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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @02:29PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @02:29PM (#757981)

    This has nothing to do with "superior" intellect. I've got multiple disabilities that make things like reading and writing very hard for me and I have a tendency to read and write things that are incorrect. Most of what I've accomplished in math is the result of just working at it long after other people would have given up.

    People shouldn't be permitted to refuse to learn from experience. Yes, there are people out there that have intellectual or learning disabilities that may not be able to manage, even without help, but those individuals are relatively few and far between. For the vast majority of people, what you're talking about is ridiculous. Just sitting down with the table and even without mnemonics the thing should be memorized within a few weeks tops.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @04:44PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @04:44PM (#758043)

    This has nothing to do with "superior" intellect. I've got multiple disabilities

    I'll check the medical journals, but I don't think douchebaggery is considered a disability.

    I've got multiple disabilities that make things like reading and writing very hard for me and I have a tendency to read and write things that are incorrect.

    Are you saying that memorization is a tool that you use in order to make up for other issues? If so, then it is much more important to you than to most other people.

    People shouldn't be permitted to refuse to learn from experience.

    Oh well, back to the douchebaggery. People aren't refusing to learn. They have already learned at least one way to do it and that way meets their needs. But you, you take learning as a severe point of pride. And then you project your "I did it and it is very hard for me to have accomplished it, so others should do it too!" attitude upon others in a measurably condescending way.

    For the vast majority of people, what you're talking about is ridiculous.

    Which part?

    • The binary math, algebra, chemistry, physics, literature and computer skills? That was sarcasm used to illustrate a point that anyone can arbitrarily set a standard by which others should be judged, but that they themselves would still measure up to.
    • The people skills? That part was genuine and important. Much more important than memorizing the multiplication tables. And much harder, too.

    My expectations of myself a pretty high, but I don't have high expectations for others, and I certainly don't think they should be able to do what I can do. People are different, and that's good. If everyone was like me the world would be a dreadfully boring place.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @05:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @05:36PM (#758074)

      Nice string of ad hominems you've got there. God forbid you actually make a valid point.

      And yes, people are refusing to learn their times tables. There's only 144 entries in the 12x12 times table and 100 in the 10x10 table. If you literally learn one per day and don't take advantage of the commutative property of multiplication it would literally take less than a school year. That's a school year, it's not even a calendar year. Are you seriously telling me that there's this epidemic of people who can't learn through some method 1 of these facts a day who isn't profoundly disabled?

      This is basic arithmetic here, it's something that people should be using on a more or less daily basis. It's not a high standard to meet and people in countries not called the USA are just expected to be able to do it because it's not acceptable to not be able to manage it. This is a bar that's only somewhat higher than what other animal species can achieve.