Psychologists from the university of Chicago did a small study on math anxiety in elementary school students. They found out that women teachers that feel uneasy about math pass on their anxiety to their female students. It makes the girls believe that boys are supposed to be better at math, and that is why they don’t like doing it and why both the teacher and them have problems with it. It is a weird thing to think about, teacher’s problems with certain work spread onto their female students. It must be something with our hormones that makes that happen. Personally I agree that some boys understand the methods and mechanics of math better than girls, I am not sure if it only pertains to elementary students since they are just starting out with math.
-I wonder does this only pertain to female teachers and their female students in math or does it happen in other subjects with boys also?
-Do you think that you suffer from what this article is talking about?
-Do you think that this article is true, do you agree with what it is saying?
If you would like to look up this article here it is: http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20100210/Feature1.asp
6 Responses to “Do some girls really not like math or is there another cause?”
I think that this is a perfect example disproving the “glass ceiling” and that girls actually set themselves up for this kind of stuff. I think that it is not anything they have control over though. Girls’ hormones and mindsets are programmed differently than guys and are just simply more sensitive to things that don’t bother guys. I think that girls are less threatened by other subjects besides math. There are many things that girls are much more apt towards than guys are and they should focus on being successful in these avenues if they do have anxiety attacks from mathematics and such.
This is a very elaborate article regarding said math anxiety. http://smallstrokesbigoaks.com/tag/math-anxiety/
I think this whole things is because the girls in elementary school are looking for an adult figure to imitate. So when they see their teacher being insecure about what she is doing when she is at the board, they think that boys are supposed to be better at it. i also read that this same thing happens with boys but not necessarily in math. They see their male teacher struggle on a subject and imitate it. Its the same thing with girls and boys imitating paris hilton and brad pitt
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/5/1860.full
Although the results of this study sound do sound plausible, the extremely small size prevents them from being usable. 17 teachers is an extremely small number that an extremely broad generalization is being based on. Also, I think that no matter how big this study is it can never say whether female teachers cause math anxiety in female students because the vast majority of elementary school teachers are female. If math anxiety is indeed more common/severe in girls, a study such as this one can never prove whether it is caused by female teachers or is just inherently there regardless of the gender of the teacher.
Another reason I’m skeptical of the results of this study because in the CHS pre=calc and calculus classes, the number of girls is equal to or exceeds the number of boys.
I thought this was pretty interesting. I think its peculiar that female teachers have anxiety towards teaching math, but not only that, but it’s passed on to other female students. Although, this article made me appreciate that I’ve had a male teacher for learning math for the majority of my education. Although, not so much in elementary school, which is a little concerning. I also thought it was weird that this effects such a narrow group of people. I was researching this, and I found some really interesting findings. There was a study done that involved 17 female teachers, and by the time the year was over, the girls had scored lower than the boys. It also talked about whether the girls believe the stereotype that boys are better than girls in math. Those who believe this, scored even lower than the girls who didn’t believe it. So yeah, I think I do agree with this article. It makes sense that a female teacher’s anxiety about math would be passed on to her fellow female students.
This is one of the coolest discoveries ever, i mean not many people find it too fun to do math equations, for some people its a dream come true but for most of the population, math is ridiculous beyond 3rd grade when you learn how to multiply. A teachers reaction to something always effects the students they are teaching, but for math i think its just something not too many people like, because its probably one of the most boring things for people to do.