There are bad students...but more so, it's mostly just shitty teachers.

I've often said that I'm bad at math. I know that's not really true. Apparently it's a myth as well. Of course, that article puts it all on the students...but they aren't wrong that you can learn math, whether or not you are good at it. They put it on the students, saying they just aren't studying hard enough, when teachers already give so much homework that if students choose to study every night, the majority of their time would be taken up. School is pretty much a full time job, with little visible benefit to doing well. You get praise. Oh. Yay.

Math really doesn't come easy for some people. If you just write an equation on a board, even if it's something that I should know, I'll likely struggle with it. And I'm someone that uses "math" every day pretty much in my job, just usually not in the form of equations. I'm exposed to it in the form of "algorithms". They are far easier to comprehend in this form. Whatever jackass decided that math should be taught with single character variables and Greek letters should be kicked in the nads.

The really sucky part is that quite a number of people in the field of computer science and various fields related to computer programming just assume that you can comprehend some random equation that they write on the board. This kinda seriously pisses me off.

For me personally, to understand an equation, it can take me hours, even if it's something that I know and personally use. Somehow, despite this, I got through more math in school than most students. I did have to study quite a bit more than most students on some things though. I also tended to do quite a bit better if I understood the logic behind something, rather than simply being told to memorize something.

But see, if being bad at math isn't really a thing, though I personally believe some have more difficulty learning some concepts than others, particularly depending on how they're taught, isn't it really the teacher's fault? It's the teacher's job to ensure the subject is taught to the students. They are getting paid to do so. The students don't know what benefit they will get from learning the subject, as they are completely removed from the future benefits. They might not have any clue what they want to do when they get older, and even if they do, they might not have any clue what they will actually do. Even if by some miracle they know exactly what they are going to do when they grow up, math is taught in such abstract methods that few see the benefit. So, the drive to learn on the student side is far lower than it should be, yet it is seen as their responsibility.

Any effort to connect a student's success with a teacher's pay has been resisted to the extreme as well. So they don't want to have financial benefit to be a good teacher. They want to be paid the same whether or not they manage to teach a student. But is that the way it should be?

A teacher knows when a student is having difficulty with a subject. A teacher knows when they're having trouble getting motivated to do the homework. They could potentially figure out a way to help a lot of students to learn a subject better. Yet often they ignore it. This is probably because they view it as a student's responsibility to learn a subject and seek out help if they need it. Cuz it's not like anxiety is a thing. They couldn't possibly have anxiety related to seeking additional help. Not like kids berate other students over needing extra help.

Teachers also know that when they give 2 hours of homework, they likely aren't the only ones giving homework that day. They know that every time they cover a new subject, if a student doesn't get it right away, they'll likely have to spend quite a bit of time studying. They also know that kids don't want to spend hours after school studying and doing homework every day.

Honestly, all of these things, including and especially ignoring a student as they slowly slip into failure, is entirely a teacher's fault, and it likely means that a student will have lasting repercussions throughout their life resulting from that, likely financially. Every adult in a dead end job is the result of a teacher that didn't step in and try to help them when they were still learning to be the person they would be as an adult. They learned that life is too hard from teachers that put too much on their shoulders and didn't help them carry the burden that they placed on them.

Sure, people are "responsible" for their own lives...but who they are is largely a result of the environment they have been in their whole life. Many people's lives are an uphill battle...but sometimes all it takes is someone to take a moment and help them up, so they don't get left behind.

_(source)