No Shame!

Overseeing the Math Center this year has given me a lot of opportunities to help students when they are struggling.

I was working with one of my regular tutoring students the other day, when she became frustrated with how much she was struggling and suddenly she let out a big sigh and said, “I’ll never get this, I’m so stupid.” I stopped right then and calmly said, “I know this is hard, but you are not stupid.”

Later that same day, another student expressed her frustration at how hard the math was. She too questioned if she would ever get it. I reminded this student I told her, “I remember when we first met you were just finishing getting your GED, now look at you, you’re taking Pre-Calculus.”

I then saw an opportunity to tell all four students in the center, “Your worth is not determined by how well you do in a math class.”

There are many ways that students can shame themselves, but the most common are two “shoulds”: I should already know this, or I should learn faster.

For the first. regardless of what they “should” know, students can only know what they know. It’s important to help students let go of the judgements they have on themselves. Work with students to take pride in what they have learned, rather than focusing on what the “should” already know.

As for the later, it’s important for students to understand that learning math is a process. Most of us don’t just open a book, look at something and KNOW it, it takes time to learn. Even if we’ve forgotten what it was like learning Algebra, we can all remember the struggle to learn a mathematical concept.

For both types of students a reminder of progress is always a good thing. It’s easy to get caught up in the “shoulds” and to forget how much one has already done.

All of this can go a long way to helping a student’s self-esteem, and that can actually improve the overall academic outcome (study here). This contrasts with expecting that academic outcome will boost self-esteem.

A student’s self-worth should never be dependent on the grade they make in math class.

Show compassion for those students who are mired in self-doubts and self-loathing about how hard they are finding math class. Help refocus students on what they have done right to get where they are. Let students see that you see them as more than just their grade in your class. All this will make it, if not easier, less painful for students to learn math and make math class a less dreaded experience.

By the way: The student who said she was stupid went on to get an 80 on her test. YEAH!

I'm grateful to Yakima Valley College for the opportunity to serve as an Instructor of Mathematics.