Maths aka Long Story Short, I Need 600k

I could cry reading this article, What a Fear of Maths Does to Children.

Growing up, I had to be good in Maths. I had to be good in all subjects actually, but Maths was always at the forefront. It was a life requirement. It was for the scholarship in the future. It was for the “good jobs” in medicine, accounting, engineering and law (yes, even law). There were no scholarships for writing, arts or languages. We wouldn’t be able to afford tertiary education without scholarships.

So, that was the path – excel in school, get the scholarship (or not even a scholarship, mine was a convertible loan) and get the good job to change your life. Even if your heart is not in it. Just get the job, you can do art as a hobby. Even if I was better in languages, history, arts or subjects that required a lot of reading, I felt like I could never be proud of it. And most of my friends were good in Maths! There was no room to think that you could get away without Maths.

So, because I knew I could never do medicine or engineering, and I didn’t want to break my fingers writing essays in law exams, I went for the easiest choice – accounting. It was also with the belief that it could open many doors to other fields as well – business, finance, investment, marketing, management and more. And it wasn’t that bad. I even loved some of the subjects – ethics, marketing, investment, statistics and finance were pretty ok. I always maintain that med students can’t wing it in exams, but accounting students can. So, it was a perfect uni education for me as a person who didn’t have that much drive for the courses but still wanted a bachelor’s degree. That explains my mediocre results.

But it didn’t turn out that bad. Those mediocre results – and a one page essay that I had to write during the first interview – landed me my first job at a Big Oil subsidiary (somehow I feel like I should also be shamed for this), and I spent the first three months with the company working abroad. It was practically a paid vacation. My next jobs included accounting positions at one of the country’s biggest investment holding companies and later at a tech MNC. My mediocre results and I were pretty lucky, until the mother of burnout caught up with me a few years later.

But the point is, for a very long time I had to adhere to these expectations, and that included excelling at Maths in school.

I wasn’t good at it and I hated it. I didn’t realize this much in primary school. The Maths in primary school was easy. I got an A all the time. Early secondary school’s Maths was where the challenge started. I got an A fairly often, but I struggled.

Then I got into a science boarding school in the fourth form, because that’s what you are supposed to do. Get good results, then get into a better school to get even better results. Even if you don’t have any idea what to do with all these science subjects. And the kids there were even better at Maths! Additional Maths in the fourth form was the worst of it. I had zero interest in it, but I had to stay put.

And here’s one of the stupid things about me. For most of my school years, focusing in class was not what I did. My teachers said one sentence, then my mind would start to wander elsewhere. I only survived school because I read back the lessons before exams. And worse, a lot of the time, I’d do something else during class – whispering with my friends, doodling. Trust me, I’m angry at this version of my younger self. Couldn’t you, at least, just pretend to listen? So what teachers like this, right? Not my Add Maths teacher. (I have to put a disclaimer here: my listening skills ARE pretty good in my adult years.)

So, this is the reason I hate hearing about Teachers’ Day to this day. Because when I think about teachers, rarely I thought about the good teachers that I liked and were kind to me. My first thought would go to that Add Maths teacher who embarrassed me in front of the class, asking me to solve the Maths problem on the board when I clearly wasn’t paying attention and didn’t know a thing about it. Not only did it happen to me more than once, but I don’t remember if she ever punished anyone else in the class! When people talk about childhood (or teenage?) traumas, I think this is one of them for me. And I don’t think it ever fully resolved. I was traumatized, but who cared about this problematic, tiny, shy kid’s anxiety?

I’ll probably never allow anyone to embarrass me like that anymore. I’ll most probably call them out. I say “most probably” because I don’t think I’d give a lot of fucks now, tbh. But I needed that school at that time. I needed the good thing this school was going to lead me to. It was supposed to get me good results and the scholarship after the fifth form. Yes, it got me the scholarship convertible loan and a place in an A-Levels programme. But it was never into a passion. It was all because I had to do it. And look at my level of happiness now.

Is this all other people’s faults then? Of course not. I’m old enough to have the time to correct my course. And a lot of the time, I didn’t correct the course. Everything that’s happening to me is on me now. And it’s not lost on me that all these things I whine about being forced to do did change my life and open a lot of doors for me. I’m one miserable soul My life is far from perfect, but I still have a lot to be grateful for.

But I always wonder, what my life would look like today if I was encouraged to get into a field that I liked when I was younger? If the environment I was in allowed Art and STEM to thrive and be given equal importance? Or if I could still enjoy STEM even if I wouldn’t end up in the field? What my life would be like today if I wasn’t made to feel so [...]?

What was the point of embarrassing me back then other than it only eroded my self-esteem and amplified my anxiety? I didn’t use the Maths. I was never in STEM. I just got triggered sometimes way into my adult years.