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Not only that, but studying math takes discipline, commitment, and practice. You can’t passively learn math. To a certain extent, mathematical illiteracy is encouraged in society by the standard trope “I’m bad at math.” Almost everyone is bad at math. The difference is that some people understood math is the best way to precisely understand the world and worked to understand it.

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I think that's more like it. There have been many attempts to reform math curricula over the years and you still end up with a decent percentage of (at least sometimes otherwise intelligent) students who shrug their shoulders, grit their teeth, and resign themselves to being "bad at math."

Mind you, I also think there are differences in natural aptitude and the degree to wich on connects with the subject. Speaking for myself, I mostly did well through high school math--geometry proofs less so--but mostly just got by on the more advanced math I needed for an engineering degree.

(Then I tutored a group of students in business school who basically handle high school level algebra.)

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