How to help a humanities student cope with math
Miscellaneous / / September 04, 2023
Try to treat tasks as a game and add pleasant emotions to the process of solving problems.
Lifehacker already wrote how to help kids overcome their fear of math. Let's figure out what to do if there is no longer fear, but there is boredom and misunderstanding why these tasks and formulas are needed.
Start with a game
This item is relevant for parents of younger students. Remember: every person can master elementary counting skills, and it doesn’t matter if he has a technical mentality or humanitarian. Your child can handle it too. Well, what kind of skills will seem elementary to the child, largely depends on the parents.
The first calculations are best done during the game. You can count everything that surrounds the child during a walk or at home. For example, try together to determine how many cars, dolls, or dinosaur figurines he has. And then offer to think about how many there will be, if you add one more toy to those that already exist.
As a rule, this stage does not cause any difficulties for either the parents or the child. This means that he will also gradually overcome the next steps. The main thing is to move slowly, step by step.
Natalya Nebogatova
Author of Lifehacker.
I remember how at the age of five I once sat at work with my mother, an accountant. So that I would not interfere, they asked me to count how many would be three plus three, and even plus three. Then it was a very difficult task for me. And I remember how happy I was when I managed to add the numbers correctly, and in my mind, without counting sticks or pebbles. Of course, over time, this task began to seem elementary. But the memory of those efforts, as well as the confidence that I can handle it, remained for a long time.
Moving from elementary tasks to more complex ones, and finding examples in the world around the child, is a great strategy for mathematical start.
Explain problem solving with child-friendly examples
If counting skills are mastered, another problem may appear. The child is reading conditions of the problem, for example, about mushrooms in the forest, and does not see anything in common with the exercise about football players in training, which was analyzed in class. Both tasks are solved in a similar way, but he does not see general formulas behind specific images.
So, we need to help him learn to operate with abstract concepts. To do this, you can take the problem and reformulate the conditions several times so that it talks about completely different things, but all the numbers remain unchanged.
For example, in an exercise from a textbook, you need to find out how many birds will remain on a tree if there were three first pigeon, then one flew away, but two sparrows were added. You can reformulate the task as follows: how many children will remain in the sandbox if at first three boys played there, then one went home for dinner, but two girls came. And then make cars and dinosaurs heroes. Or pies and sweets.
A numerical example can generally be written only once and show that it is suitable for all variants.
The child will see that different problems are solved according to the same formula. The next step is to keep the same characters but change the numbers. So the student will be able to understand by what principle all such problems are solved.
It is important that the conditions of the exercises are interesting for the child. Let his favorite heroes act in them. And instead of boring apples or lemons there will be bubbles with potions, ancient artifacts or fashionable handbags - the choice depends on what the student is fond of. Then mathematics will not be associated with calculations, which cause only boredom.
Find and analyze together the topic with which the misunderstanding began
The following problems may start in middle school. At this time, abstract concepts appear that cannot be explained on the fingers. Moreover, it often happens like this: the child does not understand one topic, so it is difficult for him to study all subsequent ones. Over time, misunderstanding accumulates, and then the conclusion follows: “Mathematics is boring, and in general I am a humanist”
But it happens that it is enough to find the topic that turned out to be too complicated and understand it. Then, together with understanding, it will return interest.
In such cases, the explanation should also be clear. Let it evoke emotions - this is important for humanitarians. To do this, it is worth again looking for suitable images in a world that is understandable and interesting to the student.
For example, some children find it difficult to figure out what negative values \u200b\u200band the modulus of a number are. There are no examples in real life. But you can imagine, for example, two armies in a computer game. The strength of each of the friendly fighters is a positive number, the strength of the opponent's unit is negative. The specific value of force is the modulus of the number. If two warriors with the same strength meet in battle, there will be no winner. They will both disappear from the screen.
Such an example will clearly show why, if we add two numbers with the same module - positive and negative, we get zero.
You can look for similar examples for a variety of concepts. And find them in images from the world of films, series, books or games. But the main thing is to first find that first topic from the textbook that turned out to be incomprehensible.
Add emotion to boring topics
Over time, such mathematical concepts appear in the program, which are difficult to find visual analogues. For example, trigonometric rules. Or algebraic formulas for reducing expressions. It is difficult to find at least some lively emotions in exercises with their use, but there is a lot of routine in them. And a person who is used to thinking in vivid images (that is, the classical humanities) gets boring.
In this case, it is worth looking for the connection of mathematical exercises with real life. To understand what else, besides a good mark in the magazine, they will bring. For example, scientists have found that doing math does more than just develop thinking. They are helping support emotional health - that is, to feel more stable in difficult situations, to feel less symptoms of anxiety and even depression.
To get these results, will have to work hard. Just like an athlete in the gym who wants to improve their athletic performance. Therefore, it is worth treating math exercises as training. And perceive each task as another blow to the punching bag, an approach to the horizontal bar, a complex dance step. Or another round of a game that you want to win.
This attitude will add motivation and emotions, and the experience of solving complex problems will add self-confidence.
Someone may not be close to sports analogies, but they like everything related to aesthetics and style. For such students, you can also find motivation. Complex algebraic expressions after long transformations look concise and beautiful. Therefore, the decision of any difficult tasks - the process of turning a bulky and not very clear object into a harmonious and aesthetically attractive one. This means that the result of the calculations will definitely add pleasant emotions to the one who performed this work.
You can look for other analogies that are close to the student. This is not always a simple, but effective method. Over time, the skill of thinking in abstract concepts will be strengthened, and mathematical problems will no longer cause such a strong rejection. Well, developed logical thinking will certainly help in a variety of life situations.
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