I had this one guy. Someone would ask him a question. He'd turn around and stare at the chalkboard for 2-3 minutes, sometimes even longer. Then he'd turn around and say something like "see, it's obvious" and stare at you.

This isn't a new problem.

I have a farm hand working for me. Clever guy...good with tools, takes care of the equipment, thinks about the next step (probably more than I do) and is motivated to keep on task and busy..

But, he's 45 and can barely read...he told me that basically he skipped class for 8 years and still somehow managed to graduate. Granted, he has a role in the problem but I do believe that the 'system' has a responsibility as well and in this case, Ruben was let down. IMHO, whomever let that happen needs a good, hard b*tchslap.

Apparently, you and I had the same algebra 'teacher'. Algebra might as well be Chinese to me and I LOVE numbers.

It's tough to teach math well. Unfortunately, most students don't think like mathematicians; and most mathematicians can't imagine how anyone could fail to understand the basics of math. I even have trouble helping my kids with high school algebra, it takes a lot of work to put yourself in the shoes of someone who just doesn't get it and doesn't even understand the language that you are using to explain it. Sometimes I think the best math teachers are people who only know a little more than the students.

Engineering math (as opposed to pure math) might even be worse, because they tend to teach what is required to solve certain types of problems without teaching the fundamentals of the underlying math. I was in grad school before I "really" understood some of the math that I had been using for years; I'm not sure I really understand some of it now, even though I know how to use it.

I have the same thing, I love playing with numbers and I can be pretty good at it times. Up to 2 months before my finals in High School I never had a teacher that inspired me. Fortunately I was blessed that prior to my finals we had a substitute that made all the "nonsense" I was starring at for the last couple of years clear to me. The algebra and engineering math finals were a breeze, surprised every body, including my self.

Math seems to be one of those subjects where students just "get it" all of a sudden and say, "why didn't you just say that before?" The problem is trying to find the key for each individual student to be able to "see through" all the noise and actually understand it. It's like one of those 3D pictures that are hard to see until you finally focus correctly; try to explain how to see that image to someone who just doesn't see it.

I think you're probably right there.

Funny that you say that. I had a Tae Kwon Do instructor in college who was also a professor of materials engineering. One day in class he mentioned how as an undergraduate he had nearly failed a class call emag (Electricity and Magnetism). He finally stopped trying to understand what was going on and just learned the formulas and how to apply them. I just happened to be taking that class at the time, and doing badly. I took his approach and suddenly started getting good grades in that class.

Math is an odd thing in the educational system. Everyone in Colorado colleges has to take a math course. Incoming college students without an ACT or SAT score which qualifies them for a college level course has to take a national placement test called Accuplacer. I decided to take it last week. I enjoyed Math in high school, hadn't take Algebra since 8th or 9th grade, took a wimpy Math for Liberal Arts in college and haven't done anything since so I thought I'd be good test case. I got a 77 on the test (not out of 100% and I don't know how the score is calculated). High enough to get me into College Algebra in some colleges or states, but not quite high enough in Colorado. It placed me in Intermediate Algebra.
However, here's the bizarre part. The test was only twelve questions and was multiple choice. (claims to be adaptive in giving harder or easier questions based on prior answers). Accuplacer will not tell you which ones you got right/wrong. The difference in one answer (good guess or bad guess) is enough to admit/deny a student into a college level math class. There is aboslutely no way for the test taker, who is the only one who knows shy a specific answer was chosen, to know if his or her reasoning process were correct or not.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of people having their college math possibilities controlled by this test every year. The owner of the test is making millions.

Another example of the difference between announced, and "real" goals. The fiels of professional education seems particularly to illustrate these.
The announced goal of the Accuplacer test is to correctly, ( and accurately) place a prospective student in the proper level of math. A good, and lauidable goal. However, the "real" goal of Accuplacer is simply to create wealth for its inventor.
Same story in many education endeavors. The announced goal is to fully educate our children, while the "real" goal is financial gain for the administrators.
Too bad.

and isn't it painfully obvious that with only twelve questions, the outcome may not be representative of the test taker's skills? and since they don't let you know which questions were answered correctly, this further handicaps the test takers. the test should be at least 100 questions and the test taker should be given the complete outcome including answers to missed questions. of course, they like to say, no, because then it opens the door to "cheaters". as long as they periodically change the questions on the exam, the cheater problem is eliminated. therefore there appears to be another agenda at play........

Preventing cheating would be the announced goal.
The "real" answer is that it empowers the testing administration, and similarly, dimishes the power of the test-taker.

yeah, I hated that test.. it screwed me over. I did great in highschool calc but that damn test put me in intermediate algebra. I stormed into the deans office or who ever it was at school and waved my high school transcript in his face. I ended up being stuck in college algebra.

as in all things, some will understand math better than others. I've been spending some time talking with some old timers and it appears that in some ways the educational system was better at teaching EVERYTHING in days past.......

it was just beginning to take a nose dive during my days in school (I'm in my mid-50s) and beginning with Generation-X has REALLY begun to to spiral downward.....

who knows what the future holds for education in this country....it doesn't appear to be positive, though.

My father had to quit school in the 8th grade to run his family's farm. He still seemed more aware of the world around him than most. The last word I word have ever used to describe his would have been," ignorant". ( if he had heard me utter such a thing, it might REALLY have bben the last word I ever said...:)) He had a grasp of trig that simply amazed me--it was like he understood all the relationships and used them as if they were life-long friends.

If you get asked an algebra question it's understood that you at least know some pre-algebra. If you get it wrong you get asked a similiar one, then they drop it to a pre-algebra question which assumes you know, uh, PEMDAS or something, and if you get it wrong...
.
.
etc.