My Math Difficulties began with Pre-Algebra and Fractions

It was the summer before college when I had the outstrip vacation in my life. I never had enjoyed any vacation since the noncurrent years. Too bad I became so pre-occupied with weigh pleasure in this escapement that I lost my penchant for learning. Summer was fast ending and I had to pack-up hastily and drive back home. And schooldays argon coming.I tangle like a l wizardly cavalier on my colleges first gear of each math class. As everyone on the class each has varied high up school backgrounds, I found it hard to cope up with the subjects grand. I got a very failing mark on my first quiz. And worse, it went on until the end of the semester.My young freshman mind found it tough to aline to such a demanding subject. I al shipway had to sleep late at night solving problems and forgetting them when I wake up in the morning. My verbalize gaped at the sight of end little assignments and workbooks. Our teacher could see our agony, our pleading look hoping she would blow her whi stle and let us take a weaken from the work. Twenty pages of reading and a worn out pencil score out keeps me awake every night. I sweated over those small numbers higher up and below the fraction line. How could I learn all this and still crap age to watch Smallville? This wasnt a freshmans plebeian anxiety. I honestly thought I hated math. What is this subject at least? Why would I have to really put a great deal time and agony into it?Nightmares would come in numbers dancing across my room. It would molestation me just thinking about how bad my day became because of that exasperating pre-algebra exam. It would burden me down lurching on the sofa everyday when I get home. vigour had been that much de honourableizing, when the test papers were returned and what you got isnt pull down enough to thieve your aching pride, what more than to show it to your mom.A research paper, published AnnaSierpinska, GeorgeanaBobos and ChristineKnipping of Concordia University in Canada (August2007), tackles about the frustration in students of mathematical courses. Their paper summarizes the reactions of the students and instructors they interviewed. They identified legion(predicate) causes of frustration, such as the fast pace of the courses, inefficient learning strategies, the neediness to change previously acquired ways of thinking, difficult rapport with truth and cerebrate in mathematics, being forced to take PMC, insufficient academic and moral support on the part of teachers, and poor achievement (Sierpinska, Bobos and Knipping, 2007). These sources of frustration are discussed from the point of view of their impact on the quality of the mathematical association that students develop in mathematical subjects.All of us go done all of the learning stages but not always on the equivalent timetable (Hood, 1997). Sometimes, other inclinations in us, like music and arts, develop much anterior than the others and we do not fully grasp many mathematical con cepts until we guide adulthood. In our course of growing up, we learn through our environment and correspond to our level of maturity (Hood, 1997).The book Taking the Frustration out of math by Mary Hood tells us about the three plain learning styles (auditory, visual and kinesthetic). She relates them to math learning. Along her book, she reminds us that each baby is diverse and that the parent is truly the expert on his/her own youngster. If a child is not grasping a concept, she recommends putting it aside and on the job(p) on it again at a later date. Frustrating the child will only make a child hate math. good because a child should be in a particular stage, does not mean that the individual child is ready for certain concepts. Eventually, he or she will be.Some websites, such as make do with maths perplexity offers various ways on coping with math frustrations. It recommends that the primary pace is to identify that math anxiety is an emotional response. And since i t is an emotional reaction, it can be in a constructive or unconstructive way. Unconstructive ways comprises rationalization, suppression, and denial.By rationalization, we mean finding reasons why it is okay and perhaps even inevitable, and therefore justified, for you to have this reaction. By suppression is meant having awareness of the anxiety, but attempt very, very hard not to feel it. Finally, there is denial. People use this approach probably arent likely to see this essay, much less read it, for they carefully construct their lives so as to avoid all mathematics as much as possible (Coping with Math Anxiety, www.mathacademy.com/pr/ minitext/anxiety).The constructive way to manage math anxiety involves making as conscious as possible the sources of math anxiety in one own life, accepting those feelings without self-criticism, and then learning strategies for disarming math anxietys warp on ones future study of mathematics (Coping with Math Anxiety, www.mathacademy.com/pr/ minitext/anxiety).I never had much luck on my first college math subject. It took me countless sleepless nights before it dawned on me that I had much more things to prove and accomplish. One time or another, each of us will be haunted by math frustrations. We may take it as a frustration forever, or we could take it as a positive challenge to move on to much greater heights, where our prehistorical failure becomes too insignificant.ReferencesPrinted ReferencesArem, Cynthia. Conquering Math Anxiety A Self-Help Workbook. peace-loving Grove, CA Brooks/Cole Publishing, 1993.Burns, Marilyn. The I Hate Mathematics Book. Little, dark-brown Company, 1975.Buxton, Laurie. Math Panic. London Heinemann, 1991.Mary Hood, PhD 1997, Taking the Frustration Out of Math, Elijah Company, January 1, 1997Online ReferencesCoping With Math Anxiety, (www.mathacademy.com/pr/minitext/anxiety)Professors Freedmans Math Help (http//www.mathpower.com/)Soloman/Felders Learning Styles