Statistics feels like the red headed step child of math
I’ve tutored it from middle school level up to helping with dissertation work. The way it is taught varies so dramatically from class to class and field to field. There’s so many subtle and weird factors in interpretation that it’s honestly the most stressful thing to tutor.
It's almost always poorly taught.
You need to build intuition, teach how counting sets works, and try to decide on a philosophical base with which to explain what probability actually is.
That is not easy or even agreed upon in the field, so we cut straighf to the kolmogorov axioms and pretend this all makes sense. Then we can move on to memorizing formulas for that varies tests you memorize and pretend apply to every situation.
What drives me crazy is when causal language shows up with correlations. I feel like I’ve seen that most with nursing stat classes.
The first statistics course I ever took was my final semester of college. "Statistics for Science and Engineering" was the title of the course.
It took place in a computer lab for no good reason. Literally the only reason why it took place there was because they didn't have a non-computer-lab room for it.
The guy who sat in front of me played video games all class every class. And my super sleep-deprived college student brain thought "if he can get away with it, so can I". I followed suit and played video games. A Quake-based FPS named Nexuiz (which has since renamed to Xonotic).
I was sure the professor was going to punish me with a bad grade. But I got an A. So I guess I must be good at it.
I can't say I remember one thing from that class today. I remember things from calculus 1, 2, and 3. And from the discrete math class that I was the only one that did well in. But statistics is a complete blank.
Except for the day one student went and wrote "Dr. Stoopid is stoopid" on the board before the professor showed up. That guy had a very unique sense of humor.
I'm not good at math, I strongly suspect I have dyscalculia. I was terrible at math my entire life but ended up at a community college where I had to start in remedial math classes. I had the best instructors who cared so much. One would jump on Zoom with me from her couch at home to help me work through concepts I was stuck on and even helped tutor me occasionally during semesters when I wasn't in her classes. Another would stay after class to help me with problems I didn't understand and I was always at his office hours asking for help. I made it from remedial math all the way through Calculus 2 with an A as my final grade in all my math classes, I was so proud of myself. I made my first 100% ever in my life on a math test in Calculus 2 and my instructor came across the classroom during class to come tell me he was proud of me. I remember one day I said to him "this has been such a struggle, I'm so bad at math" and he held up my math test and said "this says otherwise". No one has ever been so kind about my math skills before.
I transferred colleges and had to take statistics. I still don't understand what the fuck that was all about. Literally not a clue, couldn't tell you a damned thing except there's something involving a curve and 5% is above and below.