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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.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday November 05 2018, @04:04AM (3 children)
So, let's start with the assertion that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
In my personal experience, what made the difference was not the quality of teaching, but the attitude of the teachers. I started doing well in school when I dropped many subjects (as was normal in the UK) and I found myself with a set of teachers who didn't care whether you played rugby or not. When teachers tell you that you are smart and can achieve good results, you are more likely to succeed.
Being told by teachers (mainly a couple of teachers) for several years that we (my class group) were a bunch of poor students did not help academic performance. I think that my later success at math was due to my personal belief in my abilities. Having achieved very mediocre results at "O" level (national exams taken at around age 16 in the UK), I surprised many teachers by achieving the highest overall results of my year at "A" level (national exams taken at around age 18, just before leaving high school). Those teachers still didn't acknowledge my success because I didn't play rugby.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @04:31AM
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.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 05 2018, @10:19AM
I had a university math professor ask me "Are you retarded?" while handing back calculus tests.
He was a really good teacher. I thought it was funny.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 05 2018, @02:33PM
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.