My maths history... 25/11/2013

 

  I  thought my days of doing Maths were over, but actually that's not quite true.  As a trainee teacher, I need to prove that I have good numeracy skills to be able to assist my learners.  In today's session my tutor asked us to share our Maths journey and produce a road map.  I had no idea what to write. Honestly, I have not always felt confident in my Maths skills, like many girls especially in my country (Tanzania) believe that Maths is only for boys or for those super smart geek type girls.  I think it would be fair to say Maths and I have rarely seen eye to eye. I dislike numbers, anyway below is the image of my Maths road map:

 



My Maths journey

I began to notice my poor ability in Mathematics when I was in class six at primary school, this was because I frequently got poor grades in most of my maths tests and exams. I easily understood the concepts presented in class but when it came to tests and exams I would normally run out of time and made a lot of mistakes.

This pattern continued in secondary school, consequently I was frequently yelled at and physically punished by my teacher for not focusing on my Maths work and frequently failing my Maths tests. My teachers assumed that I was naturally bad at Maths, I vividly remember my male Maths teacher saying 'girls are naturally better at language skills, and boys at Mathematical/spatial ones, just stick to what you can do. Therefore I soon came to a conclusion that I fail Maths because I am a girl. Actually looking back now I was really good at language subjects and did not have time for science related subjects. Things did not get better, I hated Maths and never once tried to work hard on it at all.

 

However things changed when I came to the UK to study. I had to do GCSE in Mathematics, I had a female Mathematics teacher, she became like my role model, I kept saying if she can do maths, I think I can too. The idea of girls can't do Maths slowly started to fade away. I became confident and even got grade B in GCSE higher Maths, something that  in my wildest dreams never thought it would ever happen. I now feel that actually girls can do Maths, all is needed is just hard work and breaking the belief that Maths is for boys.

 

Maths has not always been my favourite subject and to be honest never will be, however being a teacher, I have no choice but to like it, because soon I 'm going to start teaching and I am sure one of the  subjects will be Maths. Looking at my Maths history, I must admit that one has to put a lot of time and effort to do well in Maths.  

 

So the question is, how or when do I use Maths now? well, most of the time is doing timetables, working out  percentages, adding, counting things...

 

To be continued..

 

Emma  :)