This writing highlights my own lived experiences of teaching maths to children with general maths difficulties, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, and the thoughts and experiences shared with me by mainstream primary and middle school teachers whom I know. They came from different cultural perspectives, and I had informal discussions with them about teaching topic-specific maths content and teaching maths in general.

Maths anxiety is a negative emotional reaction or fear that can impact not only children but adults including teachers. If a teacher feels anxious about maths, he or she may feel less confident teaching maths. Moreover, this decreased confidence and motivation among the teachers over the subject can negatively influence their students. This in turn will create less enthusiasm among the students to learn maths and will lead to poor achievement in maths. Some teachers whom I spoke with agreed with me that they did not do well in maths when they were students, and they struggled with maths while in school and the workplace. This made them avoid choosing maths as a subject in their teaching career. Unfortunately, if you are a primary teacher you are trained to teach all 3–4 core subjects, of which Maths is one (this differs from country to country).

Let’s look at three main factors that emerged from teacher discussions which contribute to maths anxiety among them. Firstly, teachers may face more pressure to teach maths with fewer or limited maths resources and/or with fewer or limited professional development (PD) opportunities. PD sessions are very important for the teachers to help them understand the maths curriculum, the curriculum changes implemented by examination boards (such as Cambridge or Edexcel) or the Education Ministry regularly, what support is available to enhance teaching and learning, and how evaluation of student learning can be carried out positively.

Secondly, teachers experience various work pressures in addition to the expected standards they have to meet. Combined with this, unrealistic work targets set by school administration make maths teachers anxious. For example, when a maths teaching position becomes vacant at a higher grade, a maths teacher who is comfortable teaching in the lower grades is elevated to teach the higher grade immediately outside their comfort zone. In this scenario, the standard set by the school may not match the teacher’s ability, confidence, or subject knowledge to teach maths. In this situation, the teacher may resort to looking for resources from the internet, look for YouTube videos on teaching a particular maths topic, and download worksheets that are not designed for their students. All of these make both the teacher and the students anxious by highlighting the teacher’s lack of confidence, as well as the students’ difficulty in understanding what is being taught. Assigning unrealistic targets, such as expecting the whole class with weak learners to pass maths or most students to score 75% or above, would make the teacher feel overwhelmed and maths-anxious.

Thirdly, the maths curriculum prescribed by an examination board or the Ministry of Education can make the teachers anxious too. They need to teach their students quickly if they need to follow the curriculum guidelines and cover the maths syllabus with lots of learning objectives, goals, and targets set by these competent authorities. When the maths teacher teaches relatively quickly, most learners, especially those with maths learning differences, may not understand what is being taught. This in turn can create a negative vibe in the class which may lead to the class going out of control which directly reflects on the teacher’s ability to manage the class. The teacher works under pressure, becomes overwhelmed as they are unable to manage the class during maths lessons, and ends up becoming maths anxious themselves.

The above three broad elements that I discussed above prevail in any society, or most countries. I have taught maths in three different countries, and I have seen and experienced the above vividly. I too have experienced maths anxiety. Let me share my own lived experiences of how I overcome maths anxiety. Two attitudes towards maths teaching keep me going and help me come out when I am maths anxious. The first one is the attitude of ‘you are not alone’. Over the years, I have built a strong support network around me comprising of maths teachers and maths researchers. When I get stuck, I seek help from them through online discussion groups, social media groups, or WhatsApp groups that I am part of. Certainly, there would be someone out there willing to extend help when it is needed. The second one is my self-belief. I am confident in what I teach and believe in my abilities. My teaching experience of 40 years is a huge contributing factor to my teaching, which helped me to overcome maths anxiety by keeping me organised and helps motivate me to make an increased effort whenever I teach a maths topic. I may have taught a maths topic numerous times, but whenever I complete teaching that topic, I will always self-reflect: where am I, and where is my student? Where do I want to end up and where did I end up? This self-reflection helps me to evaluate my learning experience and improve my teaching each time. Self-reflection is a key tool in a teacher’s skillset to enable them to be better teachers.

On a positive note, maths teachers can be empowered to teach their subject confidently when they seek adequate support and resources while also being supported by the systems they are embedded in through training sessions. Doing so will immensely benefit the teachers as well as the learners who are under their care.

Article written by:
Mohamed Samunn
RETA Fellow
Lead Educational Therapist
Samunn’s Educational Therapy
Colombo, Sri Lanka