'Crescer' Magazine: Your child doesn't like math?

Algebra. Square roots. Logarithms. Trigonometry. If you shudder just hearing those names, you probably don't have good memories of math class. And now that it's your child's turn to face the same lessons and tests, deep down you fear they'll go through the same struggle, right? If that's your case, you're not alone. Cook Mariana Tavares Rufino, 37, mother of 7-year-old Maria Isabel, has terrible memories of mathematics. "I graduated in Law just to escape numbers. I've had trauma since I was little, which is why my mother would hire a private tutor at the beginning of the year," she recalls. Today, she strives not to pass on the bad experience to her daughter. "The other day Maria Isabel came home with a low grade in math and I tried to stay calm; I realized she made a mistake due to pure inattention. I never said I was doing badly, I try not to show my anxiety," she adds.

Yes, parental anxiety can weigh heavily on children. For this reason, phrases like "I never learned it" or "You'll see how difficult it is" won't help your child at all. Similarly, if you were a child who "loved" math and did well without much effort, boasting about or underestimating your child's difficulties can be detrimental. "If the parent thinks the child is just as difficult as they were, they won't allow them to progress. And if they think they'll have the same ease, they'll become extremely demanding," explains Professor Neide Noffs, director of the Faculty of Education at PUC (SP).

Surprisingly, regardless of the parents' background in mathematics, children don't have a negative predisposition towards the subject when they go to school. In fact, until the age of 9 or 10, children usually show no fear of numbers at all. Quite the opposite. "In the first cycle of basic education, children are quite receptive to mathematics. They are fascinated by the counting process, by the wonder of discovering that numbers are infinite, and they joyfully learn to add," explains Marcelo Viana, general director of the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA). Difficulties begin to appear due to two concurrent factors. While more complex topics are introduced, especially from the third grade onwards, such as fractions, decimal numbers, multiplication, and division, the content becomes completely disconnected from everyday life. And this makes learning unstimulating.

Just think: it's easy to teach a child to count. "How many toys are in that box?" "How many people are in that picture?" There are many opportunities to work with the concept in everyday life. But it's not so simple to find ways to approach fractions, for example. And further on, the situation worsens: there are matrices, square roots, cubic equations. It's difficult to find meaning in subjects so foreign to children's experiences. "It's a great challenge to maintain the link between what is taught and the type of experience children have in real life. This effort to make mathematics concrete is enormous and, in general, we teachers sometimes fail," says Viana. And this is reflected in students' performance. Research conducted by the Lemann Foundation with data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) revealed that students from elite schools in Brazil perform worse in mathematics compared to students from middle socioeconomic levels in developed nations. The gap is equivalent to one year of schooling.

Searching for paths

Therefore, schools have been seeking ways to approach the subject matter in a way that sparks children's interest. In São Paulo, music teacher Alessandra Nuñez, from Colégio Santa Maria (SP), proposed that each class compose a song about multiplication tables. Each class was assigned a number (from two to nine), and she drew a musical rhythm for the song. "I research principles of neuroscience and have seen several studies that have combined memorization with music," she explains. The children recorded the songs in the school studio and took a CD home. Alessandra reports that, during tests, some teachers said that students used the songs to remember multiplication problems. A good example of how to make mathematics more fun.

Furthermore, there are several studies on learning processes that open new avenues for mastering numbers. Research from the University of Copenhagen (Switzerland) has shown that children learn mathematics better when they are in motion. The study involved 165 first-grade students from three different schools. One group used their whole bodies during class, reproducing the shapes of numbers with their torsos. Another, more sedentary group used building blocks to help with operations. And a third group took the more traditional approach, using paper and pencil for calculations. The children in the first group performed better on the tests than those in the second, who in turn performed better than those in the third, demonstrating how the body can be a tool for learning.

According to Professor Kátia Smole, coordinator of Mathema, an institution that develops pedagogical methods to improve mathematics teaching, using the body is especially important for young children, who cannot stay still for long periods, but it can also bring benefits to older children. "Studies show that children learn with all their senses, including touch. Moving around facilitates the understanding of concepts such as angles, notions of magnitude and measurement, space, time, and rhythm," explains Kátia.

Of course, to do well on exercises, you first need to understand the problem statement. But having an adequate level of reading comprehension isn't always enough. Kátia remembers a student who got stuck on a test question that asked her to find the difference between 238 and 225. When the teacher asked what was happening, she said she needed to know if the number five was even or odd, and the teacher didn't understand anything: that wasn't what the problem statement asked. But when she got closer, she saw that the girl had taken the word "difference" literally: she was listing what was the same and what was different between the two numbers. She wrote, for example, that both started with two, but that one had 20 and the other 30. Thus, she needed to know if both were even or odd. “Difference is everything: looking at one another, listing what is similar and what is not similar. Only in mathematics does 'difference' mean subtraction. Therefore, knowing how to read the text is a condition, but it is not sufficient,” says Kátia. For her, knowing Portuguese is not enough: children need to be mathematically literate.

We need to broaden our understanding of mathematics. It's not limited to the equations that make children – and adults – rack their brains. Developing mathematical reasoning is about having logic. It's about establishing relationships between seemingly unconnected objects, recognizing and planning the steps of a process, understanding quantity when grocery shopping, and knowing how to handle money. "Mathematics has to be a part of our lives," Kátia concludes.

Need to decorate?
Many parents – and sometimes even children – question the need to memorize the blessed multiplication tables. With a cell phone in the palm of their hand – which has a calculator – it apparently makes no sense to have to memorize what 6 x 8 or 9 x 3 equals. However, memorization has other purposes. “Our way of reasoning as intelligent beings is a combination of elevated, creative thoughts with mechanical processes. These automatic reasoning processes free up the brain to dedicate itself to other, more complex activities,” explains Viana. In other words: when you are able to solve simple operations like multiplication tables, there is more space left for the brain to dedicate itself to more difficult issues.

Can I count them on my fingers?

Although some teachers discourage the practice, research from Sheffield Hallam University (United Kingdom) has proven that using fingers during exercises can positively contribute to learning. The study, which followed 137 students between 6 and 7 years old, found that those who learned through games based on numerical symbols, such as dominoes, or who used their fingers to count during activities, performed better than children who followed the traditional classroom script. But that's not all: those who had the opportunity to participate in numerical activities and also count on their fingers performed better than all the others. “Our number system is decimal because we have 10 fingers. In almost all civilizations in the world, the number 1 resembles a finger. Therefore, it is more than natural to use fingers to count,” explains Kátia.

The role of parents

It's not the family's role to take the place of teachers, trying to teach the child what's in the books. Instead, they should show how numbers are part of everyday life. Here's how to do it:

– At the bakery: Ask your child to help calculate how many loaves of bread you need to buy. How many people are there?

How many loaves of bread will each one eat?

– In the building: If you're taking the stairs, practice your multiplication skills. How many steps are there in each flight? How many flights are there per floor? And how many floors does the building have? If you're taking the elevator, it's worth doing calculations with the number of floors.

– At the pizzeria: This is a classic. How many slices are in a pizza? If you ate two slices, what fraction does that represent? And half a slice, what fraction of the pizza does that represent?

– At the store: Ask your child for help calculating the change from your purchases. It's a good opportunity to practice addition and subtraction, as well as working with decimal numbers.

– In the kitchen: Preparing recipes is a good way to get your child used to working with measurement concepts. A cup of milk, half a cup of flour, three-quarters of a stick of butter. What more practical – and delicious – application could there be for fractions than that?

Reporting by Naíma Saleh