How long ago was this? Did he get back into it later?
My school had this thing called mental math, learning to do arithmetic really fast as a large portion of my 4th or 5th grade material. I absolutely sucked at it and I lost interest in any kind of math. My dad who teaches college math for a living was very disappointed when that happened.
Around 8th grade, I started doing some plane geometry and it sort of opened up my mind in a way that's hard to explain. I remember spending a lot of evenings working my way through several geometry books and problem sets. I sort of branched out into other areas and developed enough skill to make it to national olympiads and other such competitions. I don't do math now, but I think it had a reasonable amount of influence of my eventual path through life.
Who knows, maybe he'll pick it back up again in a few years.
My school had this thing called mental math, learning to do arithmetic really fast as a large portion of my 4th or 5th grade material. I absolutely sucked at it and I lost interest in any kind of math. My dad who teaches college math for a living was very disappointed when that happened.
Around 8th grade, I started doing some plane geometry and it sort of opened up my mind in a way that's hard to explain. I remember spending a lot of evenings working my way through several geometry books and problem sets. I sort of branched out into other areas and developed enough skill to make it to national olympiads and other such competitions. I don't do math now, but I think it had a reasonable amount of influence of my eventual path through life.
Who knows, maybe he'll pick it back up again in a few years.