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.

What's your Literacy Andragogy?

We are now into our seventh of 12 posts loosely around 'What is Literacy?'   I'd like to discuss  how educators' philosophies might reflect their classroom approaches.  Educators may hold views about Literacy that reflect their general philosophies about education. Such andragogical approaches might coincide with, and reinforce our views about Literacy.

Andragogical Approaches that emerge from Autonomous Literacy Literacy is a set of skills – therefore literacy teaching is a quantified and separated from Learning Outcomes. The Teaching of Literacy equates to transfer of those skills to other areas of life. Literacy is a unified internationally recognised concept – if everyone were literate, the world would be a better place. The aim of literacy is to produce fitter, more productive citizens. Teachers promote and facilitate more effective critical thinking and reflection in students by allowing access to wider ranges of expression. Knowledge tends to be expressed in ways which reflect western intellectual tradition – codified, categorized and empirically proven. International surveys indicate that an alarming number of our contemporaries are not ‘functionally literate’, and are therefore having a negative impact on productivity.

Andragogical Approaches that emerge from Ideological Literacy Literacy is a situated event – therefore literacy is what emerges from classroom practice and compliments Learning Outcomes. Transfer of skills may occur for some ‘higher’ level learners, but for the majority of lower-level readers this is an unrealistic expectation. Literacy is multiple, situation and context-dependent, and it is dangerous to assume what an ‘ideal’ learner should look like. The aim of literacy is to recognize the complex ways people negotiate their worlds. Teachers engage in shared conversations and explorations of text to encourage relevance and identification with their Learning. Knowledge is not always fixed, and cannot always be quantified, but rather, shifts and is adaptable to purpose. Historically, the alarm at low literacy levels has changed little since Victorian times, and the notion that literacy acquisition equates to social success is a modern ‘myth’.

This is not meant to imply that educators sit neatly in two distinct, opposing camps. Educators shift, negotiate, initiate and embrace a range of different views ideas and relationships as well as teaching approaches.  However, what might emerge as a common feature for the majority of educators is a type of performativity or  resistance to engaging in notions like ‘literacy embedding’, if it is presented as a compliance, or add-on to their already work-intensive environments.  Therefore it is worthwhile describing and challenging some preconceptions around literacy and compliance that have emerged.

Viewpoint number 2: Ideological Literacy

In contrast to Autonomous Literacy, Ideological literacy appears to 'stand up for the little guy'.  By this, I mean that some of the community-based origins of literacy teaching and practice as a collaborative venture appear to inform this approach. This is a simplistic way of looking at it I agree, but broadly; take a look at these ideas and tell me what you think about them:

·      A student’s Literacies accompany the student as he or she arrives at the classroom, these have evolved as a series of situated events in their lives.

·      The codes and methods of everyday literacies differ widely from academic conventions and codes.

·      The student’s ability to be critical, or analytical are not linked to, or dependent on, their academic literacies, academic abilities, or levels.

·      Background, culture, race and ethnicity all feature in a person’s Literacy identity – some require more support than others to negotiate new kinds of literacy.

·      By assuming that literacy is a set of skills that can be taught we create false expectations that a student may by-pass knowledge and learning in order to ‘qualify’ as a success.

·      Literacy acquisition does not replace learning outcomes, or does it imply that a new reader can suddenly transfer new skills to new situations.

·      The role of the educator is to engage in a fluid evolving discourse about how we express ourselves, rather than reproducing what we are expected to express.

·      Students are in a relationship with their literacies and require time to transition and adapt to new codes and languages (such as academic literacy)  the time allocation for this is not finite, however ‘academic success’ may measured alongside, rather than against  this.

Therefore, educators may hold views about Literacy that reflect their general philosophical views about education. Such pedagogical approaches might coincide with, and reinforce our views about Literacy. 

What do you think?