Confronting math anxiety: my experience with different teaching methods

I had no idea math anxiety was a "thing" until I read this article in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle about new research that shows it can be treated like most other phobias.  In fact, when I Googled the term 'math anxiety,' I saw dozens of links to schools, programs and techniques to deal with it. 

Just another reason I wish this knowledge, and Google, were around when I was in the 10th grade. I had been in advanced placement classes for math since the 7th grade, so when I hit 10th grade, it was time for geometry. My teacher was a stereotypical schoolmarm type; stern, never smiled, did everything by rote. In short, she intimidated me. 

Edward James Olmos as inner city math teacher, Jaime Escalante

I told my parents I was struggling with geometry, so they found me a tutor. I think her name was Mrs. Paules. She wasn't what I'd call maternal and warm, but she was nice enough, no-nonsense, direct. Because she thought geometry was simple, she made me feel at ease, and over time, I started to become less intimidated by it. I got through the year, I believe, with something like a B+ average. 

After that, I took trig in 11th grade and calc in 12th grade. I was never as naturally good at math as the top kids in the class, but I wasn't afraid of it anymore. By the time I hit my last two years of college, I was required and qualified to take two advanced calc classes. I got As in both classes, which I rarely attended. I was proud of those grades because they were better than my high school math grades, but mostly because I wasn't afraid anymore. 

The Substitute Teacher: a case study in the dramatic difference learning methods can make

Flash back to 5th or 6th grade, when I was struggling with long division. That math teacher was a nice woman but was teaching long division by "what goes in the tens column, then carry it over to the hundreds column, and the remainder becomes..." 

I was overwhelmed. I couldn't process the mechanical, confusing process she was describing. I was placed with two other "dumb" kids at a corner table for special instruction. A few days of this minor humiliation passed, but there was no breakthrough. 

Until Mrs. Beaker came along.

Ms. Beaker was not only very pretty for a teacher, but taught visually. Once she learned a few of us were struggling with long division, she seemed almost offended. "It's easy," she declared, "all you do is..." and she proceeded to go through a few problems on the blackboard in a very visual way, without all the blather about specific columns. She made it seem easy, which put me at ease. The breakthrough was instantaneous. I suddenly understood long division. My fear was gone. 

This incident made a lifelong impression on me, along with the power of teaching and learning methods tailored to the individual. I am a visual person. I learn visually. I respond better to concepts and visualization than I do pedantic methodology or explanations.

How long would have taken for me to understand long division if Mrs. Beaker hadn't come in to substitute that day? What if my parents didn't take the time or want to spend a few bucks for a few months of geometry tutoring? 

Nowadays I run my own business, and while that hardly requires complex algorithms, the math I am required to do is not a problem for me. For that, I'm grateful, and grateful to those few people in my life who helped me conquer my fear early on. I hope every kid has someone show up at the right time who not only looks out for them, but helps show them the way at those junctures in their educational journey when they need the help.