#maths anxiety

[soclearly]

maths anxietys so fucking dumb dude. like oh nooo numbers so scary brain go blank

[vforvictoriaregina]

Story time

Ok folks, I want to tell you a Thing.

So I am a product of an all girls' school. I hated it. At first I liked the no boys thing, helped with my budding bisexuality, but I hated the one-upmanship, the bitchiness, and the splashing of wealth EVERYWHERE. I am almost certain that I wouldn't have got into that school had I not been as good at logic and English as I was, but hey. I more than made up for that in my maths. Oh god. My maths skills SUCK SO HARD, a hoover would be put to shame. They are SO BAD, i had hidden my awful arithmetic skills under knowing French (before I needed to pass exams in it), writing stories and poems constantly, being able to dance to a higher level than anyone in my peer group, and doing well at almost EVERYTHING else.

I say almost because basically, I was shit at physics (involving maths and sequencing), telling the time when not 24 hour (sometimes I still say it's 6pm when I mean 4pm, but I rarely do that now), could not do anything involving aiming (yet could somehow pull off full length classical ballet solos, different sort of coordination) and essentially, my spreadsheet skills were awful. Kids my age had been able to memorise their times tables so easily, they could rattle them off in a second. I was still counting on my fingers to add up.

In short, I had a very serious problem with maths, sequencing, timekeeping (yeah I was that irritating kid who was ALWAYS late) and anything to do with figures, and nobody had picked up on it apart from my mother. She often had me sit in the house on summer afternoons, when my sister got to go and play, and she would try and teach me how to add, subtract, multiply and divide... With little to no success. She called me lazy, avoidant, careless... I used to dread summers because I knew I would be working inside whilst all my friends were playing out.

I was avoidant. I hated numbers. They were irritating squiggles which moved on the page like bugs. I felt sick when I saw long division. I would slap my head, bang it on walls, tear my hair out and bite myself if I got it wrong. I was lazy and stupid, after all. Teachers told me so. My own mother told me so.

Fast forward to joining secondary school. I hoped maths would be better because the teachers were obviously well trained, had been to Oxford and the like, and they obviously knew how to teach maths to stupid people like me. Right?

Wrong. I'm so sorry to burst your bubble, sweetie, but no.

I had a teacher who ignored my hundred questions until I gave up and became the class clown. I wrote stories during maths lessons and handed in my homework with everything wrong, because she wouldn't teach me. We were, let me remind you, PAYING for this asshole to teach me, and instead she ignored my hand and yelled at me when I had no clue how to sequence an equation. Maths was torture all over again. I had no help and no clue what I was supposed to do.

Contrast that with my science teacher, who knew I struggled, genuinely struggled, with my physics and the equations that I had to write. She was sweet and kind, but took no shit. She knew when I was avoiding something and helped out. I spent hours wandering up to her desk to ask her to help me. She spent hours helping me. What a legend.

So then I hit GCSE years, aged 14-16. Shit hit the fan. I had a major cycle of mania then depression which was not spotted by anyone else other than my best friend, and maths wise, I had failed my SAT test (not like US SATs, you had to take these in year 6 and year nine, so at 10/11 and 13/14). My first day back into maths, I walked into the classroom and sighed. Omg. I was a failure.

The woman sitting at the desk in front of me was a LEGEND within the small school. All of five foot nothing, she had tightly curled black hair despite being a white woman, had an absolute no tolerance policy on rule breaking, was strict even in corridors and honestly? I think she invented resting bitch face. She was the Amazonian Goddess of the maths corridor. A tiny, terrifying whirlwind, she would call you out on your bullshit and you would immediately cave. She was feared.

Thing is? She saw immediately that my problems with maths were deep-seated and not because of me trying to get out of doing maths because I was lazy. She, I think, realised exactly what my issue was... And she immediately set to work to fix it.

Now let me put this another way: this tiny woman had been teaching at the school as long as anyone could remember. She had two young children and a husband, but must have started work fresh out of uni, yet she KNEW instinctively that I had a learning difficulty as regards maths. I had a maths tutor as a kid who knew I struggled and was always kind and patient, but even she didn't spot what Mrs W did. Mrs W was immediately interested in why I could produce three different answers to one equation. I can't just accept and follow maths rules: this combined with this symbol and this set of letters makes this??! Why? Explain what happens. Tell me why that is the case, break it down much smaller... And I'm there. I get you.

She did just this with me. I would explain how I got my three answers, and she would explain how I had got each one and how I could prevent this from happening again. She asked me how I remembered the steps in equations. I told her I couldn't remember which bit went where. She gave me mnemonics and new rules to remember things by. She even taught me different methods to solve things that the rest of the class did not know about.

Mrs W was an amazing teacher, but she spotted that I legitimately had something wrong with me. She knew it was the way my brain was wired, and she gave me work arounds.

About a week maybe before I was due to take my final exam, I heard excited yelling from downstairs from my mum. She was yelling for me to turn on the radio upstairs, so I did. She came dashing upstairs a few seconds later, and we listened in absolute silence to what the presenters and guests were talking about.

Someone was explaining how they had been ridiculed as a child for their horrendous maths skills, that they were always picked last for PE because of their poor aiming skills. Another said that she couldn't pull over and give directions, because even though she lived in an area for all her life, she didn't have a clue of the names of the roads. An educational psychologist then stated that these people suffered from dyscalculia, a number, pattern recognition, sequencing and processing condition. It was much like dyslexia, however it was much less widely known about, and few tests really were done when a person seemed to have the symptoms. Most people learned they had dyscalculia when being screened for certain jobs, or attending courses which required basic maths skill tests.

I froze, a feeling of joy rising up in me. Mum was also frozen and listening.

I wasn't to blame for my shitty maths skills, my horrendous sequencing or my shoddy ability to tell the time. I had something quantifiably wrong with my brain that made these skills naturally hard for me. What's more is that my mum had suffered from these things too, but to a lesser degree. My sister even suffered from them. This wasn't me being a bad person, lazy or weak: this was something that my teachers should have spotted long ago. The radio presenters went on to ask if there were any other things to note about dyscalculia, and the ed psych agreed there were. Usually, dyscalculia sufferers were strong in other subjects that involved a different part of the brain, and those subjects were often languages, creative arts and writing, some branches of science and performance-related things. I was literally bouncing up and down. That was me!!!

Mum stopped the radio when the segment was over and turned to me.

"We know what's wrong with us!!" she said.

I ached at the same time as feeling that burning joy. I had taken my first maths paper without any additional help whatsoever. That was the dreaded calculator paper, the hardest of the two. I hadn't got a clue how to answer half the paper at all, purely because my panic made me forget the rules I had been taught by a very patient Mrs W, and my saintly dad. He had taken on her mantle when she had left on sick leave, and tutored me on trains to my weekly ballet associate lessons. I had gone through the paper slowly, answered any questions I could, and gone back to try and complete it... There were still gaps. I left, hoping I hadn't failed.

My private school, who allowed extra time for dyslexia, had failed to spot the same symptoms in me because these symptoms shot off in another direction. Instead of the letters that danced, numbers did the cha cha, and I imprisoned them in squared paper to prevent errors. I was simultaneously furious and elated: yay, I have an answer to why I can't remember any number that's longer than five digits. Bollocks, I have a legit learning difficulty and nobody has thought to help or test me.

It's years later and I've talked to my therapist about this on countless occasions. She knew instantly that I had dyscalculia from me describing my symptoms. My alters who were most affected have talked about their feelings of hurt and rejection. I've talked about how angry I am with my mother for trapping me in the house to wrestle alone with squiggles on a page that wouldn't make sense and that she screamed at me when I "wouldn't focus". I couldn't focus. There was no way my brain would let me grasp the concept.

I took several things away from this whole fucking debacle, and I'm writing this now to tell you guys that if you are struggling with any of the symptoms of dyscalculia, GET HELP. You're entitled to it. If you regularly have issues remembering how to tell the time, do basic maths, can't sequence equations, have no clue how to get to a destination by road names alone (I have a wonderful sense of direction, but ask me a road name and I will stare blankly at you), or possibly be unable to aim well... Please, ask to be tested before your next set of exams. You need understanding and extra time.

The things I took away from my struggle at school were the following:

Don't sit there quiet when teachers are being assholes. Call them out. Complain to your head of year. Take it higher and complain to the headteacher. Go one step over that if none of that works, and talk to the governors instead. These people are there to teach you. If they screw up and you're still desperately trying to understand what the subject is actually about, that's on them. Not you.

Don't let anyone tell you that you're stupid or lazy if you have something that's literally wrong with you. You are working so hard to overcome whatever it is that's unwisely trying to hold you back. You're smart and creative for thinking of these badass work-arounds for your personal betterment. Freaking yes! Go you!

Team up with a mate who gets it. I had two mates who helped me when my maths teachers were at their ignorey worst. One girl practically taught me algebra in year nine (12/13). Friends are awesome, help them out with the shit they struggle with, too.

If you are being ignored in class, that's neglect by the teacher. It is their literal JOB to explain shit to you.

If you have a parent who is doing what my mum did, tell someone else about it. Honestly, it's not ok. My mum has tearfully apologised about a thousand times for the way she treated me as a kid, but I still think I should have told someone about what was happening at home. Please, don't keep it in. Tell someone.

If you can, figure your own rules out for things you find hard. I still cannot add up shopping bills to this day, so when I'm at the checkout, I guesstimate my total. I'm always right, almost down to the penny. I'm more accurate that way than if I had used addition.

Most importantly, if you meet that one special teacher... Cling to them. Mrs W was super kind and pleasant with me, very understanding, and ruled her classroom fairly. I was heartbroken when I learnt that she had left on sick leave because her cancer had returned, and after I came back from holidays that year, I learnt that she was in a hospice. She left her loving husband and two lovely children behind, and a huge imprint on my life. Rest well, Mrs W, you were one hell of a teacher.

Why did I write this?

Two days ago, I was panicking on a major scale when I realised that I had headed to the pin-only aisle and I wasn't sure at all if I had enough money on my debit card to pay for my shopping. I didn't actually have any cash on me, either. The anxiety left over from years of being told I was a stupid, lazy girl and I needed to buckle down and do my maths is still there, and it would have easily been prevented had teachers stepped up and said to my mother, who was in denial because not my kid she's good at everything so she must also be good at maths because I wasn't so she has to be...

"Yeah look, your kid is really honestly not being a dick, she's struggling badly. She honestly isn't playing up or acting stupid for attention. There's something wrong and we should test to find out just what."

Teachers: PLEASE don't ignore signs of maths distress in small children. Please. If that child over there needs to use blocks to count way past the age that they should, there may be something up. If they frown in upset when they see a sheet of mental maths, and get it all wrong despite heavy lecturing mere minutes before, there's something not right. If they seem to absorb a method then somehow use that method to get five different answers, you need to push for dyscalculia testing. I don't care if it costs money. You will be saving that child from growing up and, years later, almost having a panic attack at a shopping centre conveyor belt when they're trying to work out if they can actually pay for their food.

Please, teachers. Do the right thing and listen to the kids who are struggling with maths. It's not laziness or stupidity, the same as it isn't with dyslexia: there's something up that needs a bit of extra help, that's all.

[perfectthoe]

I have always been good at English(you cant tell by looking at my blog posts but hey this is the internet and im lazy on my phone) writing has always been my thing but I have always been scared of maths. At least I am good at one thing sigh. I am currently researching math phobia and math anxiety. everything makes so much more sense to me now. When I was younger I had shit teachers who were not always the most patient and my parents didn't help as they'd be prone to snapping at me. I was always too scared and/or embarrassed because I thought that it made me dumb. The thing is is that I KNOW that I can do maths if I am under no pressure, doing it on my own terms and if I am able to concentrate. I think my problem is that due to my fear of maths as a kid I would find ways to be able to not do maths or just no pay attention and I feel that the topics I am rusty on is making me very limited in my understanding of maths. I plan to study independently teaching myself to chill out and to actually do maths so i can fucking pass my exam in may. Anyone else suffer from this?

[mental-health-advice]

I really don't know if it been already covered, but does any of you know anything about math anxiety? My teacher said I had that problem but he didn't explain exactly what it was and it kinda intrigues but scares me at the same time since it's the first time I heard about that. Also do you have any trick that could work 100% to sleep faster? Any trick would be good to me. -H

Hey there, lovely

I’m sorry that you’vebeen having a hard time with both your maths and with sleeping, they can bothreally tricky things to deal with.

Maths anxiety is wheresomeone suffers from intense anxiety symptoms when they try to complete mathsproblems. Brain scans have shown that when someone experiences maths anxiety,they have similar brain activity to when someone with a phobia encounters theirphobia. It is thought to be similar to stage fright, and can cause a lot ofstress in people that suffer. Maths anxiety tends to normally (but not always) stemfrom a bad past experience, for example someone may have been put on the spotor embarrassed by teachers in the past. I hope that helps to explain it foryou. <3

Ok, as for sleeping, weactually have a full page on our website dedicated to this topic! :D I’ll linkthat in for you, just here. My personal advice would be meditation. I used tohave such trouble sleeping, and I absolutely hated lying in bed and having mythoughts race. Since I started mediating it has been so much easier to get offto sleep. There are even videos on YouTube which you can play to listen to asyou’re trying to go to sleep. They help to talk you down and relax, and theyhave helped me so much.

I wish you all the best,

Love Louise xox

[thisisgraeme]

NZDipALN Module 1 Content - Anxiety Caused by Learning including Maths Anxiety

NZDipALN Module 1 Content – Anxiety Caused by Learning including Maths Anxiety

Anxiety caused by learning What is stress or anxiety caused by learning?

For many of our learners, and perhaps for us as well, learning often causes stress and anxiety. This anxiety can get in the way of learning. The anxiety that many adult learners feel is rooted in fear.

This could include:

The fear of someone finding out about a particular learning disability or lack in some skill area. This…

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[kittyvonmaow]

Yeah, I'm not going to maths tomorrow. Sort out my learning support and then maybe you'll see my face.