Andrew Hacker: Is Algebra Necessary? (PUUUUUUUUKE)

[skippercollector]

55. my GOOD experience with algebra

I have been reading on numerous forums about whether or not one needs to be taught algebra. I guess my experiences are, as usual, completely different from everyone else's.
I was a poor math student in grade school, struggling with the basics. I also struggled with plane geometry in eighth grade. But my scores have always been off the charts in reading comprehension and related subjects.
I was introduced to basic algebra in seventh and eighth grade at a Catholic elementary in the mid-1970s. Algebra was the one form of math I NEVER struggled with. I also took two years of algebra plus a geometry class (the theorems, not the measurements) at a Catholic girls' high school in the late 1970s. I did not take any advanced math classes after my junior year, and it was not required at the college I attended. (My dad took calculus three times in college before he passed it, so I guess my lack of love for numbers is hereditary.)
I don't remember any of my classmates struggling with algebra the way I've been reading about it now. Was it taught differently in the 1970s? Was it taught differently at a private school? Or is the algebra being taught today completely different from what I learned 35 years ago?
I LIKED algebra! I've theorized it's for two reasons. One is that it is largely letters and words, not numbers--I never had difficulty figuring out basic word problems. The other is that I was born with horrendous eyesight and I cannot always see in three dimensions, so I don't visualize pictures in my head in 3D. (I never learned to read music and have always been incredibly unathletic as well, both of which are, I believe, related problems, but they're another story.)
I studied communications in college and wrote for a newspaper for 17 years. In the mid-1990s the office got its first computers and I was taught page layout in a program called Quark. I vividly recall the first time I tried laying out a page with preset columns and inches. As I moved the cursor across the screen to place an article, I could see the X and Y coordinates on the graph on the screen changing with any movement I made.
Has ANYONE had an experience with algebra similar to mine? Or am I the ONLY one?