I still remember in horror waking up at midnight with the nightmare of having suspended mathematics. Yes, I was a denial for mathematics and although I never got to try them, they caused me real anxiety attacks.
And I check with disgust that it still remains today “The dreaded subject” For many students. From my adult perspective I wonder the reasons why children still have problems with math and if with everything we have evolved there are no mechanisms to make mathematics affordable for our children and enjoy with them.
I have come to listen to teachers, and even parents, to justify the pressure on children to learn and be the best, and they have to get used because life is like that.
As a mother I refuse to admit it: children are children and they have to live as such. I think that what we can, and should do, is to help them with tools that can serve them for the future.
And, as Pedro López, pedagogue, teacher and director of the Liceum study center tells us, mathematics is useful for our children, as long as they know how to apply them.
This education expert gives us the clues why mathematics can be a problem and how we can make them enjoy this subject.
1. The abstract capacity has not yet been developed
Not all children reach abstract thinking at the same age. So it makes no sense that in some schools begin to teach the multiplication tables of 5 and 10, because they are easy to memorize with only five-six years.
In Babies and more 11 ideas for them to learn to multiply in a fun waySolution
The jump from the preschool stage (where teaching is tangible), to Infant, is too large and has to be done gradually, respecting its level of maturational development.
2. The mathematical basis is weak
The mathematical contents are cumulative, so you can not learn new concepts if you have not assimilated the previous ones.
Many children begin to teach multiplication when they have not yet internalized previous concepts such as the notion of quantity, the ordering of numbers or addition and therefore memorize the tables but without understanding what multiplication is.
Solution
When a child presents difficulties in the understanding of a concept, the teacher must stop to work more before moving forward because otherwise he will lose more and come to hate math.
It is something similar to what happens with music: a child can be very good at playing because he works hard and tries hard, but if he has started late with classes it is difficult for him to become professional, because he lacks the basis that other musicians have .
3. The mathematics of reality are decontextualized
Mathematics is usually presented as a set of mysterious (and difficult) rules that you have to know and that have nothing to do with real life.
The idea is also favored that if you learn the tables and solve problems in three minutes you are good at math but if you fail to do so, you are denied for this matter and you can do nothing but try to reach the minimum required.
But mathematics is a science that explains how reality works in an abstract way.
In Babies and more, seven tricks so you don't "get stuck" the multiplication table of nine Solution
In order for children and young people to learn it in an effective and fun way, it must be turned into something tangible so that they can understand it through their senses.
By creating challenges and games, they can manipulate it, solve it through calculations and logic, and thus learn, motivated and relaxed. Pedagogues and educators support that games are a fun, fun and effective way to teach children without neglecting the development of their abilities.
We must start from experimentation to arrive at theorization, instead of the other way around, which is how mathematics is usually explained in Primary or Secondary.
Pythagoras' theorem, for example, is easy to understand after a very entertaining activity that consists of making triangles with a single string with equidistant knots.
You can also take advantage of the classes to comment on historical curiosities: how the Egyptians designed exact right angles with that same technique, or how in the same way the first football fields were painted.
4. Pedagogical method without updating
There are very good math teachers, but there are also those who are reluctant: those who wanted to devote themselves to research could not and teach without motivation.
In addition, the same teaching methods of decades ago are still used. Technology is there and children like it. Why not use it?
Solution
There are many resources on the Internet and exciting books on the subject, which propose challenges on a daily basis. Or matemagia, to lose the fear of math. In fact, many magicians are mathematicians.
Nor do we need to resort to methods brought from outside, such as Kumon. The Monstessori method, for example, works very well, relating mathematics to nature, life. Because mathematics is useful for everyone and for many things. And if children discover it, they are passionate about it.
They will love knowing the formula to get out of any maze or why a tripod stays stable and if it had four legs it would fall.
Therefore, teachers should try to maintain interest and motivation with resources of different kinds: manipulatives, board or digital games, and work in groups, in pairs ...
5. Does not adapt to different learning rhythms
Each of us has different abilities, interests or abilities. Very capable people, even successful in some areas, are not at all in others.
We are born with greater capacities for some tasks and less for others, without this being an impediment to develop in several areas. It is not about becoming the best, but about enjoying learning and improving.
This should also be the case for boys and girls and not only with sports, music or art, but with so-called instrumental subjects such as mathematics.
Solution
We must know the abilities of each student, discover their interests and respect their learning pace to help them reach their maximum development.
That implies, stopping to explain what a student does not understand and develop alternatives for another to continue advancing in the subject. The same class, different rhythms, because it is impossible for all children to learn the same and at the same time.
Learning disorders
According to pedagogues of Rubio, editor of teaching books, learning mathematics requires the creation of abstract meanings, the coding and decoding of symbols and the ability to make relationships in the plane of the possible. To be able to develop these exercises successfully, children must have the appropriate neurobiological maturation that allows them to understand this subject.
This situation, unfortunately so common, has a scientific explanation: “they are associated with multiple factors and that can derive from the lack of understanding of the statements or the cognitive maturation of the child, to deficiencies in previous learning that hinders the progress of child in the field ”, the same reasons used by the pedagogue and professor Pedro López.
Professionals of the editor of educational notebooks explain to us what are the most common difficulties among primary school children and why these problems are due to the formation of children:
1. Acalculia
It is the alteration in skills and mathematical processing due to a brain injury. In this case, it is a disorder due to damage to brain tissue and not a learning difficulty.
2. Discalculia
It is a persistent learning difficulty that manifests itself with problems in understanding and performing mathematical calculations. It is not associated with any physical disorder, but occurs in children with a normal ability and depends on the obstacles encountered by the child.
3. Difficulties related to cognitive development processes
In order to understand certain mathematical concepts it is necessary for children to reach the relevant cognitive maturation. In this sense, it should be noted that each child follows their own rhythm so we must let them mature enough and not press them with contents too advanced for them.
4. Difficulties related to the structuring of mathematical experience
They are the difficulties derived from a bad understanding of previously seen concepts in this same subject. Mathematics is sequential and progressive, so make sure that all concepts are perfectly understood before moving on to more complex ones.
5. Difficulties in solving problems
Are those related to the interpretation and resolution of problems, and occurs in those children who fail in the understanding, representation and selection of operations, but not in the execution, that is, who once know what they have to do, They know how to develop the required operations.
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