematics in my senior years and every single test I lost marks because of trigonometry and I was too scared to learn it. I had it in my head that it was too hard for me, and that I could not do it. It constantly affected my grades.

At university I took some pure mathematic courses and again found myself stumbling over trigonometry, to the point of having to retake a test. Finally - finally - finally - I got my act together and learnt how to do trigonometry and the result was a 98% on my final Advanced Algebra and Calculus subject... it took me until I was 27years old to pull it all together because I slept through one topic of mathematics when I was 14years old.

That is my point. I know that fear and loathing can seriously affect the way we approach math. It is easy to think we are incapable of doing it.

One of the things the whole experience gave me was the ability to see math as more then something that we are either good at or bad at. I see it as simple something to be learnt and forgotten.

See here is my next point. Remember that 98% score I received in Advanced Algebra and Calculus, well I have not done that kind of maths for nearly ten years now, and I have forgotten it all (well I could do a very basic derivative, but I certainly couldn't derive anything complicated). TV sometimes fools us into thinking that once we learn something we will never forget it. Have you ever seen Gilmore Girls with 16yo Rory Gilmore reading five books every week and still being able to constantly quote paragraphs from them. TV makes us think this is what normal people are like... we are not... normal people forget things that are not repeated.

So this book fits in about there. It is a fabulous illustrated dictionary that is perfect for refreshing your memory or quickly teaching a concept that you may be unsure about. It covers pretty much everything you would need for primary and high school and I recommend it to all my friends as a resource to have on hand when they are helping with their kids homework.