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posted by mrpg on Monday November 05 2018, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the pi≈3 dept.

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Think you're bad at math? You may suffer from 'math trauma'

I teach people how to teach math, and I've been working in this field for 30 years. Across those decades, I've met many people who suffer from varying degrees of math trauma – a form of debilitating mental shutdown when it comes to doing mathematics.

When people share their stories with me, there are common themes. These include someone telling them they were "not good at math," panicking over timed math tests, or getting stuck on some math topic and struggling to move past it. The topics can be as broad as fractions or an entire class, such as Algebra or Geometry.

[...] One of the biggest challenges U.S. math educators face is helping the large number of elementary teachers who are dealing with math trauma. Imagine being tasked with teaching children mathematics when it is one of your greatest personal fears.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @04:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @04:31AM (#757851)

    The teacher's attitude is a part of the quality of teaching that the teacher provides the students. I can't remember who said it, but it really is true that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It doesn't matter how much you know and how good your methods are if the students get turned off by a shitty attitude. It's actively demotivating. Now, having a good attitude isn't necessarily enough, but if you've got a good attitude, the students are more likely to seek out additional resource and ask questions to try and bridge the gap.

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