Originally Posted by kerry edwards

I'm just saying there is something different about Math. We never hear of Sociology phobia or Welding phobia or History phobia, but we all know of Math phobia. Ask anyone who teaches Math at the kind of level we are talking about.

Take Art as a counter example. Most universities require some kind of exposure to Art in their core curriculum. However, since artistic talent is something that is often inborn, we don't require students to produce good paintings or sculpture, we allow them to study the history of Art instead of doing Art. We don't do this in Math. We don't allow students to study the history of Math (indeed such courses are extremely rare at the undergraduate level). We make them DO Math. Is this the equivalent of requiring students to DO sculpture or painting or play an instrument, rather than learning about these things?