Ohio State University researchers have discovered that if you suffer from an irrational fear of spiders, spiders will seem much larger than they actually are. That bit from today's ABC News website reminds me of the basic ed students who have been working on math lately in the lab and the FastTrack course.
Kris Simonson and I have been team teaching a pilot GED FastTrack course at the Shawano Regional Center for the past couple of weeks. This week we began a three-week, six-class review of GED level math. I started out with basic math on Tuesday: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Kris moved it up a notch today with work on fractions and decimals. We have been trying to make one single point with students: math problems aren't nearly as indecipherable and unsolvable as they first appear. Math is only scary when you fear it.
Math moves consistently, logically, progressively from basic applications all the way to algebra and beyond. Most math problems can be solved by baby steps by considering single numbers, rather than trying to imagine a solution in one all-reaching inspiration. One digit at a time, one place value at a time will move a student through the most complicated series of equations. Learn the rules, start with the basics, develop confidence in your calculations, and math-phobia fades away.
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