stand it. Naturally, in these situations, teachers cannot do a good job. Think
about your teachers. Were they good or were they not?REASON 2: TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES
Many students can recall an incident in their education involving mathe-
matics where they had a traumatic experience. Were you ever called to the
blackboard to do a math problem in front of the whole classroom and were
unable to do it? Did your teacher belittle you for your inability in mathe-
matics? Were you ever punished for not doing your mathematics homework?
Sometimes teachers, parents, or tutors can make you feel stupid when you
ask questions. One such traumatic experience in a person’s life can cause that
person to fear or hate mathematics for the rest of his or her life.
One student recalled that when he was studying fractions in third grade,
the teacher picked him up by his ankles and turned him upside down to
illustrate the concept of inverting fractions!
Can you recall a traumatic event that happened to you that was related to
mathematics?REASON 3: PROLONGED ABSENCE FROM SCHOOL
Students who miss a lot of school usually fall behind in mathematics. Many
times, they fall so far behind they cannot catch up and end up failing the
course. This is because mathematics is a cumulative subject. What you learn
today you will use tomorrow. If you fail to learn a topic because you were
absent, when the time comes to use the material to learn something new, you
will be unable to do so. It’s like trying to build a second storey on a building
with a weak or inadequate first storey. It cannot be done. For example, if you
look at long division, it involves multiplication and subtraction. So if you
can’t multiply or subtract, you will not be able to do long division. All
mathematics is like this!
Think about a time when you were absent from school. Were you lost in
math class when you came back?REASON 4: POOR SELF-IMAGE
Occasionally, students with a poor self-image have difficulty with mathe-
matics. This poor self-image could have been acquired when students were
told something like this:274 SUPPLEMENT Overcoming Math Anxiety