Do you have a vivid memory from math class? One that has stuck with you for years.
There are a handful of distinct memories I have from when I was in the third grade. I loved my teacher…truth be told, I loved all my teachers except a couple from high school…and I loved school. Yes, I was that kid. A first born rule follower who loved to learn new things and was good at nearly everything I tried. School, sports, music, art…lots of things came fairly easily to me and I truly enjoyed it all. Well, except cheerleading. I tried that for one season and it was not for me.
Back to the third grade, and the point of this story. One of the most vivid memories I have from that year happened during math class. There were several calculation type problems written on the board and we were to copy everything exactly as it was written and perform the calculations. When we finished, we had to take our paper up to the teacher’s desk. I don’t remember exactly what the “rules” were, but at the very least, the first one to complete the assignment would get a sticker.
If you know anything about the 80’s, stickers were a thing. Everyone I knew had a “sticker” book full of pages where we organized all the stickers we collected. We had fuzzy stickers, scratch and sniff stickers, animal stickers, heart stickers, puffy stickers…it was a big deal to add to your sticker collection.
One thing you should know about me is that because things seemed to come pretty easily to me, I was VERY confident in my ability to do math. I learned much later, what I was really good at all those years was quickly recalling all the things I memorized and that day in third grade math class I was on fire. I raced through the copying down part…in my nearly perfect handwriting, by the way, and I quickly calculated all the answers. Not only did I have a perfect paper, but I was the first one finished, too. I ran up to the teacher’s desk just knowing I was getting a sticker.
Here’s where the story gets interesting. The teacher took one look at my paper and handed it right back to me. Turns out, I failed to write the PROBLEM NUMBERS on my paper and that was apparently in direct violation of the assignment. So back to my desk I went to add the problem numbers. Of course, as you can probably guess, by the time I finished, I had lost my status as being first.
{As I was thinking through this story, it occurred to me this might be the origin of one of the traits I have so often displayed on resumes and job applications…detail oriented. Maybe that’s something I need to contemplate for a bit.}
Anyway, as you can imagine, I was devastated. So much so that I still think of that memory on a fairly regular basis, even 40 some years later.
What does this trip down memory lane have to do with you? It might not be what you’re thinking.
If your belief that you are not a “math person” stems from the fact you are not fast at calculations or solving problems, I have good news for you.
Speed is not a qualification for being good at math.
Does it help conserve brain power if you can recall math facts quickly when you need them? Yes. Does it mean you aren’t good at math if you count on your fingers instead? Absolutely not. In fact, as someone who has spent more than 30 years teaching and tutoring math students of all ages, and I mean all…from 4 to 74…I still count on my fingers in certain situations.
So many of us were led to believe being speedy in math class is equivalent to being good at math and that is just not true. As I mentioned earlier, I was pretty fast at math, especially in elementary and junior high, but what I was really good at was recalling those math facts and recalling procedures that led me to correct answers. True, I am by nature a problem solver and I’m good at figuring things out, but when I got to college I was confused as to why I no longer was at the top of the class with my math grades. I didn’t connect the dots until l began teaching math to middle schoolers. I would be in the middle of teaching a lesson when I started to wonder why something worked the way it did. Those experiences of thinking through the why…mostly because I needed to find other ways to reach certain students…led me to truly appreciating how mathematical concepts are related to each other and where certain formulas and ideas come from. It also made me realize that the way I learned math wasn’t necessarily the best way or the right way.
For all those years learning math in school, I had missed out on important connections. This was most likely because my teachers weren’t focused on them…yours may not have been either. The main thing I remember about math class is learning HOW to do something. We were focused on procedures. When I work with adult students now who say it’s been a long time and they don’t remember HOW to do something, I know they probably weren’t taught those connections either. If you truly understand a concept, you can always work your way to a solution, even if you don’t remember the exact way you were taught to solve it.
As a math teacher, I grew to focus on the process of solving problems as opposed to procedures. Don’t get me wrong here. Procedures…the steps and the how…are an important piece. We can only make “legal” moves that follow the rules of math. The truth is there is not just one correct way to solve a problem. Just like there are often multiple ways to drive from point a to point b, there are usually many ways to to think about a problem and to arrive at a correct solution. It’s the process of thinking through the problem and finding your path to the solution that’s really important. Are some paths more direct and efficient than others? Of course. Just like there are shortcuts when driving somewhere, there are ideas or procedures that can get you to a solution more quickly. The thing is, though, these shortcuts often undermine true understanding and just because you know about and use a shortcut doesn’t mean you really understand what’s happening in the problem.
I could give a ton of examples to illustrate this, but that would distract from the point of this post. Which is,
being fast at math doesn’t make you good at it, no matter what you experienced as a math student in the past.
So, the next time you are tempted to say “I’m just not good at math,” I challenge you to take a step back to think about what you really mean by that statement and where that belief comes from. Is it because you weren’t fast? Is it because you didn’t easily remember steps out of context? Is it because you didn’t get what you considered to be good grades? None of these are requirements for being good at math.
You use math every day.
You think mathematically every day.
These are facts that serve as evidence that you are a math person.
Challenging that thought is the first step to shifting your mindset around math and your relationship with math. The more you do this, the more your brain will rewire itself so that you can see yourself as the math person you really are.
I would love nothing more than to continue this conversation! I imagine this episode brought up some interesting thoughts and questions, so send them to me by commenting below, messaging me on Instagram, or ******@************pi.com“>emailing me. It’s really just me on the other side of it all, and I truly can’t wait to hear from you.
One more thing:
If you are someone who felt great about math until you started seeing letters mixed up with your numbers, you might be interested in my book “Algebra is Not the Enemy.” It launches October 1 (2025) and is a must for anyone who’d like to clear up some confusion and learn a few ways algebraic thinking shows up in daily life…even when you aren’t aware it’s there. If you’d like to be the first to know when it’s available, head on over to onamission.bio/jennifermasonhardin and choose “I wrote a book!” to get on the list.
