Overcoming Math Anxiety
Saturday November 29, 2008
Math Anxiety is real for a large number of students. For those with a fear or phobic of math, it's like having stage fright. A great strategy for dealing with math anxiety is peeling back the layers to understand the root cause. To do this, you need to get to the 'root' of why. This means, asking the why question as many times as it takes to get to the root.
Here's how: Why does doing math scare you?
Here's how: Why does doing math scare you?
- Because I don't like it.
- Why?
- Because I'm no good at it.
- Why?
- Because I can't do it.
- Why?
- Because I don't understand it.
- Why?
- Because I don't understand it even when my teacher helps me.
Comments
It is my first time hearing about “math anxiety” in your blog. I have met a lot of people who don’t like math without any specific reasons. I felt they seemed to identify themselves as a non-math person too easily. As you wrote, “Practice regularly, especially when you’re having difficulty” is the best way to overcome it because I think the reason of math anxiety comes from not even trying to do it. chanhee
I feel that math anxiety starts at a very young age and to some extent parents or teacher at that age discuss the ability of the child and these impressions are carried. I completely beleive that regular practice with a patient supervision helps overcome this anxiety.