Experts at the University of British Columbia are calling on parents to shift their attitudes in how they speak about math.
As students head back to the classroom next week, many of them could be feeling nervous about tackling math, but UBC's Melania Alvarez says there’s nothing scary it.
"Math is a beautiful subject that I think is being underrated,” she tells Glacier Media during an interview.
Alvarez is the outreach and education coordinator at the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences and says many children will start liking math when they’re young. However, as time goes on, they might start to dislike it.
"I think that's very much because they hear the messages that math is hard, math is difficult,” she says.
Parents should never say they’re not good at math in front of their children because people use math skills every day.
“You have to drive all the time and allocate time, that’s math,” she says. “We need to be conscious that this doesn’t help us and it doesn’t help our kids.”
She suggests making math fun and part of a game with cards or using licence plates to do math tricks. Alvarez notes a deck of cards is very inexpensive and can be used for math.
“Math is the art of thinking, so it's not just about numbers,” says Alvarez. “You have a series of constraints and possibilities and you need to learn how to use those to solve your problem."
Children who see their parents enthusiastic about reading will feel inspired to read, much like if parents are enthusiastic about math.
“Math is fun and interesting and a part of what also makes life interesting is the challenges,’ she says. “The rewards of the challenges are tremendous.”
Solving math equations is the important part and people should be encouraged to take their time and make mistakes so they can work through the problem.
“We need to change our attitudes,” she says. “What people need to understand is that you have to practice mathematics every day.”
Alvarez says adding 20 minutes of math into every day can make a big impact. If a child is struggling with math, parents should ask teachers how to help and what to focus on.
Alvarez and her colleague Lindsey Daniels put together a list of puzzles, games and math-related websites. You can view them online.
