Anxiety

Let’s talk about Math Anxiety

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    • #12135
      Sinbi Kim
      Participant

        Let me talk about math anxiety

         

        Today, I brought an interesting topic for all of us regardless of our age.

         

        Math anxiety has been defined as feelings of apprehension and increased physiological reactivity when individuals deal with math.

         

        “If you have math anxiety, that means you are bad at math.” This isn’t necessarily true! Some people are not able to show their full competency, because they are anxious about it.

         

        I personally could relate to this, since I am also extra nervous about math. Even if I knew the concept already, I would forget about it and mess up my exam.

         

        Especially, being good at math defines my intellect in my culture. I was expected to perform well in math.

         

        But remember, having the right mindset can control our math anxiety. Believe that you are capable of change and improvement. This is a psychological principle called the “growth mindset”. If you know that you can grow, this can actually help you grow.

         

        Lastly, it is also fine if you are not the greatest at math. It is undeniably true that mathematics is important in our life. However, math is not the standard to evaluate someone’s wisdom.  

        Anxiety disorder is one of the most widespread mental health issues worldwide.  In an educational setting, individuals may suffer from specific forms of test and performance anxiety. Among them, math anxiety is the most prominent one. Math anxiety is more than just feeling nervous about doing math. Nervousness is a sensible reaction to a dreadful situation. In contrast, being anxious might not make sense at all. Usually, people who have math anxiety believe that they are bad at math and because of this, they do not like math. People may believe that they’re anxious about math because they’re incompetent.

      • #12185
        Aimee Buchanan
        Participant

          Thank you for sharing this! I think it’s so important for students to realize the difference between math anxiety and being bad at math. Often times students interpret their anxiety as incompetence which isn’t necessarily the case. Self-esteem is crucial in child development, so we need to do everything we can to make sure that kids feel sure of themselves and their abilities.

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