"I Can't Do Math"

I was at an Education Tech conference recently, and one of the over-riding themes was "Growth Mindset" - the idea that there is not necessarily a unicorn skill that is needed to be successful with Mathematics (or anything). A special skill may be needed to be really great at it...but anyone can learn what they need to in order to have some level of proficiency.

I experienced this with a particular student that I was tutoring. His first statement to me was, "I can't do math." I said, "Can you tie your shoes?" "Yes." "Then I can teach you how to do math...and I can teach you how to teach yourself how to do math." He eventually became an A student. It wasn't a difficult math class...he wasn't advanced by any stretch. But the ability to learn the necessary processes really isn't that difficult.

The very first step is to take away the safety blanket of "I CAN'T DO THIS." So...if you ever catch yourself saying to your children, "I'm not good at math." please know that what you've just done is given them permission to not even try.

Submitted July 13, 2019 at 08:53AM by MojoX https://ift.tt/2NUAqij