So what are the origins of our Maths Anxieties?

Firstly, A brief history about the origins of modern Math Phobia and Anxiety.

Rene Descarte’s (1596 - 1650) “mathematically deduced method”,  ( you may know 'I think, therefore I am') drew from a Rationalist  Socratic/Platonist  view, in which numbers are proof of facts beyond what humans can claim to ‘know’ by our sensations alone. In other words, numbers are true and impossible to deny, whether you like it or not. This Rationalist epistemology  sought to establish ‘what can I know?’  inferred that if 'God is in the details',  a God-sanctioned morality logically exists as well.  

This is the 'dominant' view.

However, a contrary empiricist ‘Fallibilist’ tradition  which  suggests started with Xenophanes of Colophon,  also ran parallel to the Socratic one, (perhaps even predating it by two hundred years):

Certain truth [about God or the world] has not and cannot be attained by any man; for even if he should fully succeed in saying what is true, he himself could not know it was so (Xenophanes, Fragment 34: (Glaserfield,1998. p.26).

This view indicates that 'truth' is not God-given, but is man-made according to how we perceive the world. That means that morality is not fixed, but is manufactured, and changeable.

The dominant view of maths represents it as  decontextualised abstractions which are 'neutral' and 'above' everyday 'manufactured' ideas.. In adult education this ‘neutral’ mathematics education and discourse continues to affect student and educator  identity. Some would argue it does so in a negative 'alienating' way.

Descarte’s  Method  was just one of the Enlightenment’s contribution to modern mathematics.  It is  considered that his  tradition of scientism  continued into the late Nineteenth Century. Educators employed the kinds of  ‘alienating’ pedagogies that were considered suitable for to educating the masses.  The so-called  'Absolutist'  tradition was further codified. As Traidaffilos (1998) states:

Platonism, on one hand, dissociated mathematics from its profane origins. Formalism, on             the other, alienated mathematicians from their cultural attachment to the socio-historical process, since they claimed exclusive custody of mathematical culture and its becoming (p. 23).

Although later in the twentieth century Behaviourism, cognitivism and Social Learning Theories cultivated interactivism, sociolinguistic theory and constructivism  even under the “New Maths’ system, mathematics education remained deeply invested in scientism and ‘reification‘ (ie making knowledge obscure to the uninitiated).

Mathematics as a discipline emerged in isolation from other curriculum areas, and this affected learner identities, but in particular in their views about how 'good' they were at mathematics. Consequently, many adult learners  consider mathematics as a commodified and isolating 'discipline', having little to do with their personal lives or having much relevance to the social practices they engage in.

When an adult learner engages in mathematics, ie at the ATM, parking the car, doing tax-returns, calculating discounts, doing DIY, etc, they don't see that as 'Maths'.  They can do 'Maths' but don't see it as such. Adults have been brainwashed into thinking that 'Maths'  exists only in the classroom, and is something that ordinary folk are barred from participating in.

If that sounds anything like you, and your relationship with maths - you can see how it all began, generations before you were born!

Neoumeracy - The Origins of Math Culture

Is it reasonable to suggest that adult mathematics education has always been a cultural activity that involves relationships between the ideological views of both ‘educator’ and ‘educated’? If so, it would be worthwhile to investigate the nature of the culture and conversations we use in contemporary mathematics education, and how we got here. 

Evaluations of mathematics parallel historical development describe how Absolutism evolved to inform ‘Modern’ mathematics  alongside Fallibilism which informed a Radical Constructivist Tradition. From the latter emerged Post-modernism,  and Poststructuralism. 

By considering the epistemological origins of these mathematics ‘cultures’, and by exploring how mathematics education has evolved, we can locate different theories and models  as they have emerged and often merged within and across paradigms, and how discourse has featured in them. While considering adult student and educator identity, and the enduring plasticity and power of ‘Mathematisation’ (Triadaffilidis, 1998) as a dialogic presence in contemporary adult education discourse, opportunities may arise to outline some impacts of these parallel traditions on educator and learner identity, as they influence adult mathematics education in contemporary settings.

Triadaffilidis, T. A. (1998). Dominant epistemologies in mathematics education: For the learning of mathematics, 18:2. 21-27.

Math anxiety, phobia and Neo numeracy

This is the first of twelve posts about 'neo numeracy'. I make no apology for borrowing or making up a phrase like this. I'd like to outline what I think it is, and if you have any views, about it please feel free to add them.

In my own view,  Neo numeracy describes an approach to numeracy teaching and learning specifically for adults. However, it integrates and acknowledges the presence of 'real life' numeracy practices and mathematics in peoples' lives and acknowledges (as do our approaches to neo literacy)  the characteristics of adult learners as  described by Knowles.

If we consider how numeracy features in an adult's life and how its processes can be overlooked or subverted by adult teaching we can perhaps describe numeracy teaching, (in some cases) as a protracted  subjugation of adult knowledge beneath the technical requirements that 'mathematics' enforce.

This can result in a re-emergence of maths anxiety and math phobia that often afflicts young people, and cause a raft of hidden excitements and hyper-arousals to rise to the fore.

I invite anyone who desires to add their own observations about this - have you experienced 'maths-Anxiety' or 'Math phobia'?

In your opinion, where did it start?

An how might an adult educator accommodate this and reduce the anxiety and fear in their practices?

To Summarise

There are several converging situations and contexts informing this series of posts.

In the first instance it promotes a view that definitions of literacy itself is a multiliterate concept.

It invites us to reconsider preconceived ideas about what ‘Literacy’ is. Often, educators are encouraged to bring their focus to ‘teaching’ literacy as if it is a form of subject or content or a learning outcome in itself.

We are encouraged to consider our andragogical approaches and consider how our attitudes towards the  ‘teaching’ of literacy are sometimes subverted by such preconceived ideas.

It promotes a critically reflective stance about literacy. A fundamental here is that the ‘critical reflection’ involved is not a means to assert the educator’s narrow views and that literacy is not a vehicle for promoting a philosophical agenda.

The crucial difference is that the critical reflection is centred around diagnoses, not prescriptions. The idea being that both student and educator engage in enquiry-based dialogue about literacy as it features in their learning, in their situations and in their lives.

The Rise of Enquiry-Based Approaches to Literacy Embedding

To elicit “What kinds of  skills and functions occur within a literacy environment?” Requires that dialogue is encountered as a series of enquiries. For example, Read with Understanding can be broken down into vocabulary, language and text features, comprehension, amongst others.  This does not mean that to evidence the presence of vocabulary requres it be taught as the sole purpose of the session.

As far as literacy embedding is concerned, it may be suprising to know that every eductor is actually doing this, everyday. However, the challenge is to encouraging shared acknowledgment of this between educator and student, and provide evidence of this.

“What do you want us to say?”

This Enquiry-Based Approach to Literacy Embedding, began as an Action Research Project to evaluate learners’ relationships with text, and formulate some resources and stragegies to encourage a series of epiphanies for my students.  I thought I could unlock critical thinking for them, and all could need do would be to stand back, and marvel as students, previously trapped in their own narrow parameters would suddenly ‘see’ things in texts that had been previously denied them, courtesy of the gift of ‘Reading Critically’.

The only one who expereinced anything like an epiphany was me, the educator, when one student asked: “What do you want us to say?”.  Upon reflection, I considered how presumptious I has been; not only had I assumed I could promote my values into my students, but I had falsely assumed that ‘Reading Critically’ could  liberate, cogniscentize and empower them in one fell swoop. All I succeeded in doing was exemplifying the worst consequences of deficit-based education, and expose not only my andragogical shortcomings, but also my students’ literacy boundaries in a public forum. 

What is literacy embedding?

In light of the different literacy elements which appear to compete for educator attention, and do so at the expense of the student, how might educators reclaim situated literacy for the classroom?

In the first instance, it could it be more fitting to visualise literacy as what ‘falls out’ of our teaching and learning moments.  Literacy is what ‘emerges’ a consequence of the discussions, the reading, the writing and the texts. Literacy embedding is not something we ‘put into’ teaching and learning, it was already there in the classroom, evolves as a social event, is situated in shared discussions and environments?

Literacy emerges from the range of communication skills and communication technologies that are engaged in in the learning environment. The range of strategies available are so wide and available that it makes evidencing literacy embedding daunting.

If literacy is there already and its existence is not dependent on educators putting literacy ‘into’ the situation, what strategies might be used to evidence literacy embedding and how it is situated in the learning environment?

‘Compliance Literacies’ versus embedding

'Literacy Embedding' often features as a compliance issue, and is considered something we 'put into' our teaching. In my opinion, literacy is what emerges from our teaching. There is a crucial difference between these two opposing views.

The challenge for educators is to make literacy embedding relevant to their practice, in the face of misconceptions about what, and how literacy should feature our everyday practice.

Here in New Zealand, (and other examples exist internationally), on one hand literacy might be considered a series of additional demands upon the educator – the National Assessment Tool, Professional Development predicated to the TEC Learning Progressions, Living Curriculum requirements that we ‘embed’ literacy. 

These might be broadly described as ‘compliance literacies’.

As well, there is an expectation that we will integrate ‘literacy embedding’ into our classroom practice even though compliance-focused literacy engenders a sense of alienation from such processes not only for the educator, but for the student alike.

Such conflicts are contrary to the multiple and diverse qualities of literacy as a social practice, but does not address the challenge to evidence literacy embedding in classroom practice, as it emerges from learning outcomes, rather than as adjunct to them. The understandable misapprehension about Literacy ‘embedding’  is partly because various agencies promote the view  that we put literacy into our teaching, or ‘embed it’.  One of the ways this can be seen is how the use of the Assessment Tool at the beginning and end of semester appears to satisfy compliance demands that literacy embedding in courses is evidenced, when in fact it does not.

When Literacy as a compliance issue is submerged beneath other curricular demands, it also assists to promote the idea of literacy as an ‘add-on’. In effect, the autonomous notion of literacy is encouraged by a standardized approach which in turn encourages pedagogical practices dedicated to meeting compliance issues, which are not necessarily to the student’s advantage. Furthermore, to some extent, educator-student negotiations of compliance literacy are coloured by a common misapprehension that Learning Outcomes must reflect Literacy outcomes as if they are the same thing.