As an educator, I LOVE everything about math. It just makes sense to me. Every problem has a solution – and that is so inspiring! Then one day while I was teaching partial quotients to my 4th graders a sweet student stopped me in my tracks when she said ……
She acted as if it was some hereditary trait passed down to her. That moment shifted something in me where I knew my job was much more than teaching students how to multiply or where a fraction was on a number line. This is so much more than that. MATH is so much more than that! And unfortunately, many people go all through school never truly understanding math and just brushing it off by wearing some badge of honor that says “oh I’m just not a math person” as a way to shrug off a long history of feeling defeated by something.
as a Math Instructional Coach. I have the opportunity to work with amazing teachers and have a greater impact on students grades K-5. Through my work with teachers the same damaging math sentiments are still there living and breathing inside of TEACHERS responsible for teaching math content.
Could you imagine someone saying “oh I’m just not a reading person”?? No! People would look at you like you had a million heads. Yet, SOOO many people have negative feelings about math that it is acceptable to just throw in the towel.
Start by saying “I am a math person” because guess what… there is no such thing as a math brain or a non math brain. Science has proven every single brain is capable of learning math.
One final thought – children don’t hate math. What they hate is feeling embarrassed, ashamed, confused, and pressured by math. It’s time we change that.
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