People say the craziest things sometimes, don’t they?
Our personal beliefs come from our life experiences and the emotions we feel during those experiences play a role in what gets cemented into our belief system. I’ve heard several mentors and coaches teach this model over the years as a repeating cycle. They all use slightly different words around it, but here’s the gist:
The circumstances around us create thoughts in our heads. We have feelings and emotions around those thoughts. Those emotions send signals to our bodies to take action. These actions bring results that create new circumstances and we begin the process all over again.
Here’s the thing, though. When we attach an emotion to a certain thought, that thought plants firmly into our belief system and influences everything we do, including how we react to a particular situation. This is one reason why when an event is witnessed by several people, each person will recall this event differently. We view our world from the lens of our own experiences. So, the crazy things we hear other people say aren’t so crazy to them. Their experiences have influenced their beliefs.
One thing I hear people say that seems a little crazy to me is, “I’m just not a math person.” Unless this is the very first time you’ve read one of my posts, you know I believe everyone is a math person. Do I mean everyone excels in math class? No. I don’t necessarily believe being a “math person” has anything to do with math class. Can you not do well in math class and still be a math person? I think so. Because to me, there are two criteria here. One – be a person, which each of us is, and two – interact with mathematical ideas, which we all do much more than we realize. If you don’t believe me, go read some of my previous posts.
The truth is, math is a skill that is learned like any other. Through time and effort and practice. If you are someone who believes you aren’t a math person, I invite you to sit with that for a minute or two and really think about why you believe it.
- Are you equating “math person” with someone who did well in math classes?
- Was there a time when you felt confident in your math abilities?
- Is there a specific memory you have that marks the beginning of your belief?
Maybe you were embarrassed in class by a comment from a classmate or teacher. Maybe you didn’t do well on tests and didn’t have someone who could help you understand your mistakes. Maybe you grew up in a household where learning math wasn’t valued or expected. Maybe you didn’t see the point and didn’t really put in the effort to learn.
I ask again, are you able to identify the point in time where this thought became a belief for you?
When I began teaching middle school, it didn’t take long for me to realize how common it is for parents to project their own beliefs and insecurities onto their children. I know I did this with my own children before I understood it was happening. As one example, telling my boys “money doesn’t grow on trees” reflected my own beliefs about money, which were absolutely influenced by my childhood experiences. I’ve learned and grown a lot since then and if I could go back and do it again, I’d be more careful with my words around the subject of money because in nearly every conversation I have with my boys, who are now well into their twenties, I hear evidence of this belief. I often wonder how their lives and mindset around the topic of money would be different if I had not projected my own beliefs onto them.
To relate this idea to math class, I sat through countless parent teacher conferences where I saw this first hand. I can’t tell you the number of times a parent would look me in the eye and say they were never good at math so they didn’t expect their child to be either.
As a side note here, this experience led me to my graduate research on the effects of parent attitudes toward math on a child’s math achievement. My study was very small, so more research is needed to be conclusive, but my findings led me to believe a correlation is possible.
Which is why I’ve included this in my list of things people say about math that seem a little crazy to me.
I know it is common to have certain skills and talents run in families. We see this in sports all the time, right? Someone pops up on a prominent college sports team and the color analyst reveals the athlete’s parents played college or professional sports. Sometimes it’s the same sport and sometimes it’s different. Generally, though, we’ve come to expect talented athletes to pass on those genes to their children. While there is something to natural talent, these kids weren’t born throwing a perfect spiral or hitting home runs. They still had to learn the skills and devote time to practice them in order to become elite athletes.
Learning math is no different than learning to shoot a free throw or swim the back stroke. While some people may seem to have an easier time learning it, the truth is everyone can learn it. If you are someone who had difficulty understanding math in school, maybe that will be true for your child, but it’s just as likely that it won’t be. And, there’s a growing body of research that shows your mindset towards math has a lot more to do with how well you do in math class than you think. Meaning, if a child grows up hearing they aren’t expected to do well in math, they probably won’t. It also means the opposite is true…if they grow up believing they can learn math with time, effort, and practice, they will probably do fairly well.
If you are someone who has thought or said …
- You aren’t a math person, and/or
- Because you aren’t a math person, you don’t believe your children will be either.
I challenge you to dig into these beliefs and ask yourself if they are really true. As I asked earlier in this episode, can you pinpoint the moment when you began to believe these things?
Building on that, can you find evidence in your daily life that you are a math person? If you have a hard time finding evidence, I invite you to explore some of my previous posts. You use your math brain way more than you realize, which means by my definition, you really are a math person.
Thank you so much for visiting today! I’m on a mission to change the way the world sees math and I can’t do it alone. So, if you enjoyed this post, please please share it with someone who needs to hear what I’ve said here. The more people who get the message, the more mindsets begin to shift and that, my friend, is how movements gain momentum. Remember, this content is also available on my podcast, I See Math People, so feel free to share that with folks who would rather listen. This post is Episode 21.
I hope I’ve given you something to think about here and I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions. You can comment below, or if you’d rather do it privately, you can message me on Instagram or ******@************pi.com“>email me directly. I am a staff of one, so I am the only one who will read and respond to your messages. Let’s continue this conversation!
I’m so excited my book is releasing this week! If you haven’t heard, I wrote a book that explains a couple of basic algebraic ideas and reveals a few ways you think algebraically as you go about your day. If you are someone who thought math was fine until the letters began showing up, Algebra is Not the Enemy is the book for you. Want to be the first to know how to get it? Head on over to onamission.bio/jennifermasonhardin and choose “I wrote a book” to be added to the waitlist. I’ll never sell your info and I promise to not flood your inbox with messages you don’t need.
Repetition is what drives things home, so before I sign off here’s what I want you to take away from this post:
- We view our world through the lens of the beliefs we have, which are a result of the thought cycle. Our beliefs may or may not represent truth.
- Your belief that you are not a math person came from somewhere. Pinpointing when and where it began and finding evidence of using math in your daily life will begin shifting this belief.
- Our own beliefs find sneaky ways to present themselves. If your child is having difficulty with math, have you been unconsciously projecting your own beliefs onto them? Encourage a growth mindset and see what shifts.
There is some food for thought today, my friend. I’ll see you soon!
