Sometimes I meet a new student who is not confident in their abilities, and sometimes they tell me that they are “not good at math.” If I ask them what they mean by that, they usually cannot pinpoint a specific “thing” that they don’t know, but if we dig a little bit, it usually stems from an experience early-on in their learning journey that turned them off to math. Maybe a basic key concept wasn’t explained fully to them, or maybe they needed it explained a bit differently from how it was taught in class. This tends to be the root of most “not good at math” issues. Some piece of basic information was missed along the way, and when the teacher threw the next concept at the students, they were unprepared because they didn’t fully understand the previous idea. From there, it usually snowballs into more confusion, frustration, shame, and finally hatred. These students tend to dislike math because it brings up painful and embarrassing memories for them. And, understandably, when a person dislikes an activity, they are less likely to practice it.
It’s like me and football.
When I was younger, maybe around eleven years old, I had no interest in sports. I found myself, however, in sweatpants and a tee-shirt whose silkscreen read “YMCA Youth Flag Football” on Saturday mornings. My parents insisted that I should try everything once, and they were right. The problem I ran into was that I was not a strong kid, so when I got tackled (yes, tackled in flag football) and coaches looked the other way, allowing it to continue, it hurt me––physically and emotionally. While my skin got thicker over the years, I still never forgot the bad experience I had in flag football. More importantly, I remembered that I had had a bad experience, and that made me not want to do it anymore.
If someone were to ask me if I am good at football, I would have to say no. The reason is obvious. I stopped caring about it years ago, so I didn’t do it after that. I don’t practice my football skills, so I’m not likely going to get any better at it. If I were to practice, I would likely get better.
The same is true when a student feels that they are not good at math. They might have had an unfavorable experience with it in the past, so they feel discouraged. They then don’t practice it as much as someone who likes it. And, as we all know, the way to get better at something like math or sports or a musical instrument is to practice, practice, practice!
When a student tells me that they are “bad at math,” I ask them how many hours per week they usually spend practicing it. The answer is usually very low, and most of the time, it’s “zero.” My response is simple: “How can you expect to be good at something without practicing it? It’s not that you are destined to be forever bad at it; it’s that you need better instruction and more practice!”