Intro

[00:00:00] Vanessa Vakharia: If you're someone who feels like, ugh, about math, I want you to feel really seen by this episode, and I really wanna validate your feelings of just feeling icky with math. Yeah, I went through something that wasn't right when it came to my math education, like I was made to feel less than, I was made to feel stupid, I was made to feel like I didn't belong. Any of those things, those might be a reason for you just feeling that ick when it comes to math.

Hi, I'm Vanessa Vakharia, aka The Math Guru, and you're listening to Math Therapy, a podcast that explores the root causes of math trauma, and the empowering ways we can heal from it.

Whether you think you're a math person or not, you're about to find out that math people don't actually exist. But the scars that math class left on many of us definitely do. Oh, and don't worry, no calculators or actual math were involved in the making of this podcast.

[00:00:55] Vanessa Vakharia: Okay. Hey guys. Welcome to Math Therapy. This might sound ridiculously obvious, but today we are going to talk about math trauma. I know we're always talking about math trauma, but it occurred to me that we talk about it all the time, I interview guests about it, it comes up, but I've never done an episode really defining what it is. So today I kind of wanna do that. 

To kick off, whenever I want a crowdsource, or whenever actually, like I'm contemplating something on my own, this is the blessing of social media. I just get out there on Twitter and on Instagram and I ask a question. So I actually last week just tweeted:

Name a classroom practice that you think might cause math trauma.

And I'm so excited to share what you guys said, but I also want you to keep this all in mind because at the end of the episode, I'm gonna ask you guys to send me a classroom practice that you think might cause math trauma so that I can share them in another episode.

What is math trauma?

[00:01:57] Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so let's just back up. We talk about math trauma a lot on the podcast. What is it? What even is it, and I wanna start by saying, I think when I talk about math trauma, when I'm talking about it with guests, when I'm talking about it with other educators, with parents, with students, with adults, we often have this idea of trauma in our minds that is so extreme that we don't think it applies to a lot of people. 

So for example, when I bring up math trauma, a lot of people imagine something like being bullied in class by a teacher or having a parent that yelled at them or something even worse. But actually math trauma can be a lot less noticeable than that. So, this requires us to define trauma in the first place, and I think it's really important to note that trauma is the lasting emotional impact living through a distressing event might have.

I'm gonna say that again. Okay. So it's a lasting emotional impact that living through a distressing event might have. Note the word impact. Okay? Trauma is not an event. It is the emotional consequence of an event. And I think it's really important to note that, because it takes it away from something that's kind of like, empirically evident. So for example, you might say something like, I don't know, I was in the same math class as Susie and I was completely fine. It has nothing to do with the event, but how somebody experiences and internalizes it. 

So me and you can live through the exact same event. We can both be in a math class where, let's say for example, grades were read out loud at the front of the class every single week. We both have the same teacher who read grades out loud in front of the class every single week. I was completely unbothered by this, but you may be left feeling shame, feeling triggered, feeling traumatized by that practice. The actual event is inconsequential, what matters is the emotional impact that it has. 

So when we're talking about math trauma, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the lasting emotional impact, that living through a distressing event relating to math, relating to math class, relating to your relationship with math, might have had.

Now that leads to like, okay, well what kind of events are we talking about? Distressing sounds like a really, really big word. One thing I've learned through my own therapist is that sure, there are things that seem very obviously traumatic, but there are also things called "little t trauma" or "sneaky trauma" that might seem less obvious but still cause that emotional response we're talking about.

Let's wind it back for a second. I'll share a little personal anecdote from the last time I spoke to my therapist, which is probably a few months ago. She was saying something about childhood trauma and I was like, well, I don't, I mean, I don't think I had any childhood trauma, like nothing crazy happened to me. And she was like, okay, yeah, but, what about sneaky trauma? And I was like, wait, what is that? And she said exactly that, sneaky trauma, otherwise known as little t trauma can be an event that at the time, or maybe in hindsight doesn't seem like a big deal, but regardless, it had an emotional impact on you. Right? It had the impact of a distressing event.

Also like, something to note, because we're talking about kids a lot, since we're talking about math education, is something that now we digest as an adult, as like a benign event, might have had a very distressing consequence on a little child. 

So things that can be traumatic, like yeah, there are obvious things like getting yelled at by a parent, but there are things like, for example, being timed. This is a huge one. When I asked you guys on Twitter name a classroom practice that might traumatize somebody in math class, 73% of your responses have the word "timed" in them or the implication of something being timed.

So, for example, "mad minutes", timed drills, worst of all, public displays combined with being timed were the heaviest hitters. So, for example, being asked to get up in front of the class and recite mad minutes while being timed. In fact, okay, I've gotta read you this response by Somer Drost on Twitter. She said,

I facilitate a course called Developing Numeracy. Assignment number one is a math autobiography. I can safely say 95% of these refer to timed tests and how the kids felt anxious, sick to their stomach, et cetera. Then to top it all off, results were often posted publicly resulting in embarrassment and shame. 

30% of your responses had to do with being asked to do something in front of that class. So there's that public shaming, for example, being picked on to answer a question when your hand wasn't raised. Being called out for making a mistake publicly. As I said at the beginning of this, test scores or assignment scores being read out loud. I can't believe people still do that, but people still do, I hear it from students all the time. 

So when we're talking about math trauma, or, and if you're a teacher or a parent, or like, honestly, if you're someone who feels like, ugh, about math, I want you to feel really seen by this episode, and I really wanna validate your feelings of just feeling icky with math. And feeling like, yeah, I went through something that wasn't right when it came to my math education, like I was made to feel less than, I was made to feel stupid, I was made to feel like I didn't belong, like I was yelled at, I was bullied. Any of those things, I mean, and there's a whole list of other things we'll get into, those might be a reason for you just feeling that ick when it comes to math. 

Why is math trauma-prone?

[00:07:13] Vanessa Vakharia: I always say this and, and I think it's worth saying again, but if you listen to this podcast, you'll know I find a way to bring it up every episode: math is a very like loaded and emotional subject. And the reason for that is historically math hasn't just been like a subject, you know, it hasn't just been a set of skills. Math has always been associated with intelligence. 

So for example, if, you know, you see someone paint a beautiful painting or you go to a concert and somebody like performs the most incredible opera, I don't know, I'm just using opera as an example, I actually can't stand opera, but I'm always like, oh my God, how do they do that? So you watch that, you never leave being like, that performer is so fucking smart, what a genius. Wow, that artist is just so intelligent. We actually don't use those words. We use words like, wow, they're so talented. They're so creative. They're such a great singer. They're such a great artist. 

But, somebody solves a complex equation and automatically the first word we say is, wow, they're so smart. Wow. They're such a genius. We don't say things like, wow, what an incredible doer of math. What an incredible solver of equations. Right away we go to, they must be so smart. And like, honestly, I can tell you guys this, I'm in a band. I will play a full fucking show, shredding solos, singing my guts out. I'll get offstage, no one calls me smart, and the second they find out I'm a math teacher, because inevitably they're like, so what do you do to make money? Obviously no one makes money in a rock band. And I'll be like, oh, I'm a math teacher. And right away they'll be like, you must be so smart. And I'm like, so my entire performance said nothing about my intelligence level, but the fact that I teach math suddenly makes me really smart?

And I say this all because that's why I actually think math trauma is a thing. I mean, there's a lot of reasons is a thing, but one of the reasons I think it's so prevalent and that math anxiety is so prevalent and that people have such a visceral reaction with math is, it's not just that they have been taught somewhere along the line that they don't belong in math class or in the world of math, or that they're bad at math. They have implicitly then been taught that they are just not that smart. And that's a really shitty feeling. 

So even if someone isn't saying to you like, "Hey, you know what? Math really isn't your thing. Focus on something else because you're not smart". Even if they're not saying those words, It's implicitly just kind of in there, and we are taught that from every single facet. We're taught that from the characters on tv we see who are labeled as geniuses because they're good at math. We see that from the way parents talk about their kids who are good at math by calling them geniuses and calling them smart. We see that by the way educators talk about students. So the word smart has historically and is currently always associated with math. 

And I think it's just really important to remember that even if you're not saying those exact words, that is what the kids in your class are thinking. And that might be what you, as someone who's math anxious, are internally thinking. 

8 common causes of math trauma

[00:10:04] Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so the list is, I don't know if it's infinite, but there's definitely more than we can cover in this podcast of things we might want to start looking at when it comes to math trauma. So this episode really is for us to just get a bit of a handle on what we mean when we're talking about math trauma and to like get a bit of perspective. Cause I think we can be really narrow minded when it comes to math trauma. So I wanna provide this episode as a bit of a like conversation for us to start talking about what may be traumatizing our students, our adults, our teachers, our parents, everyone when it comes to math.

And I think for the remainder of this episode, I actually want to talk about eight practices that have come up over and over again as being traumatizing to students in math class. So if you're a math teacher, this is like very, very relevant because a lot of us are using these practices and I don't want this to be a like, oh my God, I'm a horrible teacher and I'm causing trauma because I'm using these practices. These are practices that have been rooted in our math classrooms forever and ever, these are math practices that are commonly found in math classrooms. 

So if you're using these practices, if you still have to use some of these practices because they're board directed, don't worry. This is for you to kind of be like, okay, well now that I know that these practices can have a traumatizing effect on my students, perhaps I can approach them differently, perhaps I can open up conversations about them before I carry them out. So that's for teachers. If you are a, an adult listening to this, I want you to be like, oh my God, how many of these practices did I have in my own math class? And is that maybe contributing to the ick I feel around math right now?

So let's get into the eight practices.

1) One-shot assessments

[00:11:48] Vanessa Vakharia: Practice number one: one shot only assessments. 

Okay. If you guys don't know what this means, this means assessments like a test where you only get one shot. Very simple. Now, there is so much controversy around this right now. I mean, I was definitely brought up in a time where we got one shot to do a test. I would say that most of my personal students only get one shot to do a test. 

We are now in an era where we really are trying to preach growth mindset. We're really trying to show students that you can progress. We really also have an understanding of mental health now, right? Like the fact that someone might show up to write a math test and they might not be in a good head space, maybe something horrible happened the night before, and maybe they didn't get a good sleep, maybe they have a headache, maybe they're sick, maybe they're just not feeling their best self.

So if we only give them one shot to write that test and we don't give them any opportunity to show they've improved or to show up on a better day, that can be something that really traumatizes students for two reasons. 

Number one, they feel the panic and anxiety around all of their worth kind of being evaluated in this one given moment.

Number two, it's just very counterintuitive to what we're telling them. I say this in like every episode, if we're telling students that, you're just not there yet, growth mindset, we can grow, progress over perfection, and then we are not reflecting that in our assessments, it just gives them mixed messages. 

2) Grouping students by ability

[00:13:06] Vanessa Vakharia: Number two, grouping students by ability. 

Oh my God, this is such a big one. This is such a big one. Go pick up Peter Liljedahl's book Building Thinking Classrooms, right now. Research has shown time and time again grouping students by ability, major math trauma. Okay, number one, kids know what you're doing. They know what you're up to. They know if they're in the quote unquote weaker group. You're telling them right away you belong in a group with these people. What you have to say has no value to anyone but these people, you're disrupting like the quote unquote higher level math students with your presence, go sit over here. Literally, that's what you're telling them. 

So grouping students by ability, bad idea. That is something I honestly think most teachers have control of, you can actually stop doing that. In Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms, he talks about different ways to group students; and actually. random grouping is the best way you can group students. Literally picking names out of a hat, completely random grouping is the least traumatizing to students. 

3) Using speed to measure understanding

[00:14:07] Vanessa Vakharia: Number three, using speed to measure understanding. Let me say that again for the people and the back, using speed to measure understanding. 

Number one, I already told you that over 73% of you on social media said that speed was the thing that traumatized you in math class. So those time tests, those mad minutes, all of that stuff is just like, ugh, you know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when someone's about to time you. 

Time and time again, we have seen in the history of mathematics and mathematicians, speed has nothing to do with ability. Do you think Einstein was being timed? Like Fermat's Last Theorem took one dude literally seven years to come up with. Speed was not a thing in his mathematical ability. 

So this goes back to the roots of schooling. Why did we ever need to measure mathematical knowledge with speed? At a certain time when we didn't have calculators and we needed kids to be able to perform quick calculations to like, kick ass on the assembly line, maybe this was important. It is no longer important now, and it causes so much anxiety. So anywhere you can stop using speed to measure understanding, and you can make it clear to your students that speed is not a prerequisite to being good at math, I'm telling you, even saying that to your kids, showing it to them. If you ask a kid what being good at math means, they will raise their hand and they'll say, it means I'm fast. We need to get rid of that asap. 

4) Prioritizing solo work over collaboration

[00:15:26] Vanessa Vakharia: Number four, prioritizing individual work over collaboration. 

Again, this is newly being shown in their research that when we put students in competition with each other, when we do not allow them to collaborate, do not allow them to have conversations about mathematics and just prioritize individual work, it can lead to large, large bouts of math anxiety. It also just leads to them getting the wrong idea about what math is in the classroom. 

5) "It's ok to be bad at math"

[00:15:51] Vanessa Vakharia: Number five, and this is my favorite, and everyone has the power right now to just stop doing this. Okay, so number five practice that traumatizes students in math class: telling students it's okay to not be good at math. 

I'm pausing for dramatic effect, cuz I bet a ton of you listening right now are like, oh, someone told me it was okay to not be good at math. By the way, no one is mal intentioned when they say this. Parents say it, adults say it, teachers say it, friends say it. Like my friends said it to me, they'd be like, well, Vanessa, like you're so good at other things, it's okay that math isn't your strength, it's okay not to be good at math, you don't need it. It has the opposite effect, that is one of the most traumatizing things you can do because you're literally telling a person it's okay to not be good at it.

So number one, it's an absolute, you're basically saying you're not good at math. That's what you're saying. You're basically saying, oh yeah, I don't believe in you. I know you're not good at math, and that's fine.

So I had this whole conversation with a teacher who was saying, I want my kids to not be stressed out, I want my students to not be stressed out. I do tell them that, I tell them it's okay not to be good at math and not to stress out so much about the test. And I was telling him, I think what he's saying might have the opposite effect of what he's intending. Like he's intending to de-stress his students by saying, look, don't worry about this one assessment. Don't worry about the outcome of this assessment, you still have worth, right? Like that's kind of what he's trying to say. But instead he's saying, Hey, don't worry, you're not good at math, and that's fine. 

So what I was suggesting to him, if you're a teacher who's like, but I want my students to feel better, I suggest reframing this to say something like, tell your students it's okay to not get a certain mark. You can say to a student, Hey, listen, don't worry so much about this assessment and what you get on it. Don't worry so much about the outcome of this test. Don't worry so much about getting the right answer. That is a very different thing than saying, Hey, don't worry, you're not good at math, and that's fine.

Hopefully you can see how those are completely different things, right? So think about the outcome you want, which is you want your student to feel less stressed out, but you still want them to believe that they have an ability, because they of course do, you still want them to feel confident. Telling them it's okay not to be good at math is not the way to do it. So think about reframing it in terms of what you actually mean. 

6) Putting kids on the spot

[00:18:08] Vanessa Vakharia: Number six, and I brought this one up before calling on students or asking students to speak up when they have not volunteered themselves to speak up.

I know sometimes as teachers we're like, we need to find ways for every student to participate. But asking students if they have an answer to a question or if they have a solution when they have not volunteered themselves, can be so, so traumatizing. I also want you to recognize that you have kids in your classroom that have been laughed at before, that have been bullied before by teachers and by students.

So if you need to find a way for your students to show that they're participating in class, find another way to do it. There are so many ways to do that. One thing you can do, by the way, is say to kids, listen, I won't call on you unless you have your hand raised, as long as you, you know, promise to participate and raise your hand like X amount of times a week, something like that.

You can also, like, if a student feels really shy and public speaking just like puts them over the edge, find a way for them to show their understanding that doesn't involve them speaking in front of the entire class. That is something that can be so traumatizing for students. So that's number six, requesting a public display of knowledge from a student who has not volunteered one.

7) Answers > Reasoning

[00:19:18] Vanessa Vakharia: Okay. Number seven, focusing on answers rather than sound reasoning. 

This is something time and time again that just makes kids feel like they suck at math. Often kids have really good reasoning, they are finding innovative ways to get to a solution, but the only thing we're valuing in the classroom is that final outcome, it's that final answer. 

So imagine you're a kid who hands in a math test, and it's just full of red Xs because you didn't get the final answer that you know the teacher was looking for, but you have tons of process and thinking and out of the box thinking and diagrams on that sheet. Make sure you're focusing on those things so kids don't get the idea that the only way to be good at math is to get the quote unquote right answer.

8) Privileging one right method

[00:20:02] Vanessa Vakharia: And number eight, and this is a big one, kind of tied to number seven actually, privileging one right way rather than multiple pathways to one right answer. 

You definitely know this. I've heard this from so many adults, so many frustrated parents also who will say things like, my kid thinks they suck a math, because even though they got the right answer, they didn't get it in the way the teacher wanted them to.

I think we're really, hopefully moving beyond that now, especially as we, you know, try to lean toward classrooms that are more equitable and value more than one way of knowing. But make sure you're not just privileging one right way of knowing, right? If, if you're, if somebody gets the right answer in an unexpected way, ask them how they got it. Value their thinking process. Ask them to show the rest of the class what they were thinking. 

Practices like privileging one right way of knowing, really, really hit that point home that we don't wanna hit home, which is there is only one way to be good at math, there is only one way to be a mathematician, and that's simply not true and it leaves so many students out.

Conclusion

[00:21:04] Vanessa Vakharia: Okay, so that wraps up eight classroom practices that are well known to cause trauma in the math class. And I wanna shout out Dr. Kasi Allen because most of that list was directly from her. She's a math prof, check her out.

And as I said before, the list is, I mean, I don't know if infinite seems a bit large, but I mean, unknown, unknown, that's just, those are just eight things. There are so many other classroom practices that come up again and again when I ask you guys what caused your math trauma or what classroom practices as an educator do you think might be traumatic for your students in class.

And at this point, I wanna wrap it up and I wanna hear from you guys. So if you can think of a classroom practice. That you believe to cause math trauma to your students, or if you are an adult walking through the world, being like, my math teacher did this thing and I've been traumatized ever since, and if you're a student and something has happened to you recently or in the past, which made you be like, Ugh, I feel like I'm now math traumatized, let me know. I want you to find the Instagram or Twitter post about this episode and shoot me a comment.

I think that with math trauma knowledge is power. It is a relatively new concept. Hopefully this helped you understand what math trauma is a little bit more, and I think this is one of those things where we have to acknowledge that it exists, start the conversation and start opening up our horizons and our doors to what math trauma can look like and how we can stop traumatizing students in the math classroom so that math therapy becomes a thing that is no longer even necessary.

Outro

[00:22:37] Vanessa Vakharia: If something in this episode inspired you, please tweet us @maththerapy, and you can also follow me personally @themathguru on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. 

Math Therapy is hosted by me, Vanessa Vakharia, it was created by me and Sabina Wex, and it's produced and edited by David Kochberg. Our theme music is by Goodnight Sunrise.

And guys, if you know someone who needs math therapy or just needs to hear someone else getting math therapy, please, please, please share this podcast, and rate or review it on whatever podcast app you use. Those things actually make such a big difference for us. I'm determined to change the culture surrounding math and I need your help, so spread the word. Until next time, peace, love, and pi.