Penned and Pinned

This might be interesting addition to those who are aware of what is known as Dyslexia

'The word dyscalculia comes from Greek and Latin which means: "counting badly." The prefix "dys" comes from Greek and means "badly." "Calculia" comes from the Latin "calculare." which means "to count." That word "calculare" again comes from "calculus," which means "pebble" or one of the counters on an abacus', according to Wiki.

Well Why am I saying this, few days ago, there was an interesting, rather unique incident happened to me. As a TA (Teaching Assistant), I went to the computere lab where and there was a student (mid or late forties I believe) who had some questions with probability. By the way, In this lab TA's are there to answer questions related to computer oriented mathematical projects (me mostly helping with MATHEMATICA).


I helped (rather solved) her one of the problems, next one I thought its easier than what we have solved just now. She seemed to be smart and studious student. She had a hard time understanding the question, I realized quickly that she has a problem with relating the question as what to do, in simple, interpreting the question. This time I decided not to solve the problem myself, rather I let her solve the problem (I was confident she can). Ofcourse, I believe teaching is not to solve the student problems but to teach them how to solve the problems, don't y'll agree?.

I asked her, please explain the question to me (I even tossed a dime 6 times, surprisingly I got 5 tails and 1 head). Dont think of it as a math problem, think of it as a day to day problem, its plain english... after going over the problem again and again, tears rolled her eyes (not kidding). I quickly realized the situation and I kind of started saying, dont assume me as a teacher think of me as your brother and please explain me just the question. She felt comforted little bit but still tears were rolling...

Then I quickly went down to explain the problem and solved it.


She asked me the following questions:
If a fair coin is tossed 6 times, what is the probability that three or four tails will be obtained?.

She said she is afraid of math (this is typical of students -- I heard this may be1000 times) and what caught my attention was she said she has a problem with reading numbers, like she might get the numbers mixed up... by the way, she is smart and intelligent its just that she has hardtime with number... Its hard to believe it right... (Yeah!!! its hard for me in the first either)...


According to her, its a "recognized disability" in US. Listen to her here




Find out yourself more here on Dyscalculia :-)