University of Waikato

Faculty of Education

Curriculum Development in Mathematics, Science, and Technology TEMS320-12B

Assignment 2: Investigating an issue in a critical manner.

Investigative Question: How might I recognise mathematics anxiety and what might I do to to allay it?

So, why did I choose to research the murky realms of Maths Anxiety?  For me, as a pre-service teacher in my final year of tertiary study, the reasons are twofold. The first is for purely personal reasons. My eldest son will soon be 16 years old, and from a very young age it became obvious that he had difficulties with mathematics. He quickly realised that he was 'failing', and it appeared that no matter how hard he tried the gulf continued to widen. Here, it would be remiss of me to note that as a father who had always found maths easy, I had high expectations that he would have the same innate ability...so naturally, we (I) pushed harder because it was "obvious" that he just wasn't trying! How could he not get maths? It was simple. 

As his school life continued, our son developed what we called a phobia of maths. When still young, any school work that looked or even sounded like maths resulted in an almost palpable physical reaction...fight or flight! This slowly progressed to the point where, as a coping mechanism, when the word maths was mentioned you could hear the shutters being slammed down...followed by a raft of avoidance and deflection strategies. Unfortunately, as parents we, at times, were not as understanding as we could/should have been, and this only exacerbated matters. However, this wasn't helped by the common school of thought that prevailed at the time which situated maths anxiety as an urban myth used as a cop out strategy to explain away laziness or stupidity!

The first reason for wanting to take this exploration is obviously very personal and somewhat cathartic, and it is embedded within the second. As a beginning teacher next year, I want to be in a position where I can readily identify what maths anxiety looks like, what the risk factors are, and how to help allay the effects of it for students in my classroom. I want all my students to face maths without fear -and perhaps with excitement in its stead- so they can all achieve to their true potential.

An Epilogue: My son has made amazing progress of late. Though he will never sleep with his maths book under his pillow, or obtain a doctorate in applied mathematics, he is achieving (in what is an important academic year) through hard work, perseverance, and a little bit more patience and understanding.