EDIT:
The Completely Free To Download Version of "Cocker's Arithmetick" is also available at THIS Link in a PDF Flavor and if you prefer being a "Page Turner" with a Tactile Handle on a physical BOOK...having the PDF close by will assist with struggling in reading "Olde English" where they wrote and printed their text of the letter "s" to look like a TALL version of the Letter "f"...and also be able to ZOOM IN Very Closely for better comprehension of this Amazing Man's Work:
By the dint of some Quirk of Neurological Wiring inside of my Coconut, The Almighty saw fit to give me a fairly Decent Way with Words... and conversely, punished me with a Dearth of any Ability to learn or perform Mathematics and the retention of same.
Not so with my daughter...
By the 9th Grade in High School, she had breezed through her AP Integral and Differential Calculus along with all of her other college level courses and then she went on to another ten years of advanced education, achieving consistent 4.0+ performance levels sufficient to obtain an Honors Grad in the USF Honors College with a BA in Bio-Medicine. Later on, she earned her PhD in Veterinary Medicine at Columbia College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri with equal aplomb. What an interesting Human Being my "Swee' Pea' has become.
Not so for her father...for I was such a poor student ..with math in particular ... that I was left back in the 5th Grade and I dragged that humiliation around with me until being moved from one foster home to another...far enough away from those who witnessed my humiliation by that ugly, angry, bitter Old 5th Grade Teacher in her public dressing down of a Little Boy right in front of that huge classroom such that its memory gradually faded. Almost.
I have to chalk my daughter's genius up to the fact that her mother can trace her family lineage (The Newton's) all the way back to Sir Isaac Newton's immediate relatives since he never married or produced "Issue in England". So that may have played a part in the stark differences between her perception and acumen of Mathematics and my own lack of same. So I thank her for allowing me this ultimate vicarious victory over "Mrs. Griffiths".
I say all this because when it comes to The Study of Mathematics, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin shared my reactions to how Math was introduced to me and on occasion, mistakenly encouraged via the frequent application of Wooden Spoons in order to beat those arcane concepts inside of my head. Of course... none of that ever worked nor ever could.
Einstein and Newton BOTH hated the way it was Taught. People often mistakenly conflate The Study of Physics with the Study of Mathematics. The two are not synonymous, although Physics often must rely upon the use and vindication of Higher Math to dwindle down its confusing ideas into symbolic language via White Chalk Scrawls upon Slate Black Boards the world over.
Finally, all of that leads this TOME to Edward Cocker; a 17th Century Man who penned a Practical Book for teaching and learning "Arithmetick" as he once coined it, This was a Book that Benjamin Franklin himself utilized to get him through many difficulties with understanding Math Problems associated with his Scientific Experimentation:
"Cocker's Arithmetick" has remained in publication since November 27th, 1677... A Fairly Good Run for ANY Instructional Pamphlet or School Primer, I'll be bound..:>) And the book is still offered over on Amazon at the link below for under $20.00. I hope this idea intrigues some of us interested in finding out much later in life that learning is better achieved when one can relax and focus the mind... Pain Free of any need to pass exams or the possibility of suffering utter intellectual failure looming as an insurmountable barrier to one's understanding:
The Completely Free To Download Version of "Cocker's Arithmetick" is also available at THIS Link in a PDF Flavor and if you prefer being a "Page Turner" with a Tactile Handle on a physical BOOK...having the PDF close by will assist with struggling in reading "Olde English" where they wrote and printed their text of the letter "s" to look like a TALL version of the Letter "f"...and also be able to ZOOM IN Very Closely for better comprehension of this Amazing Man's Work:
Cocker's Arithmetick : being a plain and familiar method, suitable to the meanest capacity, for the full understanding of that incomparable art, as it is now taught by the ablest school-masters in city and country. : Cocker, Edward, 1631-1675 : Free
12 unnumbered pages, 215 pages, 1 unnumbered page : 15 cm (12mo)
archive.org
By the dint of some Quirk of Neurological Wiring inside of my Coconut, The Almighty saw fit to give me a fairly Decent Way with Words... and conversely, punished me with a Dearth of any Ability to learn or perform Mathematics and the retention of same.
Not so with my daughter...
By the 9th Grade in High School, she had breezed through her AP Integral and Differential Calculus along with all of her other college level courses and then she went on to another ten years of advanced education, achieving consistent 4.0+ performance levels sufficient to obtain an Honors Grad in the USF Honors College with a BA in Bio-Medicine. Later on, she earned her PhD in Veterinary Medicine at Columbia College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri with equal aplomb. What an interesting Human Being my "Swee' Pea' has become.
Not so for her father...for I was such a poor student ..with math in particular ... that I was left back in the 5th Grade and I dragged that humiliation around with me until being moved from one foster home to another...far enough away from those who witnessed my humiliation by that ugly, angry, bitter Old 5th Grade Teacher in her public dressing down of a Little Boy right in front of that huge classroom such that its memory gradually faded. Almost.
I have to chalk my daughter's genius up to the fact that her mother can trace her family lineage (The Newton's) all the way back to Sir Isaac Newton's immediate relatives since he never married or produced "Issue in England". So that may have played a part in the stark differences between her perception and acumen of Mathematics and my own lack of same. So I thank her for allowing me this ultimate vicarious victory over "Mrs. Griffiths".
I say all this because when it comes to The Study of Mathematics, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin shared my reactions to how Math was introduced to me and on occasion, mistakenly encouraged via the frequent application of Wooden Spoons in order to beat those arcane concepts inside of my head. Of course... none of that ever worked nor ever could.
Einstein and Newton BOTH hated the way it was Taught. People often mistakenly conflate The Study of Physics with the Study of Mathematics. The two are not synonymous, although Physics often must rely upon the use and vindication of Higher Math to dwindle down its confusing ideas into symbolic language via White Chalk Scrawls upon Slate Black Boards the world over.
Finally, all of that leads this TOME to Edward Cocker; a 17th Century Man who penned a Practical Book for teaching and learning "Arithmetick" as he once coined it, This was a Book that Benjamin Franklin himself utilized to get him through many difficulties with understanding Math Problems associated with his Scientific Experimentation:
"Cocker's Arithmetick" has remained in publication since November 27th, 1677... A Fairly Good Run for ANY Instructional Pamphlet or School Primer, I'll be bound..:>) And the book is still offered over on Amazon at the link below for under $20.00. I hope this idea intrigues some of us interested in finding out much later in life that learning is better achieved when one can relax and focus the mind... Pain Free of any need to pass exams or the possibility of suffering utter intellectual failure looming as an insurmountable barrier to one's understanding:
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