You may hear these student responses in your classroom:
“I hate math!”
“I am just not good at math.”
“This is too hard.”
“This problem has too many words.”
“I didn’t do my homework because I didn’t understand any of it.”
Math can be a challenging subject for many students which can lead to math apathy. I know in my secondary math classroom, I heard all of these student comments many times throughout the years. I would have students who didn’t want to work in class or were disengaged in the class/group discussions. I had students who would quickly shut down when they encountered any math task they didn’t understand or at least thought they wouldn’t understand. There are so many student behaviors that demonstrate math apathy.
Math apathy can be defined as the feeling of disinterest or disengagement towards math.
Are students born with an aversion to math?
No! Students begin to feel and experience differences in performance and aptitude to math (or any subject area) beginning about halfway through first grade. Kindergarteners don’t feel ‘bad at math’ because they haven’t yet developed the awareness of others required for comparison and self-judgment. About the time we begin to work on fact fluency and ask students to do timed tests is when (and often why!) students begin to develop a sense of who they are as a learner of math. Students will begin to think…
“Hey, I like math and I am pretty good at it.”
“I am not very fast at math, so I must not be good at math.”
“I am lost when I do math. I hate math.”
Each year, students gain either negative or positive experiences (or both) in math that build or deflate their math identity. Parents often have an impact on their child’s math identity. Have you ever heard a parent say, “I was never good at math in school.”? They are saying this same comment to their child and that projects on the student’s math identity.
Symptoms of math apathy
When we, as humans, don’t feel confident about something we are asked to do we can demonstrate a wide variety of outward behaviors. They can include:
- Avoidance
- Frustration
- Crying
- Anger
- Requests to work alone (You don’t want any witnesses to your struggles)
- Playing the ‘class clown’ to avoid the work
- Acting out to avoid (You can’t do the work if you are removed from class)
- Quiet, passive inactivity
- Faking understanding
Depending on the student, some or all of these can be symptoms of math apathy. As educators, we often look at these as behavior issues, but there is an underlying cause for these behaviors that we must address. If we only address the symptoms and not the cause, the student can spiral downward in their self-efficacy year after year.
Empathy for Apathy
To address the underlying cause of math apathy, we must approach the students’ feelings and emotions, rather than the behaviors. Try these empathic micro moves that collectively make a major difference in students’ math identity.
- A feeling of math success is essential! Find authentic, meaningful, math successes that you can utilize to intentionally praise students. Try these!
- “I love how you stuck with that task! You truly persevered.”
- “That is such a creative way to look at that problem.”
- “I find your engagement in the math discussion today so thoughtful and helpful.”
- “Thank you for sharing your math voice today!”
- Collaboration is key! Independent math work should be limited to when a student has demonstrated understanding in their collaborative group work. When we put students in a situation where they are asked to work independently on new math content, we are setting them up for failure. We want students to share ideas and strategies about the math they are learning and discovering. Alone, math can feel too overwhelming for some students.
- Be intentional about ‘visibly random grouping’ in your classroom. (Lijedahl, 2021) When you tell students they can work together if they want to, many students who struggle with math will opt to work alone so others don’t see their struggles. When you intentionally plan the groups, students don’t have a choice but to collaborate, positively.
- Set group norms and a culture of learning where students feel they can take risks and make mistakes.
- Mistakes should be expected, respected, and inspected. Make this clear in your actions and language in the classroom. Celebrate mistakes as opportunities for learning.
- Math identity shifts take time. Students do not create a math identity overnight and it will take many positive experiences to shift a negative math identity. Be patient as the behaviors associated with negative math identity will be the last things to change. Old habits are hard to change.
- Encourage and verbally support any positive comments students make about their math efforts.
- The process is more important than the answer. If we focus our value as a math student on the right answer, we will never make positive strides. When we open up to praising ideas, strategies, and creative thinking in math, we open the door to more math success and positive math feelings.
The next time you experience negative student behavior in math class, think twice before you react to the behavior (the symptom). Instead, respond with empathy and positive, intentional math praise. There is no such thing as a ‘math person’. We all have tremendous potential to add value to any math conversation.
Research Basis
Boaler, J. (2015). Mathematical mindsets: Unleashing students’ potential through creative math, inspiring messages and innovative teaching. John Wiley & Sons.
Liljedahl, P. (2020). Building thinking classrooms in mathematics, grades K-12: 14 teaching practices for enhancing learning. Corwin press.