I don't know how to give a "101" on blender, because the path I followed to learn it was anything but linear. 3DCG is exactly like any other form of visual art in terms of individual approach. You have to figure out what it means to you and do the critical thinking about application of that yourself.
I want to debunk something quickly: 3D doesn't really require proficiency with numbers. I don't know any math above very basic trigonometry, and I've never had to pull any out beyond a basic understanding of geometry (planes are flat surfaces, planes have edges, rotation is a 360 degree circle OR 2*pi radians, ...) An understanding of ratios helps, but isn't vital. I guess what's more important is fluency with the *ideas* of math than the math itself.
There's basic skills that will help everyone, though, and fortunately for writing purposes, 3D has a lot more bulk on the 'technical' then the 'mystical' side of things. Here are the resources I used as well as some advice to anyone embarking. Some basic 'approach' tips first:
Don't expect to learn this in one night. I've seen people pick up Blender very fast, but usually because they already had background staring at polygons. Also, not everyone approaches Blender from the same entry point. The usual flow that educational materials assume is 'basic editing, then skinning, then rigging' but this is unfairly biased toward someone building a character model alone (which is often a task collegiates get saddled with, just out of tradition, it seems). I've seen people enter through terrain generation, UV editing, and even rigging.
What's your learning style? Take advantage of it. For me, it's problem- and puzzle-solving. I want to fix something, and even more than that, I want to do it in an efficient, elegant way. Most of my forays into Blender have been to make something specific (models for use in SL) or to solve a problem (I hate isometric pixeling). Don't slog through forcing yourself to make something just because you think that's what you've gotta do. Unless that's just what you wanna do.
3D meshing and 3D sculpting are not the same. You cannot 'get away with' learning sculpting only. If you learn to 3D sculpt only your understanding of 3D is severely limited and you will make severely limited models. Accept this and learn the 'hard part' so you can be even better at the 'fun part'. You might even start to like the hard part.
OK. Now here are a few buzzwords you're going to hear over and over again, which took me forever to figure out, because everyone assumed I knew them, and at the time, before Blender had become super viable, the 3D community was a lot more elitist. No Blender stack exchange for my education.
Topology, edgeflow
The science of wrapping a grid around something.
Quad
A polygon with four sides. A rectangle. Remember that as far as your computer is concerned, triangles are the only polygons that exist-- quads are purely a developer's convenience. Also, see above -- all the shapes in a grid are quads, ideally. And you can only calculate a 'loop' if everything goes in straight lines. So most meshes are made primarily from these.
N-gon
Any polygon with more than 4 edges. Harder to work with, but not necessarily bad. Not literally Satan themself. It's OK. Ngons are OK. Will end up looking weird if you don't know what you're doing.
Finally, here are some resources I used.
Blender 3D: Noob to pro
Dated in areas, but helped to get me through basic concepts
The blender wiki itself
Cryptic and sometimes missing important data, but often helped introduced me to functions I didn't know about
Blender cookie
If you can stand audio (I only can sometimes; the lack of text-and-gif blender tutorials upsets me) and learn well from simply watching someone else go about their workflow, this is ideal. I didn't focus on learning how to do x or y or z -- I just wanted to watch the little tricks that people used day to day.
Gnomon
I "acquired" some of these videos for the same reason. I wanted to see how the people whose work I'd followed for years approached it.
Ben Mathis/poopinmymouth
Very good low poly stuff, also very patient with someone starting from the top. Has been around a long time and knows what they're talking about.
Polycount wiki
I might make a longer guide sometime. What I'd like to do is write a book, but I'm not sure if I'm qualified to do it. I do think that 3d modeling is a very useful skill that should be more accessible, though. Blender is doing just that, and avoiding a lot of the 'developers developing for developers' caveats of FOSS, but not all. I wish them luck and success.