Topics: Education, Broadsheet, Life News
In third grade, my class would play a game where we took turns reciting multiplication tables. If no one messed up, we were promised the grand prize of a trip to the donut shop. The pressure, the prospect of depriving my entire class of deep-friend sweets, made me so nervous I once threw up in the middle of math class. Not only did I delay my classmates’ chances at early-onset diabetes, but my witch of a teacher made a point of announcing in front of us all that my vomit had to be scrubbed from the floor by a crew of professional carpet cleaners. (Yes, seriously.)
I mention this personal tale for two reasons: 1.) The public humiliation of my teacher (you know what they say about payback), and 2.) A new study has found that female elementary school teachers’ own math anxiety can be toxic to girls. I’m not sure my schoolmistress was nervous about math so much as she was evil, but, still, this study adds to a growing body of research showing that negative outside influences — whether it’s a bad teacher or sexual inequality in the culture at large – greatly impact not only girls’ attitude toward math but their performance as well.
Read it on Salon
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