My Reflection on Math Myths

Here are two common myths that I have encountered as a student and a teacher and my reflections on each.

There is a “math mind” – some people have it and some don’t.

One argument that people make when they encounter difficulties in math is that they just don’t have a mind for math. People reference Dr. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences as evidence that certain people just cannot learn math. The other side of this assumption is that if a student is not skilled in math, they are better at reading and writing. As a student, I used this as an excuse to under-perform in my English classes. I did not enjoy writing, and since I was gifted in the math and sciences I assumed this was because I had a math mind and not a writing mind. It wasn’t until later that I began to develop an appreciation for other academic areas.

I had been told about the theory of multiple intelligences in high school, but I didn’t actually study them until I took an educational psychology class in college. There I learned that while we each have a dominant intelligence that we naturally gravitate toward, we are all capable of growing the other intelligences. In fact, studies have shown that as people grow older the differences between their dominant intelligences and the others become less pronounced. This is usually described as becoming more “well-rounded.”

As a teacher, I can dispel this myth by reminding my students that hard work can overcome a lot of obstacles. I can also remind them that it is important to improve on all areas of their lives, not just ones that they enjoy. Above all, pointing out the real-life applications of other content areas will provide my students with the motivation they need to improve.

Boys are naturally better at math than girls.

I grew up in a small farming community in the Midwest. We had very small class sizes (96 in my graduating class), and not everyone went to college. Quite a few of the girls in my school knew that the expectation for them was to stay in the area, get married, and start a family. Even the girls who did take the same math classes as me in my freshman and sophomore year seemed to lack ambition. The boys in these classes dominated the discussions and propelled the class forward. It wasn’t until I took calculus as a senior that I found myself in the same math class with girls who were driven to not only learn but to excel in math. This group of seven or eight girls had decided that they were going to make it out of Starke County and go on to places like Purdue, Butler, and Evansville Universities.

In college, I found myself working shoulder to shoulder with females that were much smarter than me in the fields of mathematics and science. These women made me wonder how anyone could think that boys have a natural talent for math that girls do not have. My wife, in particular, is a brilliant mathematician who has a natural intuition for the field. I now work on a staff that has an equal amount of men and women in the math department. Clearly, the difference between the women I observed during my first years of high school math and the women I worked with during my senior year and beyond can be linked to expectations and environment. The girls who felt that they could not succeed in math were acting under the presupposition that they would not need math to fulfill the expectations that had been placed on them by the environment of our small community. Those women who succeeded realized that they wanted something more out of life. They pushed through the boundaries that were set for them and succeeded in realizing their real potential. In the end, this made it abundantly clear that there are no true differences in the potential that both men and women have to excel in mathematics.

As teachers, it is our job to help all of our students realize their potential. This includes both boys and girls. I think the best way to end the perpetuation of this myth is to show our female students real examples of other women who have excelled in this academic arena. Having female teachers is not a prerequisite for this task, but it certainly does help. When my female students try to tell me that they are not as gifted in mathematics as their male counterparts, all I need do is point to the other two female instructors who teach the same thing as I do. I also try my best to create an environment where all students feel safe to speak their mind and contribute to class discussions. Many days I make an explicit point to make sure that every single student answers at least one question. This is one way that I can hold myself accountable to ensure that I am pushing my female students to succeed as much as I push the male students.