Over the next three weeks, I’m participating in a free online course called How to Learn Math. It’s offered by Jo Boaler from Stanford University. I recently read Boaler’s book The Elephant in the Classroom (published in the USA with the title What’s Math Got to Do With It?). The course consists of short (5 minute) video segments, interspersed with tasks for me to do.
One of today’s tasks was to watch a short video of university students who describe difficulties they had with school mathematics. This concept map (below) summarises their perceptions of maths.
Similarly, a lot of adults talk about the trauma they experienced at school related to maths. As I meet people and tell them I’m a maths teacher, the usual response by adults of all backgrounds and careers is “I was so bad at maths.” A lot of highly successful adults hated maths at school and still think they are bad at it.