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No need to be anxious about math anxiety
Math anxiety is a growth industry in the research world, as this article attests. Of course, we agree with the article that math anxiety is a bad thing and that it interferes with people’s ability to learn math - but the researchers’ suggestions for reducing math anxiety (for example, small tweaks to how math problems are presented) are ridiculous.
John Mighton, in his wonderful book The Myth of Ability: Nurturing mathematical talent in every child (available for borrowing from our library), conclusively proves that the solution to math anxiety is to teach kids properly (like this). Dr. Mighton shows how all kids can become good at math and then amazingly - surprise! - explains that kids who are good at math aren’t anxious about it. He then suggests that schools use his proven approach for teaching kids math.
Can anyone find a problem with Dr. Mighton’s line of reasoning?
No I cannot not, but than again even if I had approach the school on this technique, like I have had to do on different things in the past, it was never the instruction methods that was at fault.
“Likewise, Dr. Willis, the California neurologist, said that teachers can help students reduce their fear of participating during math discussions by asking all students to answer every question, using scratch paper or electronic clickers to “bet” on answers, and then talking about the problem as a group.
“It helps with wait time (between question and answer), increases participation, and decreases mistake fear,” Dr. Willis said. The key to helping students learn not to fear math, she said, is to “get students to expose faulty foundational knowledge, which they can only do if they make mistakes and participate.”
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/05/researchers-say-math-anxiety-starts-young#ixzz1Md8D0qxZ
It would not work for my child, since the instruction methods are at fault. Major complaint by the teachers concerning my child, in the early years. But when I suggested instruction methods as being the root cause of her non-participation, I was wrong. I was wrong to infer instruction methods as being the root cause of her low achievement in certain subjects as well. My child only know too well the mistakes being made in her school work, and the last thing she would ever do, is to exposed her mistakes in front of the other students, and risk humiliation. As for the instruction methods, often was the case with my child, forcing my child to follow the same method over and over again, and still insist on using it, even when the same mistakes were being made consistently. Now that causes anxiety and often was the case, the meltdowns that occurred at home after school. It is the way I see it.