I really wish I had tried harder at Maths at school! I hated maths because I was never very good at it. I have since found out that it is not entirely my fault why I found it so hard. That reason being that during my O levels I was allowed to use a calcutator. Because of that, I would struggle with simple problems like long division and multiplication when I didn't have one to hand. I managed to scrape through a HND, and level 3 maths is no picnic I can tell you!
When I started studying for my licenses, I decided to start from scratch at Maths and go right back to basics, without using a plastic brain. What a huge difference that has made. My mental arithmetic has improved immensly. Mathematics has a huge application in aviation from flying aeroplanes, designing them, building them, fixing them and developing them. The ability for an engineer to solve mathematical problems is probably the most important of all the skills he has.
It is so easy to rely on technology to make your life easier, but it should not be used to teach the three Rs. You can also see that the level of literacy is declining since the advent of the spill chucker!