REASON 1: "The Most Important Learning State Is Often Absent."

"The teacher pretended that algebra was a perfectly natural affair, to be taken for granted, whereas I didn't even know what numbers were. Mathematics classes became sheer terror and torture to me.
I was so intimidated by my incomprehension that I did not dare to ask any questions."

Carl Gustav Jung: 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of Analytical Psychology. (Source: Wikpedia)

Young children are natural learners. They are genetically programmed to learn.
Here’s how Alison Gobnik, Ph.D, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Ph.D, and Patricia K. Kuhl, Ph. D, describe a baby’s capacity for learning.

"Walk upstairs, open the door gently, and look in the crib. What do you see? Most of us see a picture of innocence and helplessness, a clean slate. But, in fact, what we see in the crib is the greatest mind that has ever existed, the most powerful learning machine in the universe."

From "The Scientist in the Crib"

Why is it then that at some point in the not too distant future many parents throw their hands up in despair and wonder, "Whatever happened to that happy child who couldn’t wait to get to school?"

Now every day is a battle. Headaches, sickness, tantrums, tears . . . there just has to be a reason. Could it be bullying . . . school phobia . . . a personality clash with the teacher? It’s possible but it’s just as possible it could be a subject your child is desperately trying to avoid. A subject that invokes anxiety and fear and can produce a physical reaction that is very real.

It might be something you suffered from yourself, something you still feel guilty and ashamed of! That’s right . . . the math lesson.

The comments below were taken from recent posts on myLot.com in response to the question, "Ever had a most hated subject when you were in school?" They were representative of 70% of the responses.

"I despised math of any kind. To me it was like trying to learn another language...all of it. I still hate it! Anything involving math makes my head hurt."

"I hated math. It was horrible. And the teachers . . . couldn't explain it very well because they didn't understand why we don't understand!"

"I thought it was the most boring and confusing subject . . . That would be my idea of hell having to sit through math classes!"

Twenty years from now will your child be posting comments like these on some website blog? By then the damage will have been done.

So, what do you need to do to ensure your child is not intimidated and terrorized to the point where he is actually afraid to ask a question?
Apparently Einstein’s mother never asked him what he learnt in school only what questions he asked. When a child is too intimidated or embarrassed to ask a question then there is a serious problem somewhere that needs to be addressed urgently.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next