From Panic to Pythagoras: Navigating the Labyrinth of Math Anxiety

By Tanika T. Garrett

Have you ever gotten the feeling that you are the best at everything and still come out short?

For example, my mother, on the one hand, just praised me for getting another A+ in my English exam, saying how amazing I was to be learning something so complex as Idiomatic Expressions (which to me are not so complex, it just needs proper understanding).

My father, on the other hand, just gave me a stern look when he saw my math test. Yup, it wasn’t that good, I had never been a fan of integers or algebra, but according to my dad, its the same as learning English, it just needs my proper understanding too.

I don’t know why, but every time I am in math class, I feel my heart racing, like something is chasing me, and telling me that I am going to fail every time. It’s like my mind knows that mathematics is not for me, and for years, I have never made a satisfactory grade in math.

I remember crying at our kitchen counter because I asked my father for help in one of my assignments about fractions, and I just could wrap my head around “simplifying” the fraction before multiplying, I always forget about it for some reason.

There was another time that my 4th grade math teacher, Mr. Reed gave me a hard time because I was forgetting to carry-over in my subtraction assignments. My brain just couldn’t figure it out, and it made me more scared of messing up my answers.

My teachers ask me what’s wrong every time, if there was a problem that I need to tell them, but how can I admit that an almost straight-As student is so afraid of math? How can anyone admit that? It’s embarrassing.

By the end of 5th grade, I just accepted my fate.

I learned that it was okay not to learn math because maybe math wasn’t for me.

So I stopped putting in effort and just going with the flow, and just doing what I can do bare minimum. If I said that this didn’t make me feel bad, I would be lying, but what can I do, I’m just bad at math.

But I guess, that’s what I thought, until I met Mrs. Hughes.

When 7th grade began, my anxiety on math got worse. I learned that math way ten times way harder than in my previous years, and I thought,

If I was bad at math then, how am I supposed to make sure that I get good grades this time?

My life flashed before my eyes, I was looking at the different scenarios where math didn’t and shouldn’t matter in my life, but by the time math class started, I still couldn’t find one area where it didn’t.

In comes Mrs. Hughes…

She was an average-height woman, who I guessed was in her 30s. She said she was from a town outside of Florida, and she was very pleased to be teaching math to us. I got scared, because I was not very pleased to be learning math and disappointing another teacher.

But like I said previously, I should just go with the flow because I already know that I am going to fail.

For the next few months, I struggled with all the new topics. All the complex expressions, terms, and formulas all went through my head. Assignment after assignment I had to google because I was just so afraid of failing.

By the end of the 1st semester, my grades came back, and they were… well… below what I wanted.

Mrs. Hughes took me aside and commented on my performance.

I thought this is going to be another Mr. Reed experience, but she surprised me when she said: “Would you like to change the pace of our lesson?”

I was confused. So I asked what she meant.

To which she responded that I needed to learn math in a different way for me to actually learn.

At first I was offended as she may be implying that I’m not cut out to learn math the conventional way that I had to learn it a different way to actually learn it.

She invited me to come see her after school and she will explain it to me. My gut was sending me mixed signals, but then I thought, it couldn’t hurt since I have already low expectations.

My first meeting with Mrs. Hughes happened in January when 2nd semester started.

Honestly, I thought that it was just going to be like a normal tutoring thing, but then Mrs. Hughes asked me about the things I liked.

English…

Sports….

Poetry…

A little bit of languages…

Things like that, were what I said.

I was afraid that she would get offended since I didn’t include math, but she smiled and continued with her questions.

She first explained how math is everywhere.

In our house, when we watch the tv, or do the dishes,

It’s also in the favorite sports that I play,

Math is also in English, and poetry,

And also in languages.

I was trying to make sense of this, but I let her continue.

“You see Anita, when we make compound sentences, you use conjunctions to bridge the two clauses together. Now in mathematics, the different expressions are joined together by the different operations…”

She continued on and on about how learning math is fun, she proceeded to explain our current lesson in expressions through games.

I found it really easy, and comfortable, even when I was making mistakes.

By the end of January, I felt even more comfortable during math class.

Mrs. Hughes made sure that every time before class, we would play a game that is related to our current topic, this allowed me to grasp the idea of the topic, and playing a game about it made it feel like I’m playing baseball.

By the end of 7th grade, my parents were very happy to see how much I have improved in math.

I am still afraid though. Since Mrs. Hughes will no longer be my teacher next year, but she said that I could still come over after school to learn math with her.

I’m obviously going.

So that’s my story, how an almost straight-As student who was afraid of math, got rid of some of her math anxiety.

I never could have done it without my amazing teacher, Mrs. Hughes.

End.

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