Hey everyone! My name is Berry and I am the other half of this Xtra Fly duo!
Quick question: How many of you have had a bad experience with Math? Well you guys are not alone…My journey to loving math took me almost two decades! While in elementary school math was hit or miss with me because of my fear of getting the wrong answer.
My Childhood Experience
In most cases kids are scared of asking questions because they fear embarrassment from peers and teachers. When a kid has a hard time understanding what they are learning they can do two things: pretend they don’t need any help and try to figure it out on their own (becoming invisible to teacher) or act out and become a class clown so that the teacher isn’t focusing on their work but more so on their behavior.
I was so scared of getting help or needing help that I tried to become that invisible kid and be happy with just getting by. When I got to high school I started to gain more confidence in my math skills and felt good about learning it until I came across a teacher who changed everything. This teacher made me feel dumb for asking a question about understanding. (YES I SAID TEACHER)
As a educator now, I know that there is no such thing as a dumb question in Math… if you dont understand, it is the teacher’s job to explain in a way that helps you understand. Instead of helping me understand this teacher laughed at me and embarrassed me in front of the class. This embarrassment lasted all of high school up until college where I was afraid to ask for help. Fearing that I will be embarrassed, I tried to figure out everything on my own and that even made me switch majors in college.
My Educator Experience
Fast forward to teaching at a school… I was always afraid to teach Math to the kids even though I knew it. It was the fear of getting something wrong or teaching the kids the wrong way. While working with Liz as her parapro, I explained to her that I was uncomfortable with teaching math and from that day she made it her job to teach me how to be more confident. She started by timing me every morning with helping the kids. Every morning I was in charge of the daily math work. At first I would take 20 minutes to do work that should have only taken me 10 minutes to explain to our scholars. As I started to knock down my time week after week I started to build more confidence and Liz would let me lead math lessons and help me perfect my teaching skills by giving me feedback. She brought a love of math that I thought I would never get back honestly. Once she helped me get that confidence IT WAS UP from there.
Liz taught me that math wasn’t difficult to learn or teach as long as you got someone that’s not going to give up on you. This helped me to help our scholars and always challenge them without judgment. Our scholars’ data would go on to become the best in the school as well as shattering the district in every single category on our district test. We allowed our kids to be able to ask any questions they had because no question is dumb.
One thing I actually loved that Liz taught me was to bring the kid that is struggling to the board and allow them to grapple through the problem. In a safe classroom environment, the students will help each other and learn together. I WISH I WAS TAUGHT THE WAY THAT WE TAUGHT OUR KIDS BECAUSE MY OUTLOOK ON MATH WOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
My Advice
WE BUILD FUN IN MATH . MATH PHOBIA STARTS WITH US AS ADULTS AND IS PASSED DOWN TO OUR CHILDREN. We have to make Math fun again. YES I SAID THAT!!!!! Math can take you into many different avenues of life. The key is to make learning FUN, EXCITING, MEMORABLE, ENGAGING .
FOR ALL OF YOU WITH MATH PHOBIA PLEASE TRY NOT TEACH IT TO YOUR CHILDREN. GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO LOVE IT BEFORE YOU TEACH THEM TO DISLIKE IT….. AND TO TEACHERS, YOUR JOB IS TO EMPOWER THE YOUTH WITH KNOWLEDGE AND COURAGE AND BUILD THE CONFIDENCE IN OUR CHILDREN NOT TO TEAR IT DOWN. …TO THAT TEACHER THAT I WILL NOT NAME THAT ALSO WORKS IN MY SCHOOL DISTRICT NOW…. I FORGIVE YOU …I WILL NOT TEACH YOUR KIDS WHAT YOU HAVE TAUGHT ME.
- BERRY AKA XTRA FLY MATH GUY
