I've always loved quick calculation games, learning mathematical principles and concepts, applied mathematics, probability theory, etcetera. However, I developed huge mathematical anxiety throughout all of high-school, because math class followed an appalling, horrifying routine: the teacher would randomly pick any of us to forcibly go up to the blackboard to solve an exercise from the previous lesson's homework, especially when we hadn't done it, and we would get badly scolded in a humilliating manner when we couldn't solve it, getting some laughs or hurtful remarks from our classmates, as well. When we were done, we would get more homework, and so the cycle repeated. The actual teaching always took less than ten minutes, if it took place at all.
Teachers were so utterly disparaging, it became an extremely stressful experience. It undermined our ability to focus in the first place, so not instantly getting whatever was being "taught" induced more fear, which made you lose even more focus. It was a terribly negative feedback loop.
Later on, I started reading math books on my own and realized that not only I wasn't bad at it, but what kind of motherfuckers were those so-called teachers, and how clueless they were in pedagogical terms.
I talk to a lot of people about math and many of them (adults) have intense math anxiety. I always wonder what kind of trauma could have led to this, because I assumed the I-suck-at-math is such a private feeling, at worst maybe your parents might see your grades and scold you about them. None of this is super traumatic, I thought...
But the perspective about public shaming by the teacher and other students piling on is much more intense, so I can see how some people really don't want anything to with math in later life. Those motherfucker teachers indeed!
Teachers were so utterly disparaging, it became an extremely stressful experience. It undermined our ability to focus in the first place, so not instantly getting whatever was being "taught" induced more fear, which made you lose even more focus. It was a terribly negative feedback loop.
Later on, I started reading math books on my own and realized that not only I wasn't bad at it, but what kind of motherfuckers were those so-called teachers, and how clueless they were in pedagogical terms.