Maths anxiety

By: Kamal Baruah

School children normally feel a lot of anxiety about their Maths paper and many dropped out of school even before matriculation. Different students possess different forms of intelligence and I wonder why there is only one Mathematics paper for all at school level, when most students have more than one forms of intelligence. Many opine that Maths is indispensable for commerce of science stream onlybut the narrower aim of teaching Maths at school is to develop useful capabilities particularly those relating to numeracy- numbers, number operations, measurements, decimal and percentage.

Parents often get upset from their little one’s bad grade on a test or a report card at primary education. The other day I had to calm down one such parent on a lighter note. Who is the Maths teacher and by the way who taught Maths at home? Parents had to take the blame for low scoring. Not every student learns in the same way, and therefore not every student can accurately demonstrate mastery of educational topics and concepts in a similar fashion.

The Maths phobia remains with this writer too and I got caught so on numerous occasions. The whole class VI was failed once in our half yearly examination except one and I was the only odd man out to qualify.  I also recollected once when our daughter was asked at school about her Maths teacher at home after scoring hundred upon hundred at Class VI. It’s the teacher from his/her experience and insights can develop a mindset for learning and understanding Maths. One just can’t find faults with those young minds. They need your support.

I was blessed to learn Mathematics only at a much later stage of my university days from the land of Ramanujan, a self-educated mathematician, who was known for his theorems that contributed significantly to understanding number series, infinite series and continued fractions. It was another Prof M Venkataraman, when I met him as our class teacher at Madurai Kamaraj University. The fascinating tale of people at the temple city Madurai was truly reminiscing in my mind.

It was in the late 90s, we had once assembled for the very first class of the day for our yearly seminar at MKU. It wasn’t like any other class room that filled with only students across India but there were defence personnel deputed by their department for MBA program. The university’s praiseworthy effort to organize all students at their campus in one dais was a remarkable coincidence. We were also shocked to see, when a PSO was guarding a Brigadier outside the class for security cover and a batman was brought for his orderly. All the students stared at the Flag Car of the one-star in shocked silence.

As we all preoccupied in the class room, it reminded us that no matter how much we learn there is always something new to be experienced. It was sharp 9 O’clock in the morning. A dhoti clad gentleman in all white outfits centered our class. It holds deep rooted significance in Tamil Nadu’s cultural fabric and is considered a symbol of timeless elegance and cultural pride. Before we guessed anything seriously, Prof chalked a cross mark on the blackboard. Someone at the backbencher spoke in a whisper – it’sRed Cross. He greeted us all with a smile and introduced himself. I’m your Maths teacher and we will learn Quantitative Methods and Statistics. So let’s try to re-memorize our basic Maths within an hour before we go for another hour of mathematical jargons.

He delivered his speech in English with a strong Tamil accent. To some Maths can be fun! To some Maths can be surprising and some Maths can be unexpected. In our daily life, we are confined ourselves with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division only. He went ahead with very general and fundamental formulas of basic Maths, simplifying equations from BODMAS Rule to fractions, percentage, formula for proportion, and expression. Maths is the science of structure, order, and relation that has evolved from basic practices of counting, measuring, and describing the shapes of objects. It deals with logical reasoning and quantitative calculation.

Though most of the students from Armed Forces had little or no experience with Maths, he used a variety of materials to inspire us that used to provide mathematical solutions for real-world problems. His focus was sharp, clear and powerful and soon he covered up all basic Maths just within an hour and we all from varying background of science, commerce, humanities and soldiers from Armed Forces were enlightened then. With his massive and relentless focus, he could complete the entire chapters in just two weeks with overall effectiveness.

So the other day I realized. It really matters, who taught you Maths at home and I could give some understanding of Maths in our daughter’s early grades for learning the fundamentals. We were jubilant over her board examination scoring 100 out of 100 in both the Maths paper. So I also did my Maths paperin one sitting. Today, computers are slowly replacing humans in experimental Mathematics. Computers can be valuable tools for helping mathematicians solve problems since it has technology such as Maple, Mathematica or Sage computing software packages on its side.

Even access to calculators in the elementary grades does not negate the need for students to develop paper-and-pencil and mental methods. Rather calculators play a key role in developing students’ fluency with numbers, operations and estimation skills, when used appropriately. Prof M Venkataraman is a credit to my Maths paper in the post graduate programme in management. It certainly helped to deepen my understanding in Maths and I regret today any Maths anxiety that I may, unwittingly, have caused.