9486 in the collection
Math anxiety is contagious
Ohanian Comment: Okay, I admit it: I'm only posting this article as an excuse to post Chicago Boy's rebuttal.
And I corrected the typos in the column. Spell check doesn't help when you type "drip" for "trip" or "deep-friend" for "deep fried."
Comment by Chicago Boy.
Asinine studies
Does Broadsheet ever write articles not based on stupid academic studies that mean absolutely nothing in the real world?
Nervous female teachers may hurt girls achievement? What about no female teachers? What about no teachers? What about sucky teachers?
Achievement to do what -- go work in corporate America, where their boss can't add 2+2?
Growing up, I always heard my peers, and cynics, say that math beyond simple arithmetic is meaningless in real life. For the first time ever, I am starting to believe that. Why? Because America is run by asses, and no amount of math skills will prevent you from being fucked over by American bankers and American corporations.
These women are better off marrying rich, or learning a trade.
Here's a math problem: You just graduated from college, and owe $40,000 in student loans. Your average starting salary for your chosen major is $50k. The United States government just relaxed the H1-B requirements, and your industry's major players are outsourcing to India and China, paying 10ยข on the dollar.
Question: How fucked are you?
Do the math.
By Tracy Clark-Flory
Nervous female teachers may hurt girls' achievement
In third grade, my class would play a game where we took turns reciting multiplication tables. If no one messed up, we were promised the grand prize of a trip to the donut shop. The pressure, the prospect of depriving my entire class of deep-fried sweets, made me so nervous I once threw up in the middle of math class. Not only did I delay my classmates' chances at early-onset diabetes, but my witch of a teacher made a point of announcing in front of us all that my vomit had to be scrubbed from the floor by a crew of professional carpet cleaners. (Yes, seriously.)
I mention this personal tale for two reasons: 1. The public humiliation of my teacher (you know what they say about payback), and
2. A new study has found that female elementary school teachers' own math anxiety can be toxic to girls. I'm not sure my schoolmistress was nervous about math so much as she was evil, but, still, this study adds to a growing body of research showing that negative outside influences -- whether it's a bad teacher or sexual inequality in the culture at large -- greatly impact not only girls' attitude toward math but their performance as well.
Researchers from the University of Chicago evaluated the math anxiety of seven female teachers and tested their 117 students -- 65 girls and 52 boys -- at the beginning and end of the school year. At the start, there was no gap between the boys' and girls' math skills. At the end of the year, however, researchers found that the more anxious a female teacher was about math, the more likely girls in her class would endorse the stereotype that boys are better than girls in the subject; and, on the whole, these girls scored six points lower on the final math exam. Sian Beilock, the study's lead author, explains: "Having a highly math-anxious female teacher may push girls to confirm the stereotype that they are not as good as boys at math, which in turn, affects girls' math achievement."
The takeaway for parents and educators alike is to surround girls with math-confident women. Personally, I'll take this as a warning that I better get over my math anxiety before having a daughter, lest I create a family legacy of hurling in math class.
— Tracy Clark-Flory, with comment by Chicago Boy
Salon.com Broadsheet
2010-01-26
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2010/01/26/girls_math_anxiety/index.html?source=newsletter
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