Ending Math Anxiety in Girls
February 26, 2010 by christine.duval
Filed under Just for Moms, New, back to school
Ending Math Anxiety in Girls
I don’t love math. I admit it. It never was a favorite subject of mine. I didn’t do horribly in it, but I realize looking back to my school days that I didn’t get a lot of encouragement to enjoy or excel at it either.
Recently while struggling to help my daughter with a complicated word problem, I realized that my attitude towards math might be affecting her attitude towards the subject as well. I started poking around the internet to see what other people might be saying about girls and math. I was surprised to find that girls are still far behind boys when it comes to pursuing math or science fields especially today when technology plays such a vital role in every facet of our busy lives. There are so many interesting, highly lucrative careers that require a good math base and I’d hate to think our daughters are missing out
The Los Angeles Times had an interesting article recently about how girls might be learning math anxiety from their female teachers. Granted I’m not my daughter’s teacher, but I do help her with math homework. Could my under-confidence in the subject keep her from excelling at it? Based on the findings of psychologists at the University of Chicago, it seems to me it could. After following female teachers who admitted to being anxious about their math abilities for a year, they found the girls they taught turned out to be more likely to have math anxiety and score lower on tests.
Of course it would be hard for me to know how confident a teacher is in teaching any subject. I don’t see myself asking in a parent/teacher conference, “So, how secure are you in your abilities?” But, I do have control over what happens at home. So, I’ve decided when it comes to math, rather than get frustrated or anxious, I’m better off explaining that just because I didn’t excel at a subject, it doesn’t mean she can’t and encourage her not to give up. I may not know how to solve every equation, but I’m resourceful enough to help her find the tools to build her skills.
And be sure to check out Danica McKellar’s great book for tween girls – Math Doesn’t Suck (this from the gal who played Winnie on the Wonder Years – yup she grew up to be a math whiz…)
Great article. I am also a Mom who did not excel in math. But I am trying to encourage my daughter to learn the basics inorder to establish a solid foundation for future learning. At bedtime I make up math word problems and she enjoys doing them in her head. It’s a more relaxed atmosphere and is fun as opposed to sitting at the kitchen table trying to get her homework done (as quickly as possible). Thanks for highlighting this important topic.
Mom of an 8 year old
I think it’s great that you were able to take the time to do some critical analysis and investigation into the difficulty you encountered with your daughter’s math homework. Just by doing that, you’ve modeled for her the most important skill in math….realizing you don’t know the answer, and figuring out how to get closer to it.
You’ll note that I didn’t say “figuring out how to get the answer”. Yeah, I did that on purpose. We’re so conditioned to believe that in math, there always is an answer. And, for the most part, if we’re talking elementary or middle school math, there usually is one correct answer. But like life itself, math in the early years is as much about the journey as it is the destination. I think that a lot of students are so concerned about getting the right answer, that they don’t realize (or aren’t told) that what they are actually learning is a process; a process that can be applied to other problems. An analogy: If you memorize the way to get to the store from your house, you can only get to the store. But, if you have a map of the town and you know how to use it, you can get to the store or the library.
I’m not arguing against drilling multiplication tables, or repeating the same basic skills over and over. These are important exercises in strengthening math skills. But, without also understanding the concepts, the ability to use that information is limited.
I teach Genetics to Biology majors at a pretty good public liberal arts college. As part of my course, I have to teach the students how to multiply fractions and what percent means. Yes, the same skills they allegedly “learned” in grade school. Why do I have to re-teach these concepts to students that have made it all the way through calculus? I have to guess that it’s because they never really learned it in the first place.
And what Christine talks about is at the root of the problem–elementary school teachers, for the most part, don’t really understand basic math. They can teach the steps required to go from A to B, but they don’t have a firm grasp of the concepts at work. So, the cycles perpetuates. In my classes, the students studying to be elementary school teachers almost always have the worst math skills. That’s not to say they are bad people or bad teachers, but we just don’t demand this of them, nor do we reward it.
Is it worse for girls? I don’t know. I’d like to think things are actually changing a bit in that respect. My college is 70% female. That’s just because the girls are doing so much better academically than boys these days. However, there is still a minority of women entering sciences (all except for biology). Why? I think that (perhaps because of cultural conditioning) girls/women are much more sensitive to the possibility of having their weaknesses exposed than are boys. I think girls know that they don’t KNOW math, so they avoid putting themselves in positions where this will be uncovered. Boys, on the other hand, are boys, and much more likely to forge ahead and pretend that they know what they’re doing. (You know, just like the guy that doesn’t want to stop and ask for directions…..hours after he should).
So, bravo to you for saying “I don’t know….let’s find out together.” It is these experiences that will give our daughters the confidence to try hard things, rather than shy away from them.