How are your Math classes right now?

[Hana]

Mm, I was very good in math since elementary up to high school. Consistently my grades were at the least in the 90's (the one time I got a low grade in elementary in that subject my dad made me cry, let's leave it at that). I participated in MTAP a few times, and in the Australian Mathematics Competition (though tbh the best I got was what, Credit?).

I did like algebra, but geometry was quite fun. Trig was alright, but any higher math and it is just. Exhausting. As much as my dad would like me to be more like him (he's both a civil and a geodetic engineer), math is just math to me. It's not a passion of mine.

 

[unanun]

What It Feels Like to Be Bad at Math

It's surprisingly hard to write about this, even now. Mathematical failure – much like romantic failure – leaves us raw and vulnerable. It demands excuses.

I tell my story to illustrate that failure isn't about a lack of "natural intelligence," whatever that is. Instead, failure is born from a messy combination of bad circumstances: high anxiety, low motivation, gaps in background knowledge. Most of all, we fail because, when the moment comes to confront our shortcomings and open ourselves up to teachers and peers, we panic and deploy our defenses instead. For the same reason that I pushed away Topology, struggling students push me away now.

Not understanding Topology doesn't make me stupid. It makes me bad at Topology. That's a difference worth remembering, whether you're a math prodigy, a struggling student, or a teacher holding your students' sense of self-worth in the palm of your hand. Failing at math ought to be like any failure, frustrating but ultimately instructive. In the end, I'm grateful for the experience. Just as therapists must undergo therapy as part of their training, no math teacher ought to set foot near human students until they've felt the sting of mathematical failure.