Persuasion: Diffusing Our Fear of Math

Have you noticed how easily we profess a hatred or fear of math? Common, everyday situations that call for basic calculations can cause us great anxiety—revealed in an outpouring of commentary such as, “I don’t do numbers” or “I’m not a math person.” We are quick to distance ourselves from anything math-related, and the consequences are growing.

In a Washington Post article by Valerie Strauss says much in the title alone: “Stop Telling Kids You’re Bad at Math. You Are Spreading Math Anxiety ‘Like a Virus’.” Strauss reports that consistently bemoaning our fear of math and numbers is affecting the next generation. In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson invite Wendy Alsup to discuss a better way forward.

As a math educator and fellow thinker, Alsup works directly with adult learners helping them to overcome their own fear of math that keeps them from understanding math in their jobs. Alsup shares with Persuasion listeners the glory of math as foundational to the created world and how God can be known using advanced mathematics. With this framework in place, we can embrace the beauty and value of numbers as people of faith and pass on to the next generation a wonder and love for math.

Listen to Persuasion Episode 61

Further Reading:
Stop Telling Kids You’re Bad at Math. You Are Spreading Math Anxiety ‘Like a Virus’. – Washington Post

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Persuasion is produced by Jonathan R. Clauson.

Theme music by Maiden Name.