
Female teachers transmit math anxiety to female students - fogus
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/01/female-teachers-math-anxiety-influences-female-students.ars
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tjic
> Girls often believe themselves to be bad at math, in accordance with gender
> stereotyping

This seems to be taking one (politically motivated) assumption and making it
into an uncontested piece of background information.

There's a fair bit of good data that suggests that women are, on average, not
as good as men at math.

Perhaps some girls have math anxiety in the same way that some (male) nerds
have anxiety about meeting new people: they KNOW that the task is difficult
for them, and they don't want to fail.

> The study found that when elementary school teachers, who are primarily
> female, displayed a high level of anxiety about math, that skittishness was
> transmitted to their female students.

Of course, if female teachers are less skilled at math, then that would also
explain the findings.

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GiraffeNecktie
>There's a fair bit of good data that suggests that women are, on average, not
as good as men at math.

Care to share some of that data? The research I've seen suggests that those
differences essentially disappear when girls are taught separately from boys.

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bitwize
A teacher, male or female, who is anxious about math should not be teaching
math.

Teachers should be confident in the knowledge of what they teach. Otherwise
they are doing it wrong.

~~~
indiejade
The problem with this notion is that elementary school teachers need to be
generalists; subjects don't really start getting "split" subjectively (with
different teachers) until middle and high school.

[Edit] Citation FTA: _A new study suggests that elementary school may be a
breeding ground for this anxiety. The study found that when elementary school
teachers, who are primarily female, displayed a high level of anxiety about
math, that skittishness was transmitted to their female students._

~~~
bitwize
It still holds: an adult who lacks confidence in his/her ability to do +-*/ on
multi-digit numbers and fractions should not be teaching the subject to
elementary-school-aged kids.

~~~
jimmyjim
I think the sad truth is just that there's a substantial shortage of competent
elementary school teachers in the supply pool.

Yes, they struggle even with such simple arithmetic tasks (speaking from my
experience at public schools).

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wisty
Pay them more, and offer a promotion path, and you will get better candidates.

~~~
eru
That may help. Offering more prestiges may be cheaper.

The Economist had a piece (sourced by studies by some consultancies) that
investigated the most important factors that determine the success of
education systems around the world.

Attracting good teachers was among the most important factor. But as far as I
remember high pay did not work as well as high prestige. (South Korea seemed
to have a knack for conferring high prestige on their elementary school
teachers. They have strict entry requirements for studying to become a teacher
--- and usually only take in as many students as they forecast to need as
teachers in a few years.)

[Everything written from memory. If somebody can find the article (or other
sources), please post it here. Thanks!]

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georgecmu
> Girls often believe themselves to be bad at math, in accordance with gender
> stereotyping

I think this should be qualified with "in the US". I don't think I had a
single male math teacher when I went to school in Russia. In fact, girls were
supposed to be more studious and get better grades in all subjects. And yet,
undergraduates in the technical courses were predominantly male, while
humanities students (including students of pedagogy -- future teachers) were
mostly female.

~~~
smallblacksun
In the US, you will be accused of being sexist if you say that there are any
differences between girls and boys that aren't due to "gender stereotyping".

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jacquesm
I don't understand something here. If the teacher is female why should it not
rub off on the boys in the same way, after all she's primarily a teacher. Or
does a female teacher that has math-anxiety automatically project the opposite
to the other gender ?

If that's the case then you should put males with math-anxiety in front of
female students and vice versa.

~~~
lmkg
The version of the article I read (not this one) mentioned in passing that
children tend to take same-gendered role models, and that 90% of elementary-
school teachers are female. The inference is that females have negative role
models for math, while males have none, which is apparently better.

~~~
scott_s
It is referenced in this version: _The researchers speculate that the
influence of female teachers on their students results from the tendency of
children to emulate adults of the same gender._

~~~
jacquesm
But for the study to be meaningful you'd have to study the opposite cases as
well, and that makes for four combinations in total.

And they've studied only one.

~~~
scott_s
I haven't seen the actual article of this study, but I assumed they referenced
previous studies of this effect. That is, I assume it's an established
phenomenon, not something they are surmising from their results.

