Math is one of our most basic skills — we use math to calculate our paychecks, develop a budget, read a recipe when cooking dinner. We use math skills while grocery shopping and while working on the shop floor. Every business relies on math to calculate profits and losses, and to track inventory needs. Farmers use math to manage their crops and to understand and predict the futures market. Math touches every aspect of our lives, but many people don’t know their poor math skills are holding them back.

So, why do we keep telling ourselves math is hard?

As a math instructor, I see people struggle with basic concepts because math has never been tangible to them. It’s taught as an abstract concept, and people have a hard time tying the concepts to reality. Every day I work with students whose opinion of high school math was “When will I ever use this in real life?”

Making math meaningful is my primary goal. For many, my class is the first math class in years that has made any sense to them.

The idea behind Common Core math wasn’t to frustrate the parents — even though it did accomplish that. The idea was to make math tangible to students –something they could relate to. Everything was suddenly a story problem, and it was designed to make new connections with old subject matter.

Math is a subject that builds on mastering concepts, beginning in elementary school. Concepts add on to concepts, building from addition and subtraction to long division, algebra, and for those in technical fields, calculus and beyond. If somewhere in that progression you had a bad year, the lack of skills covered that year can make it much harder to progress. I work every day to make connections and show my students the real world implications on what they are studying. I try to meet students where ever they are in mathematical knowledge and help them to move forward from there. This is what makes math exciting to me.

As we celebrate “Pi Day” every year on March 14 (get it – 3.14), it’s a time to pause and reflect on the effect math has on our lives. Have you ever thought about taking a math class, whether to improve your professional skills, for the joy of learning, or perhaps to conquer a demon from your past? We would love to have you in one of our classes.

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Mark Monroe is a math professor at

Marshalltown Community College.