Here are four myths about maths I once believed before I rediscovered the subject in adulthood.
Ability is fixed
Clearly some of us have certain natural advantages, and different gifts, and while I’m not suggesting that we can all be Stephen Hawking, science now suggests that the brain is incredibly malleable and we can all make better use of what we’ve got (interestingly though, Stephen Hawking is reported as saying he couldn’t read until the age of 8).
My own mathematical ability didn’t develop until much later in life. I spent my entire school career in the bottom set for maths but managed to achieve a grade B GCSE when I was 39.
Schools may teach a lot of useful things but not always how to use our brains. Mistakes tend to be seen as evidence of a lack of ability, particularly in maths where there is likely to be a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer. However science also seems to suggest that if mistakes are viewed as part of learning they can help our brains grow.
Maths is essentially an abstract subject
There are plenty of ways numbers can be experienced as tangible, physical objects. Cuisenaire rods, which are beautiful to handle and brightly coloured, are one example. Abacuses provide another way of integrating numbers, as physical objects, into the mind. Many Chinese and Japanese schools use the suanpan or soroban abacus. Eventually, students can make rapid calculations through manipulating their fingers without the abacus present through using muscle memory.
Younger children are encouraged to count beads, use unifix cubes or to draw pictures but by Year 6 much of this has stopped. Some of the most gifted mathematicians, including the late Maryam Mirzakhani don’t work like this.
Maths is largely irrelevant to our lives
Sure, we need maths to check our gas bill, calculate our change or adjust a recipe but what use is algebra? I've discovered we can enjoy the beauty and order of maths just for its own sake, and gaining confidence in our natural reasoning powers by tackling puzzles is enormously important too.
Only some of us are maths people
Science says not. It seems that we all have an inbuilt sense of number; we were born to count, quantify and manipulate symbols and we can build on these natural skills.
So let’s rethink maths – let’s make it colourful and creative; let’s allow ourselves to ponder, go down blind alleys and make our own discoveries. But most of all let’s give ourselves time for our brains grow.
