Perception Creates It's Own Reality

A colleague read my first blog and commented to me that she too wonders what her students say about her when they are away from school. She then apologetically told me that when I taught her girls 10 years ago they didn’t have good things to say about me as their math teacher. Their negative comments about me centered on how I taught way over their heads and that they couldn’t understand me. Pre-Algebra tears (lots of tears) flowed in their household. Thinking she had just hurt my feelings, she reassured me that when her son went through my Pre-Algebra class, he only had good things to say and loved my class. He couldn’t understand why his sisters had such a fit in my class. He is now about to graduate from college with a degree in engineering. (What did I say about only nerds like math?) As we talked about her daughters experiences with math she added “…You know I was just like my daughters; I cried through my math classes…” I never would have guessed. My Colleague (not her real name) is articulate, intelligent, confident and extremely competent; I’d say the same for her daughters. Yet for them, math was something they avoided like the plague. It is a necessary evil that had to be endured solely for the purpose of graduation.

There seems to be substantial evidence that my colleague and her daughters are not alone in the active avoidance of anything math related. Many High School students elect not to take college prep mathematics even if they intend to go to college. A tremendous number of college students switch majors when confronted with the realization that their original career path has to pass through Calculus (even though there is the financial incentive that the highest paying jobs reigns on the other side of Calculus). Parents will pay tutors $25 to $50 per hour to help their children because they themselves can’t remember how to find x or even why they would even want to in the first place.

The current evidence that has my attention are the 90 grade level students I poled on the first day of class this year related their likes and dislikes: 45% hate math the most, 45% hate English the most and the rest voted for Science off the island of education. These students also overwhelmingly agreeing with the same question I poled the readers of my blog last week: Only some people really understand math. If perception creates its own reality, then the reality of many students are they are defeated by math long before they arrive in my 7th grade math class. I am not trying to pass the blame to the elementary teachers, only asserting that what I do or do not do as an instructor may only reinforce or destroy their perception about their ability to do math.

Only nerds like math and "Bless your heart" if you try and teach it to Jr High students

Most of the time, when I introduce myself as a math teacher, the response is "Oh! I was never any good at math". Or I'd get an ear full of what happened to them when they got to Geometry and it's proofs. The few exceptions are from people who turn out to be engineers, computer geeks or other math teachers. You know, the nerds. Then, when say I teach 7th graders math, I usually get the southern expression (in sympathetic tone with sideways head shake or the head slant): "Bless your heart". The southern expression, "bless your heart", you must understand, can mean just about anything from "you idiot! Can't you find any other job!" to a very sincere "Heaven help you...you poor dear". Most of the time the "Bless your heart" is understood to mean the former not the latter. Once, after introducing myself as math teacher of 7th graders (and receiving the customary "Bless your heart"), I was asked, "do you know why Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son when his son was only 7 years old?...Because if He would have waited til he was a teenager, it really would not have been considered a sacrifice."

I have been struggling with my career path for a few years. Not that I don't like teaching or teenagers...I do. What I don't like is failure. Every time in conversation someone laughs and says," I was never any good at math...and let me tell you about Mrs. Kranic, my old geometry teacher...", I feel failure. A personal failure, as if I had something to do with it. Because deep down I believe somewhere in the world I know that some of my past students are saying the same about me. "I was never any good at math and let me tell you about my 7th grade Math teacher, Mr. Bartz...."

Many teachers choose to blame the victim (student), saying "If they just would have payed attention, taken better notes, done their homework, come in for help, bless their heart, etc... they would have gotten it". I must admit that I easily resort to washing my hands of any responsibility by casting fault on the student's bad habits, but I always am left with those "damn spots" that don't come off. What am I doing wrong?

What is it about math that it seems like only a few seem to grasp? Why do so many people find great camaraderie admitting that they are math illiterate? Would these same people also freely admit that they weren't very good at reading? No, I don't think so. Being illiterate is shamefully hidden while being mathematically inept is openly laughed and joked about as if you are normal if you don't get math. After all, only the nerds like math.