Math is a tricky subject!
Agreed.
For me, i love Math. I love the whole set of challenges a group of numbers present before me and the personal satisfaction of cracking them and reaching the solution.
The way Math is now taught in schools is vastly different from the way i grew up learning the subject. The focus now is on making students feel comfortable with the subject and giving them the skill set. Studies have proved that there are 3 primary reasons for a child to dislike this subject.
1. The concepts are not carefully taught, rather the stress is on getting the answer.
2. There is no real life application explained to the student.
3. The parent’s attitude (primarily the mother) influences how the child approach the subject.
To elucidate my points let us start with an example. The class is of addition and and the teacher asks the students to add two numbers, the stress here is not on getting the correct answer, it is however on applying different strategies to get the answer. Of course , the answer has to be correct but the students are encouraged to attempt various ways to arrive at this answer. The 21st century classroom stresses on strategies rather than the result. When the student is called upon to explain which method has been adopted, the concepts get clearer as the teacher fine tunes and scaffolds the learning in the correct direction. Gone are the days when a simple tick beside the correct answer was enough, today the steps employed to arrive there is far more important.
As one’s child learns math in school as a parent it is highly important to bring to the child’s attention where we employ math in our real life. It could be a simple trip to the supermarket to deal with money, or just buying clothes / stitching them when we need some measurements to help us with our decision. As we involve the child it makes more sense why they should learn the subject at school, wholeheartedly.
Lastly and not the least important, mums have to show more positive attitude towards the subject. Even though statistics show mums tend to push math homework towards dads, it is best if as a mum you could just imbibe in your child some enthusiasm and positive response towards this subject. Don’t underestimate your mum power, glorify it and see your child shine.
This post is to help you with some tips to imbibe the love of math in your child and i hope i have achieved that to some extent.
pulsingthoughts 