The modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Working in education gives me a lot of opportunities to meet, talk with, and learn more about students. Over the last couple of years I have seen a real trend that is disturbing. One of my colleagues compared it to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like the odious potion in the book it can literally transform students from gentle, inspiring persons into hate filled, aggressive, belligerent alter-egos. It is considered the ultimate four letter word of academia and is the most infamous curriculum ever imposed upon students. It is math.

I have heard math referred to as "the bane of [a student's] existence," "impossible," "useless," "a waste of time," and "[a student's] worst subject." When talking about math or asking why they have to take it many students are rude, angry, upset, and demanding. I know of no other topic in academia that has such a negative stigma as math. I've seen cases when students would rather wait an hour to have an opportunity to complain to someone, try to work around the system, or rant to a person then perform a simple task (such as watching a 30 minute online presentation) in relation to their math requirement. I have seen people turn from Jekyll to Hyde because of math. I want to know why!

This is a conversation I've had with one of my coworkers several times. She helps keep me grounded because we have had different experiences, have opposing views, and have different perceptions on math and math education. With that said we do agree on a variety of things relating to math (how it might be improved, difficulties in the system, etc) but we do approach it from two very different starting positions. It was she that described her own experiences as Jekyll and Hyde and found herself puzzled by the fact. I won't try to recreate our conversations here, but I do want to express some of the musings that resulted from them. The overarching question that I want to know is: Why do people hate math so much?

Is it because math is difficult? Math is an abstract concept used to describe our real world. You don't see the number three in nature, the same way you don't see the letter A going for a walk. Just as letters are used to provide a visual component to our spoken language, math is used as a medium to express real world patterns and systems. There is plenty of debate on if numbers actually exist, or if math is humans attempting to explain the universe or is it a natural part of the universe we discover, but the bottom line is that it may not be a natural way to think for many people. It is not often intuitive to think in terms of x and y. And because it is difficult to see how the quadratic equation relates to anything you deal with in daily life, many people question it's practicality. Without a clear objective use of it people lose interest, don't remember it well, and generally struggle with learning it. Yet, many people do hard things all the time and continue doing them despite them being hard. Athletes train in rough conditions, computer techs debug code to get their programs working, musicians practice long hours, artist and writers struggle through blocks of creativity. People run marathons, hike mountains, fight wars, win noble prizes, discover stars, cure plagues, go to law school. Our society holds people who overcome difficulty in high honor. Couches tell players to push past pain. Therapists tell clients to work through their problems. And heroes of all kinds tell children to reach for the stars. Yet if the difficulty is math, people are prone to give up, give in, and accept the idea that "I can't do it." So, I think we can discount it being difficult as a reason why it is so hated. Most things are difficult and we get through just fine.

Maybe it is the"impractical" nature of mathematics? As I've described above, it is not a natural way for many people to think and because you will rarely ever see a situation that calls for a logarithmic function there is little use in remembering it, even for the test you have on Friday. However, a couple of years ago a law maker in Utah argued that a liberal arts degrees was a "degree to nowhere." And thinking back on your own education when have you ever used those facts you learned about the Civil War in high school or college history? When have you ever listed the romantic era composers or painters? Since when has world geography, to quote Fred son of Fanny sister to Ebenezer, "put a scrap of money in [your] pocket?" There are many other "impractical" topics out there. In fact, if you talk to enough people you will find that every topic is impractical in one way or another, yet people have studied them for years many times without complaining, and many times while complaining, but rarely with the vim and vigor of the utter detestation that people have for math. Now I've mentioned how it is the facts that are often impractical and I stand by it, but I firmly state that the skills students learn in the classes that I disparaged above are very important. Yet, math contains both skills and facts that are relevant to everyday life. From telling time to figuring out a tip you use small math facts and skills everyday. So, not only are people studying "impractical" topics all the time, but math is more practical than many others. As Adam Savage would say, I think this one is busted.

I've heard lots of students say that they've had negative experiences with math. Generally a good health (or rather unhealthy) dose of negativity will jade most people. This is one that I can't necessarily disagree with, but I can claim that it is not also the case, nor do I believe it can be the only cause. My own experience with math in junior high is not a positive one. I failed it in seventh grade and was required by my mother to lug a math text home and new an set of problems every day before I could do anything else. An entire summer of doing pre and beginning algebra before I could enjoy the nice weather outside or books and games inside. Also, for both my seventh and eight years my calculators broke early in the school year. Any advanced computations I had to work on on paper with pencil. I went through learning my basic algebra without technical assistance. Geometry  was the same until we got to sine/cosine/tangent. I didn't have a list of ratio tables, or I'm sure I would have had to do that by hand too. Despite this, I never hated math. I hated homework, but I had to do that for all of my classes. I didn't begin to really enjoy math and become an advocate for it until college, during which ironically I never had a math class, but my negative experiences in seventh and eight grades did not cause me to despise math. Now I fully acknowledge that my experience and me as a person is far different from everyone else. Again, I do feel that a sever or series of negative experiences this may cause people to hate math. But what is it can causes many students to have those negative experiences? As part of the Jekyll and Hyde transformation many students are not hesitant to complain about math instructors. Out of all of the instructors I'm told about, math teachers rank the highest in the number and extend of "bad teachers." Not that they are the only source of negative experiences, but they appear to be a big one. Let's look at them for a second.

I think it is very clear that math teachers have an effect on whether students enjoy math or hate it. Students that enjoy math often refer to a teacher that supported and helped them through difficult parts or "made math fun." Students that turn into Mr. Hyde at the mention of math often will complain about the quality of math teaching or refer to a particular instructor as being useless, unhelpful, bad, etc. I have to point out that many students are unwilling or do not want to claim responsibility for their grades which leads to statements like "the teacher failed me" or "he teacher was bad," but I don't want to dismiss teachers and instructors that are not good teachers. While there are students that do not understand that they are required to participate in the learning process there are also teachers that do not provide the support necessary to give students a fighting chance of learning the material. My wife, Angel, who coordinates math tutors at a branch campus of the university we work for felt that the lack of support from instructors is the biggest part. A supportive instructor can help students through difficult times, find practicality and creative means within math, and tends to provide more positive experiences than negative. Angel's own experience was negative and then positive. In sixth grade she was told that she would never succeed in math and to choose something that wouldn't require it. This simply hardened her resolve to prove that teacher wrong. In junior high she had an instructor that supported her in math and helped her learn it. Since then she has completed multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations which is the math base for a degree in mechanical engineering. She loves math, even though she's always had difficulty with it. Instructors have an undeniable effect on their students.

And this leads to what I ultimately believe is the reason that math is such a hated topic. We hate it because we have been taught to hate it. One of the criticisms I've heard of an education program I once worked for was that students who dislike math went into elementary education. Those students became teachers who then went on to teach math. Because they did not like it themselves they instilled that dislike into their students. Math was a chore for them, so it because a chore for the children. etc. Also, think about the perception that people who are good at math have. They are seen as nerd, geeks, or out of touch. There are very few positive perceptions of mathematicians. Anti-social, awkward, shy, naive, unpopular, etc. Who would want to be good at math when there are very few positive role models. Even the discussion of a student having excessive negative experiences in math is a classic example of psychological conditioning. To boot you have stereotypes associated with math - "women and minority populations are bad at math," "math is hard," "math is useless," etc. Ironically, the government is clamoring for more nerds. Industry is calling for more engineers, computer programmers, scientist,  mathematicians. From what I can see, society is both begging for and discouraging people who like math. Generally it's not the same people doing both, but both messages are getting across.

I do know of groups that are doing cool things with math and science. Numberphile, ViHart, Smarter Every Day, Veritasium, Sixty Symbols, Periodic Videos, Minute Physics, Purple Math, Khan Academy and many other discuss math and science (often with the math) and show some really cool things. I'm glad these folks are out that there are resources available to help students learn. I've watched some of their videos with my children (ages 5 and 3). I think the best way to end the hate (and thus increase the "nerds") is to teach that math is not bad. Yes, it can be hard but it can also be interesting, practical, and even (heaven forbid) fun. Math is a critical skill that develops our creative and critical thinking abilities and helps us make sense of abstract and concrete ideas. Stop the negative self talk. Stop the hate. Stop the blogger from harping on this again.