Greetings!

I wanted to start a blog to the address the question "why does math suck."  I studied to become a high school math teacher.  I was constantly in the classroom and tutoring students after school.  I felt that most of the students I had in class were very capable of doing the mathematics that was taught during the lesson.  I could get most of the class involved in my lessons.  The students would meet the learning targets modeled after state standards and ask thought provoking questions.  At some point, the wonderful mathematical thinking would come to a halt.  This usually occurred when critical thinking was thrown into the mix.  I'm not talking about story problems.  Although, most students do shut down when there is story problem because they're thinking "why the hell am I reading in a math class?" and students don't like multi-step problems.  Real critical thinking in math class is testing conjectures and making generalizations.  For example, students could prove or disprove the following statement: there are some functions whose inverse relations are not functions and there are some relations whose inverse relations are functions.  I strongly feel our students are capable of this type thinking in the classroom, but some magical force prohibits them from doing so.  Instead of posting a blog about blaming this or that, I'd rather start a productive discussion among teachers, students, parents, and others about how improve math education.  I would prefer not to get caught up in the newest teaching fad because there is no one simple solution.  Honestly, the ideal math education system would always be changing to adjust to societal needs, technological advances, and cultural trends.  My question to you is why do you hate math?  Here is a great video that inspired me to teach math and start this blog.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUFjb8w9Ps