Math anxiety plagues many children.

For Xiaoxue (a pseudonym), a girl in grade two, mathematics is simply her nightmare-she shudders at the thought of taking a math class; The more carefully she listens to what the teacher says in class, the less she listens. Many times she even wants to stand up and rush out of the classroom. At night, when she is resting, terrible math still haunts her, and all kinds of exercises that she can't understand and can't do appear repeatedly in her dreams, which makes her unable to sleep well. Over time, she even had the idea of dropping out of school.

The reporter visited several large education and training institutions in Zhengzhou and found that there are still many children who are troubled by mathematics like Xiaoxue.

Yuan Zhenjun, a math teacher at Dashan Education Group, said that most children who choose to attend training classes after class have poor academic performance. "Some children don't want to learn math at school, and they are even less willing to take extra-curricular tutoring. Many of them are forced by parents. "

Zhu Yufeng, vice president and math teacher of Chen Zhong School of Mathematical Physics, has also met many children who find math difficult to learn. "Especially in the late junior high school and high school, math anxiety is more obvious."

Zhang Hengshan, deputy director of Zhengzhou Zhonghui Education Bureau and the second Zhengzhou famous teacher, also found that there are more students who are difficult to learn mathematics, and there are more girls than boys.

analyse

Boring, difficulty and teaching methods will all affect children's math scores.

Why do children find mathematics difficult, and eventually they will have anxiety or even fear about mathematics? Three teachers made an analysis based on years of teaching experience.

In terms of subject characteristics, mathematics itself is boring, unlike Chinese, history and other subjects, which are very lively and lively, which makes many children uninterested. Yuan Zhenjun said that for children, interest is the greatest. Teachers, subjects without interest, it is really not easy to learn well.

In terms of learning content, the current math class is "deep exploration". "From elementary school to junior high school, the overall difficulty of mathematics class has increased after the new curriculum reform." Zhang Hengshan said that the content of mathematics learning is more extensive than before, but the difficulty has not decreased, so some students will find it difficult to learn.

Because of well-known reasons, many parents have enrolled their children in Olympic math classes since primary school. "Let children contact advanced knowledge and knowledge that is too difficult to learn, and their cognitive ability will not be achieved, which is tantamount to pulling out the seedlings." Zhu Yufeng said. If children can't accept it, they will have anxiety and fear about mathematics.

In addition, children's poor math learning is also related to some teachers' teaching methods. Zhu Yufeng said that today's children have a wide range of knowledge. If teachers don't understand children's world and some popular online vocabulary or children's favorite new books, games and proverbs, it is difficult to communicate with them. "Let children like math, starting with liking math teachers."

cause

Poor mathematics is rooted in the foundation.

Based on the analysis of three teachers, the reporter found that in fact, the analysis comes down to a problem-the foundation of learning mathematics is not well laid.

Whether the teacher's teaching method is wrong at first, or the children are not interested in boring mathematics, or even come into contact with difficult mathematics knowledge prematurely, they are actually pushing forward step by step without laying a good foundation, and naturally they feel "hard" later.

"Learning mathematics is divided into three levels. The first is to master the basic concepts and methods of mathematics; Secondly, mathematics is a highly skilled subject, which needs to master learning skills and learn to summarize; The third is to explore and master the ideas of mathematics. " Zhu Yufeng said that most children with math anxiety didn't master it in the first stage.

Zhang Hengshan agrees with this. He believes that learning mathematics well must start from the foundation. But now many practices are just the opposite. "Simple learning is not good, complex learning is not good" directly dampens children's self-confidence and eventually develops into "math anxiety".