Hi Me again,

It's half term for me this week. I set myself the challenge of improving my maths. As a child I really struggled with maths. I found it difficult and struggled to learn at the pace of the class so inevitably I got left behind. At junior school my teacher, who I actually adored would practise recall of times tables by making everyone stand up and then he would walk around the room pointing with his ruler: "5 fives?" " 7 sixes?" this made me really nervous and played on my anxiety of standing up and having all eyes on me when the fateful questions was asked. If you got the questions wrong, you got to sit down and you didn't need to answer again. So my plan was to answer quickly so that I could appear to be trying my best, but then I could sit down and the pressure was off! As a teacher I recognise that this is not a very effective way of building the confidence of those who already lack confidence. It just makes those that are already confident more confident!!

So, having read Taming tigers - I acknowledged that one of my tigers was the fear of maths and my belief that I couldn't teach maths to Key Stage 2 children- (age 7+), I been working through a book written specifically for teachers to improve their maths so that they can teach maths effectively. I've realised that I actually understood  a lot more than I ever thought. MY problem wasn't that I couldn't, it was I wasn't very confident and wasn't very quick.  My husband has been helping me, he's a maths whizz, has replied each time to my " I can't do it!" with " YES you can! Try it!" and he's right- I can! I've learnt that just I lack confidence and speed. Also I don't want to write it down to help myself (I think that is another issue from school ) it feels as though if I write it down I am admitting I can't do it and I might lose face! Doh!!  Where as, when I jot it down , I'm fairly competent.

Rule #2 challenge the rule book!

My' rule book' says that I shouldn't write it down and look like an idiot! But I'm the idiot stopping myself doing things by adhering to these silly rules. All I need to do is practise in order to develop my confidence and speed.