Vanquishing Math Phobia
Sue
Shellenbarger, in a Wall Street Journal article titled A Worksheet for Math-Phobic Parents (August 29, 2012), talks about
how most parents, being math-phobic, are transmitting that attitude to their
kids, thus perpetuating math phobia and incompetence.
I too was
math-phobic until I learned about the Barriers to Learning. It turns out that my math teachers had been
committing/inflicting several of these Barriers on me.
The Barriers
that my teachers inflicted on me were:
- Too steep a gradient of
information
- Using non-defined words and
symbols,
- Why this subject was important to
learn, and
- How was the knowledge relevant to
my life.
When I applied
the proper remedies listed in the book How
to Learn – How to Teach: Overcoming the Barriers to Learning, I vanquished
my math phobia, and recovered my math education.
I vanquished
my math phobia to such an extent that I now tutor in math for Literacy
Partners. And I did such a good job
communicating math concepts to my students that they created a math class just
for me called Applied Math.
Math is not
scary once you remedy your Barriers to Learning.
