pun

THE BAD

Here is a sad but true #MyMathStory for you:

Once upon a time, a young girl was great at math. She was in gifted and accelerated classes, loved to learn, and very confident in her abilities. This was her attitude and ability in elementary school and most of junior high school.

Then something changed.

One day in math class, she didn’t understand a concept. This was a very rare thing for her; she didn’t know how to be wrong or fail. After some deliberation, she finally got up the courage to ask her teacher for help.

His response was that she was just a stupid girl and would never be good at math.

Ouch.

Even after years of success and confidence, this one experience ruined her with math. Completely. Twenty years later, she still admittedly suffers from math anxiety, and it absolutely stunted her math growth for the rest of her schooling and beyond.

I could talk here about resilience or overcoming failure, but none of that was the case in this situation. What baffles me is that a teacher said that. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just joking, the damage was the same. Someone in a position of mentorship like this (teacher, parent, etc.) should never say something so terrible. Ever.

I wonder where he got his attitude? I wonder if it was something he developed himself, or if it was passed on to him by a previous parent or teacher. I wonder if he had females in his math teaching program in college. I wonder if he had female math teacher colleagues in his department. I wonder if he had been bested by a girl at some time. In other words, I wonder what math baggage he had personally that contributed to his belief.

Seeing him from this perspective humanizes him just a bit, doesn’t it? It’s not an excuse for bad behavior, but it might be a reason. And it might give us a clue on how to combat such beliefs.

Many stereotypes have changed over time, but others are absolutely in full force. Some are political and outright, while others are more subtle.

Here are a few unproductive stereotypes that have to be changed:

girls are bad at math
people with disabilities will never be able to do math
parents who are bad at math will have kids who are bad at math
math isn’t necessary for life
old math is better than new math
the way I learned math years ago is better than how it is taught now
you are either a math person or you aren’t
math abilities are fixed and cannot be improved
if you are good at math you are a nerd

And the list goes on.

The bottom line: part of #ChangingMathAttitudes is changing math stereotypes.

But what can we do?

THE GOOD

Since I don’t want to be all doom-and-gloom, I am excited to share something positive that actually prompted me to write this post. I was at a movie with my family, and one of the trailers before was of a story I had never heard of before. “Hidden Figures” is inspired by a true story about a woman named Katherine Johnson who quietly did the math necessary to send (and return!) the first men safely into space. Here is the trailer:

Not one to believe everything Hollywood puts out (winky face!), I did a little research to find out how accurate it is. While the plot might not be perfect, the main point seems to be legitimate. I found a great bio about her on the NASA website. Additionally, below is a little featurette documentary:

As an African American woman, she had a whole bunch of stereotypes to fight against. Why haven’t I heard about this story til now? I don’t know, but I am glad it is coming to light. I can’t wait to see the movie, and I am hoping to read the book soon. If you already have read it, please let me know what you think!

The point is that Katherine Johnson was certainly not “just a stupid girl who would never be good at math.” The teacher I talked about in the beginning must not have ever heard her story either.

Thank you, Katherine, for smashing so many stereotypes.

~~~Remember, math skills won’t improve until math attitudes do!~~~

We can make a difference. We have to make a difference. It might be in our family, it might be in our students, it might be in our community, and it might even be in ourselves.

Here’s to our efforts!

Cheers,

Adam

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Help me out! What are some other stereotypes I have missed? What are some examples you have seen? What can we do to combat them? Please share this story and post in the comments below!

Okay, okay, I couldn’t help it with that title. 🙂 Welcome to your weekly does of Math Motivation Monday!

Or, Math-i-vation Monday! (Thanks Hakan!)

I have a reputation as a math guy. I know… hard to believe. Among other things, this means that people love to share math jokes and tag me in them. I usually get a couple each week. I love it! Can a share a couple with you?

This delicious one showed up on my feed the other day. Perfect for teaching a conceptual understanding (and for the holiday season!).

This next one came through as well. I would have the students analyze it to talk about what was right and wrong about this reasoning (remember, we can celebrate mistakes and use them to get better!).

This next one is cute and can be used to teach order of operations and about politeness (who knew that math was so chivalrous!).

Here is my favorite:

cold-corner — No, but it was the right joke. I’m not trying to be obtuse about it either.

Go ahead and google “math memes” or “math jokes”… there are a million of them. I have noticed something though… Some of the jokes use math to be funny; while others make fun of math. They contribute to the cultural problem we have were it is socially acceptable and even cool to not be good at math or like it. Unfortunately, the inappropriate ones are the ones that circulate the most.

For example, this one uses math to be clever:

But this version adds a negative connotation, making fun of those that understand it:

$math-jokes$

Here is another sad one:

$common-core-math-car$

Of course, it spread like wildfire. Someone slapped some words on a picture, and it perpetuates something that is completely untrue. Math is not a scapegoat!

This next one drives me crazy. I am working on a meme to combat it (that’s a little teaser to keep you coming back!).

$satan-in-math$

But… here is one of the worst examples:

Ouch. Just ouch.

It gets more ironic. I was giving a presentation this weekend, and one teacher told me that her daughter was on a school math team, and they used this picture on their shirts.

See, that’s exactly what I am talking about. It might be funny, and in this case created a sense of belonging to those on the inside. But it created a bigger sense of exclusion for those on the outside. Only the elite few can be good at math, and those people are obviously nerds. And what does it matter, since math isn’t important anyway?

What do you think? Am I reading too much into things? Or am I right on? Do these pictures influence opinions when they spread around?

If our goal is #ChangingMathAttitudes, we have to be careful about promoting the appropriate math humor. The other stuff might be funny, but it sends the wrong message. Help me stop the spread of negative stereotypes!