Adults Transfer Math Anxiety to Kids

Adults, especially parents,  transfer many attitudes to children about learning.  Such statements as, "I've never been good at science... or "I can't do math to save my life." are quotes from this article.  Teachers are not immune to these attitudes and can have negative attitudes as well.  Perhaps you yourself may not feel very confident in performing some mathemetics procedures or understanding some math concepts, much less teach it.  This article describes math anxiety and suggests ways to overcome these feelings.......Interesting comments - don't miss them at the end of the article.

Why Kids Take On Adults' Math Anxiety. Annie Murphy. 10.21.13. Mind/Shift
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/10/why-kids-take-on-adults-math-anxiety/

What We Can Do to Reduce Math Anxiety

We've had articles about math anxiety before and now realize that reseach has discovered that math anxiety appears earlier than we thought.  This article describes math anxiety and symptoms that we can observe.  Interestingly, it is socially acceptable to say, "I'm not a math person."  Can you imagine a person saying, " I have poor literacy skills!"  Teacher behavior plays into math anxiety too and we need to provide better supports for our teachers so that math is integrated into daily routines. 
             Don't miss the video as this patient teacher works with a 7 year old who then writes an "equation" showing what she did.  Note that the teacher uses the word, "equation." and is implementing algebraic thinking with a 7 year old girl. 

Please share with your colleagues what you have done in your classes to reduce math anxiety.  Use the comments section below.

Anxiety Attack: Conquering the Fear of Math.  Dr. Rose Vukovic and Rachel Harari. 3.7.13. SchoolBook- [news, data and conversations about schools in New York City]
http://www.schoolbook.org/2013/03/07/anxiety-attack-conquering-the-fear-of-math/