Article: OVERCOMING MATH PHOBIA

By: Mr Oscar Ifeanyi. I

"Time for math" said the teacher, "oh! no, not again" was his response. His heart started racing, the knot in his stomach tightened, his palms grew clammy, self-doubt and fear of failure weighed on his shoulders, and a sheet of unanswerable questions stared him down. Math-phobia is real.

If you find yourself getting tense just thinking about math, you’re not alone. Many people suffer from math-phobia (also called math anxiety). And until recently, most people could find jobs that didn’t require any sort of math beyond basic arithmetic. But in the technologically driven 21st century, higher-level math skills are becoming increasingly important.

I'm sure you’ve heard people say things like this before: I can’t do math, I don’t like math, math is too hard, I’ll never use it in the “real world.” People, especially students express such dislike and disdain for math — this is math-phobia at work.

What is MATH-PHOBIA?

Math-phobia (or math-anxiety) can be defined as a feeling of tension, apprehension or fear about one's ability to solve math problems, which subsequently results in poor performance in mathematics and also leads to hatred for mathematics.

Math-phobia affects people of all ages around the world. One research article reported that more than 90% of adults experience some level of math phobia. Math-anxious individuals feel — and believe — they’re utterly incapable of doing anything math-related.

What’s worse, people who suffer from Math-phobia might actually be good at math but afraid of it. For example, even though a student knows how to solve an equation, anxiousness can cause them to freeze despite having the knowledge and knowing there’s no real reason to feel that way.

But, what does math phobia look like? I'll answer the question below.

Symptoms and Signs of Math-phobia

Before you can start preventing and overcoming math-phobia, you must recognize how to identify it.

1. Physiological signs

Students with symptoms of math phobia can get unusually nervous, clammy hands, an increased heart rate, upset stomach, and lightheadedness.

2. Feeling of hopelessness

When math isn’t a student’s strong suit, it’s easy to believe that’s just the way it is, that they’re naturally bad at the subject and will always be. And the moment he or she buys into that lie, they give up and lose all motivation to improve their skills.

3. Intense emotional reaction

Math phobia manifests not only physiologically and cognitively, but emotionally. If you notice a student start panicking, grow angry, or get teary-eyed during math class, they could have math phobia. This particular symptom is largely rooted in the misguided assumption that the only way to be good at math is to answer questions quickly.

4. Negative confessions

Chances are you’ve witnessed this symptom many times over. It’s not so much what it looks like, but what it sounds like:

"I hate math"

"I can’t do math"

"I’ll never be good at math"

However, negative confessions can occur inside a student’s head and thus be extremely difficult to spot.

5. Avoidance

The most unfortunate and pervasive tendency amongst people with high math phobia, is avoidance. Students with math phobia will usually try to avoid going to math class and will most times avoid everything math-related, even beyond the classroom.

6. Poor Response

Have you ever wondered how you’re able to remember and think about multiple things at once? That’s part of the human memory system we call the working memory. The working memory is what enables people respond to teaching.

Imagine a student has math phobia and you read a math question aloud to the class. Instead of thinking of the numbers and steps involved to solve the problem, the student’s feeling of anxiety uses up all their working memory and they therefore fail to respond to the lesson.

Major causes of math phobia

Putting a finger on a single cause of math phobia is near impossible. From a very young age, there are many factors that can negatively influence children’s perspective of mathematics.

Take a moment to think about your direct or indirect experience with math anxiety, what triggered it, and when.

Maybe students laughed after you incorrectly answered a question; maybe your teacher failed to teach it effectively; maybe it was your parents’ unsavory attitude toward math; maybe it manifested as early as kindergarten or later in the university.

1. Fear of being wrong

Growing up, very little compares to the terrible feeling of public embarrassment. If you or your students scold or laugh at someone who gets an answer wrong, it can trigger or make their math anxiety worse.

2. Parents’ negative predispositions

A parent might say, ‘oh I’m not a math person, it’s okay if you’re not good at math either.’ Such statements and visible attitudes towards math can send a negative signal to kids about mathematics.

3. Influence of the teacher

There are many ways teachers can influence a child’s math experience. Like parents, if a teacher is afraid of or doesn't value the subject, students will likely share that sentiment.

Teachers who emphasize memorization over understanding can do many students a disservice.

Without working through math problems and understanding the "why" behind them, students will have a hard time seeing their value.

Also, when students don’t understand certain concepts, they need a teacher who’s willing to help them understand — and possibly change teaching strategies.

4. Unwillingness, to complete assignments

The unwillingness to try is arguably more harmful to the academic and real-world success of students than any thing else. The same applies to math. When students are unwilling to try math problems and assignments, they can develop a phobia and hatred in future for mathematics.

5 TIPS FOR OVERCOMING MATH-PHOBIA

1. Make math fun

At Glorious Covenant Schools, Our teachers are increasingly using math related games to boost the engagement of the children. What’s more, they’re able to make math fun and motivate students to develop skills and fact fluency.

Gameful learning can reinforce the fact that failure is neither a setback nor an outcome but rather an indication that more work is needed to master the skill or knowledge at hand.

2. Positive words of encouragement

Never underestimate the impact a few words of encouragement can have on a child. Parents and teachers must endeavour to motivate kids through reward and positive words to help improve student learning and academic success.

3. Get a tutor

Researchers have also found that one-on-one tutoring sessions can help remedy highly math-anxious kids.

4. Encourage Understanding over Memorization

It is quite unfortunate in today's world that we continue to value the faster memorizers over those who think slowly, deeply and creatively — the students we need for our scientific and technological future. Memorization is valuable, but pushing it as the only way to do math is problematic. This mindset will eventually breed a generation of students who are methodically competent but cannot think "outside the box". The sooner you encourage understanding as opposed to memorization, the sooner students will develop number sense and mental math skills.

5. Take time to answer questions

Math anxiety occurs, in part, because students feel the need to answer immediately. As a math teacher I always encourage students to take the necessary time to think before answering a question. This is because teachers who offer minimal response time are failing to foster an environment for critical thinking and success.

When students are given appropriate time to answer questions, there will be fewer “I don’t know” answers, more long and correct answers, and more students volunteering to answer questions.

Math phobia is something that directly affects students well into adulthood. Alot of schools continue to struggle with widespread underachievement — a reality that has both immediate and long-term consequences. However, using our research-backed tips for overcoming math phobia, you will definitely experience a change in the levels of you or your children's enthusiasm for math. Start using them and see how your students move from math anxiety to math excitement.

Finally, as the cognitive scientist Sian Beilock pointed out, “No one walks around bragging that they can’t read, but it’s perfectly socially acceptable to say you don’t like math.” let’s change that mindset!