Ways to Combat ‘Math Hate’ in Your Students

Michelle Russell recently wrote an article for MiddleWeb called "When 'Math Hate' Curbs Your Teacher Enthusiasm." In it, she addresses the toll it can take on a math teacher to feel that their students "hate" math and are not engaged in what she's trying to teach them. She writes, "The negativity doesn’t stop with students either. Many times when calling home to a parent, I hear exactly the same thing. And sadly, even when talking to other teachers it’s not uncommon to hear 'math bashing.'"

It's tragic that so many people—children and adults alike—feel comfortable identifying themselves as "bad at math."

She offers some good advice for teachers to overcome these kinds of negative attitudes towards math, including:

"See past what the students are saying and understand why they are saying it. I think a lot of students say they don’t like math because they are struggling..."

"Attend professional development that you personally find exciting, interesting, and worthwhile. Recently, I was lucky enough to be able to attend a three-day professional development experience with other math teachers. I left feeling re-energized and excited after spending so much quality time with other teachers who absolutely get it."
 

Helping students embrace mathematics

We’ve got some additional strategies to share for getting your students beyond 'math hate.'

1. Hook them into a task right away. All of our lessons open with an engaging activity that hooks students into the lesson. (Check them out here.) You might give them a challenge with manipulatives to help them understand the concept before getting into the math. You could even fire up Which One Doesn't Belong? and get them talking about math in a low stakes way. Open Middle is another great resource for activities like these.
    
2. Help them change their mindset. Have you ever heard someone say this to a student? “You were the first one done with that; you are so smart!” If we praise students for speed or making things look easy, then the message we are sending them is: I’m only smart when I’m fast or when something is easy. What if we changed our praise to focus more on effort and making hard things fun and less high stakes?
   
   Cassie Martin-Reynolds, our Regional Director of Professional Learning, says, "My daughter recently moved up to a more challenging gymnastics class and many of the things she’s now attempting in the class are way more difficult than what she’s used to. At the end of class, I asked her, 'How was it?' She said, 'It was a FUN hard.' I smiled and immediately thought to myself, How do we make math class a FUN hard?"
    
3. Get their parents involved in a positive way. We previously shared 4 surefire ways to get parents to the math table. When parents have the right attitude about math learning, children pick up on that attitude and get the support they need outside of the classroom.

We hope this helps. Now go forth and spread that math love far and wide!