Try

"Oh you must be really smart then." This is the response I usually get when someone asks me where I go to school.These people think I am some genius, when really I am not that different from them, aside from the fact that I actually try. I am not one of those people who can get away with never taking notes, not paying attention in class, and still get just as good of grades as me. I have to do everything the teacher asks, and sometimes even go to my teacher when I don't understand something. I am not naturally gifted at math, but I do well in math class because I TRY!

It seems that ever since I was little, I have been surrounded by this idea that math is some foreign language. Math is popularized as being something that normal people shouldn't be good at. It always seems as if there is something about math that is hidden, that we cant see. When we type an equation into a calculator, and it spits out the answer for us, the majority of the time we have no idea how it happened. It seems like some magic trick that can read our minds. We rarely have to think for ourselves anymore. Between calculators, smart phones, and computers, we can search for anything we don't know the answer to and find it within a matter of seconds. Math is presented to us by the media as something that goes on behind the scenes, yet can be found in every aspect of our lives. Whether it is the simplest forms of math such as seeing that everything has a  shape, or the most complex forms of math such as the technology behind the newest iPhone.

It seems to me that U.S. citizens aren't good at math, because we choose not to be. We choose to think that math is hard, and something that we are incapable of, when quite frankly if we were raised in a society that didn't present math as being impossible, maybe we would think that it was something more commonly achievable. The United States and the media need to stop complaining about how we are so bad at math compared to other countries, and instead maybe present math, and even school in general, as something that can be achieved if we set our minds to it.