Skip to main content

Mathematics and Life 31 Why do students fear maths ? 1

Why do students fear maths ? 1


Mathematics is the science of recognising, understanding, appreciating, creating and using patterns in day to day life, business, sciences, work life, technology.

Why do students fear maths ? 

Finding an all inclusive, commonly agreed answer to this question itself is a very big task which innumerable scholars, parents, researchers, teachers have been doing since time immortal and will continue to do till humanity survives. 

Within my limit of knowledge, experience, exposure, I would like to put the problem in a bigger, wider, perspective and it may some posts to answer it. My orientation will be more towards being grounded, realistic in assessing the issue as well as suggestions to solve it.

Some bigger issues I will compare the issue of school kids being unable to be good at Maths with the adults being not good at spoken, written English.

  • All wish to be good at it, but few are actually good

  • All wish to be good at it, but few are doing something about it.

  • All realise that it will be a game changer if they could do it, yet few do it

  • There is more than enough high quality free content, training, coaching available on the internet, still people pay - worse still do not learn anything even after paying. 

  • Peers, siblings, friends, parents all want me to do something about it, but no one can actually do anything about it.


Coming to being good at school mathematics, there two distinct ways to look at it. 


  1. Mathematical ability as a product We want our child to be good at maths in school tests, in showcasing fast calculations in presence of friends, relatives (the Abacus system’s core reason to exist), Once you start treating mathematical ability as a product, in a way you start treating the child as something in the market, in competition with others. Then, naturally, you want you pressurise the product to outperform others. You have to compare product features, anyhow make it the best. You start experimenting various marketing strategies, training interventions (different schools, tutors, coaching) to get the best value for your money. …..very unfortunately, just under peer pressure and or to showcase their money power, parents force kids struggling with maths till . 10th to take IIT coaching even going out of town. The Abacus business model and what it brings with it lies in this category.

  2. Mathematical ability as a process Here, due time is given to the child to internalize the process, develop the construct. If we study the actual curriculum recommended by NCERT for the formative year classes, you will find in entire year in standard I, the child is supposed to know counting till 20 only. Why ? Because she is supposed to able to develop perception, visualisation, imagination of the numbers and not just mechanically add, subtract, multiply and divide. Beyond Abacus believes firms in the process approach.


Please feel free to schedule a free consultation on your or friend’s kid mathematics level and how it can be made better ?

I also welcome and train adults wanting to revise, upskill, refresh their maths basics to teach own kids or take tutoring as a side hassel.


Message 7489447223, I will follow it. No visits needed, all online. 


Dr. Prakash Moghe

Beyond Abacus

7489447223 (WhatsApp) 

drpnmoghe@gmail.com



Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 15, 2021 at 8:23 AM

    Today's blog has given me a clear insight about the difference between the two trends. I as a child have undergone the same pressure, but as a mother, may be due to peer pressure, had been repeating same mistake. Today I realized that there could be other methods to handle thee problems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 15, 2021 at 9:43 AM

    Sir you beautifully compared and showed the difficulties faced by the children through it. From this itself everyone could understand you are an amazing mathematics teacher still now. What I could understand that for every concept there is a life situation for you to connect. In my view every maths teachers should do like this. Then the teaching learning process will be more fruitful 🥰.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr Prakash MogheFebruary 15, 2021 at 11:06 AM

      Thanks for the deep understanding of core issue, unusual for me to read. Let's interact further. Please message 7489447223 for more personal interactions

      Delete
  3. UnknownFebruary 15, 2021 at 12:33 PM

    Good morning sir,, jus before reading this blog,, I with my colleague waz discussing the same. As today it was maths preboards exam in my school... N the state of students was..... Just Blank...
    They were hopeless 😭😭😭😭.
    All rhe teachers said that they had been styding thru out the year... Then you r they not able to do the exam....
    And your blog is the answer Sir.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dr Prakash MogheFebruary 15, 2021 at 12:59 PM

      Very unfortunate, but true. Feel free to message 7489447223 to interact further

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Journey as a Maths Teacher – Part 2

  🧒 From Grade 3 to Guiding Future Teachers It gives me immense pleasure to be of some help to my younger mathematics teaching colleagues like Shruti Goel, Laly, Preeti Garg, Misha Nambiar, Rajendra Paliwal , and many others—across subjects and across schools. But things weren’t always this way. 📘 The Indore Phase – Simplicity, Struggle, and Silent Growth After leaving Mumbai in 1988, I served as a school teacher at Choithram School, Indore , till 1992. I even taught Grades 3 to 5 in a single session . Yet, the spirit was always high. I loved taking classes, creating activity sheets, and even wrote articles I mailed to U.S. education journals —long before emails were common. If there was one shortcoming I admit, it was in checking large stacks of answer books. I often rationalised, “I’m a creative person, so it’s okay.” In hindsight, it wasn’t—but the honesty helped me grow. 🔄 The Decade of Churn (1988–1997) It was a whirlwind decade. Imagine this combination: Ph.D. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mathematics and Life 1 Introduction to the article series by Beyond Abacus

Purpose of the series is to explain various basic mathematics concepts in simple language connecting concepts to examples from life,business, science, day to day life. It will be our special emphasise to develop what Dr. Prakash Moghe calls the math - language interface. That is, showing similarity between the words used in daily language and mathematics like point, ray, interest and so on......     Audience This series of posts is for everyone who wants to understand, learn, revise, apply maths concepts, formulae, and wants to develop Problem Solving Approach, critical thinking, design thinking, and mathematical thinking. Agewise , from age 6 to the time one wants to learn / revise / teach basic maths will find these posts useful in their own ways. Frequency of posts At least one post a day has been planned. Length of posts Each post will be self content, so will be long enough to elaborate the point and short enough to keep the reader engaged. The reach Each post wil...
13 comments
Read more

Mathematics and Life 87 You know maths worksheet - 3

  You know maths worksheet - 3 Answers to You know maths worksheet 2 True  2. True 3. True 4. True 5. True 6. True 7. True This was just a very basic revision of geometry terminology. Since geometry is unfortunately neglected across the nation and across the curriculum too, I have designed just a concept brushing, easy going test. Today we will discuss some questions which are a mix of basic arithmetic and basic reasoning ability A leap year comes in 4 years. True / False My friend said I have a one acre plot. Seeing me confused he elaborated, it is nearly 45,000 sq ft. Was she right ? I went shopping and saw an item labelled 2000/-. I also read it had a discount of 10% for the festive season and an additional 10% discount on that purchase as it was their Foundation day. I paid 1600/-. Was I right ? A purchased one thing in 100/-. He sold it to B for 125/-, who sold it to C for 150/-. Who made more profit A or B ? Why ? Or both made the same profit ? Five men can complete a wo...
1 comment
Read more