Our second grade daughter came home from school one day, and uttered that dreaded phrase “I’m bad at math.”  With all of the parental compassion I could muster, I replied “then get good at it.”  My husband and I elaborated on how to “get good at it,” and decided to focus on the two things that seemed to trip her up.  We focused on: 1) Monitoring that she was taking her time and 2) Monitoring that she had checked her work.  A few days later, she came home proudly announcing “I got a hundred on my math test!”  We replied “Awesome!  Why did you get a hundred on your math test?”  She replied, “Because, I took my time!”  We continued, “And?”  “And, because, I checked my work!”  We high-fived, and continued the discussion focusing on the effectiveness of her effort toward getting good at math.  Today, our little girl is in junior high, and continues to love and excel in math.

Alright, on to the bigger issue.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that statement “I’m bad at math” from prospective teacher candidates.  Occasionally I’ll even hear that dreaded statement from practicing teachers.  I’ve even let my response slip out a few times during teacher candidate advisement meetings, “then, for the sake of your future students, get good at it.”  Their underlying assumption is that math is an entirely innate set of skills assigned at birth.  Let me share what should not be a secret.  Nobody is born being able to do long division.  Within our culture, we tend to put way too much stock in individual preferences and innate abilities.  And as long as we treat mathematics as something that is innately ascribed to a select few, then we’ll never understand the importance of our active role in the process of becoming “good at it.”  Mathematics is something that with enough effort, kids can get good at.  And, it ought to be an exploration of relevant understandings and skills that takes some effort to figure out.  We ought to teach and encourage the need for that effort.  As long as we treat mathematics as “you either have the math gene, or you don’t,” we won’t be able to support children in developing their own mathematical problem solving and reasoning skills.  Children, and the adults who teach them, need to really believe that being good at math is attainable with enough effort.  So, it really comes down to our own acquired and learned beliefs about mathematics.  Are you bad at math?  Then get good at it!

Research behind Self Efficacy and the power of placing emphasis on effort vs. innate ability is further explored in The Language-Rich Classroom, pp 70-77.

Persida and William Himmele are the authors of Total Participation Techniques: Making every student an active learner, and The Language-Rich Classroom: A research-based framework for teaching English language learners.  Both books are published through ASCD, and according to their moms, are “brilliantly written, must-have resources for every teacher.  People should totally buy at least 20 copies of each!”