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Kids Have 'Math Anxiety' Thanks To Parents and Teachers, Report Finds (vice.com)
A new report out of the University of Cambridge studied the experiences of a total of 2,700 primary and secondary students in the UK and Italy and found that primary and secondary school girls had higher levels of both math anxiety and general anxiety than boys. "The study also focuses on how parents and teachers shape math performance and attitudes, perhaps without even realizing it," adds Motherboard. "In the same way that anxious parents can shape their children's anxiety, math-anxious mentors can shape how kids view their own math anxiety." From the report: The new study builds on previous research by highlighting the importance of teachers and parents' own math anxieties impacting students. Most students that the researchers talked to said that their anxiousness started when the math topics became more challenging, and they felt like they couldn't do them. Another reason the students' said they were struggling was because multiple teachers were teaching them math, and it became confusing across teaching styles. "Importantly -- and surprisingly -- this new research suggests that the majority of students experiencing maths anxiety have normal to high maths ability," Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said in a press release.
Several of the excerpts of the interviews conducted by researchers with math-anxious kids are heartbreaking: Many described feelings that they knew the answers but panicked, or tried to battle through initial confusion. One child, around 9 or 10 years old, said: "Once, I think it was the first day and he picked on me, and I just kind of burst into tears because everybody was staring at me and I didn't know the answer. Well I probably knew it but I hadn't thought it through." Another described doing a fractions test: "It means like enormously [nervous], and enormously means like massively... I felt very unwell and I was really scared and because my table's in the corner, I kind of just like tried to not be in the lesson."
Several of the excerpts of the interviews conducted by researchers with math-anxious kids are heartbreaking: Many described feelings that they knew the answers but panicked, or tried to battle through initial confusion. One child, around 9 or 10 years old, said: "Once, I think it was the first day and he picked on me, and I just kind of burst into tears because everybody was staring at me and I didn't know the answer. Well I probably knew it but I hadn't thought it through." Another described doing a fractions test: "It means like enormously [nervous], and enormously means like massively... I felt very unwell and I was really scared and because my table's in the corner, I kind of just like tried to not be in the lesson."
Girls can definitely do math. However, it seems like its more socially acceptable for them to brag about how they're bad at it. Maybe that's the real problem here.
The described situation is social anxiety. Any connection to math is purely incidental.
Actual math anxiety stems wholly from the fact that any sane person would be anxious if you told them you were going to force them to practice various riffs on elementary algebra for twelve years and call it "math."
It's more socially acceptable for girls to give up or never try at all. Doing so does not hurt their social status or dating chances.
Girls are born valuable and they know it. Boys have to earn their place and they know it too.
Just look for the "neckbeard" or "incel" comments as proof. What is the female version of those two terms? They don't exist, because no woman is without value.
It's long been known that when kids are learning math:
* They have family who generally have had bad experiences when they learned math.
* They have teachers in their early years without the interest, ability, or confidence to teach math
The message comes across loud and and clear - math is hard/confusing/not for mere mortals.