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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: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 05 2018, @02:33PM

    by loonycyborg (6905) on Monday November 05 2018, @02:33PM (#757982)

    There is no such thing as "being smart". Any sort of intellectual achievement requires a lot of work, and you won't find enough time to master everything. So it's worthwhile to focus on things that really interest you. But if teacher is being a jerk who is convinced that math is some sort of magic inaccessible to mere mortals you'll never learn anything from him without suffering a disproportionate amount of stress.

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