Thursday, October 1, 2015
Symptoms of Math Anxiety
In the article, "Symptoms of Math Anxiety" by Shelia Tobias, she discusses the different causes of math anxiety. She also goes further into her discussion by using evidence from graduate students to help support her argument. One of the graduate students she discuss, finds his mistakes "interesting" because they are a "window into (his) thinking". Through my personal experiences, I am able to relate to this student because I find that mistakes made are a great learning tool that helps build my understanding of my own abilities. It will also show me where I went wrong so I can try to better understand the correct path I need to take to get to the solution. Even though this section is only on mathematics, I feel as though I am able to connect this passage to other subjects such as chemistry, biology, and even English. "... the only was we know how to respond to our failure to understand a difficult concept is to quit."( Tobias 152) I find this line misleading because it is encouraging people to take the easy road when something becomes to difficult to understand, I would prefer to ask question and work hard to achieve the understand I need to succeed in the material at hand. I have always been told that the only dumb question, is the question that is never asked. This has been a way for me to feel ore confident about the material because chances are, another person in the class will have the same question, which is another reason to not quit.
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I agree with you that one should ask questions and work hard to understand the material. I took " the only was we know how to respond to our failure to understand a difficult concept is to quit."( Tobias 152) differently. I think he is trying to explain from the view point of the person that is trying to rationalize why it is okay to quit. He is saying that this is what the person is thinking after years of reinforcement that they are not bright enough to understand mathematics. It has finally came to the point where there is no "faking it", they aren't smart enough, they aren't mathematically gifted, so they quit. They quit because this is how the feel, even though they are most likely wrong.
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