Zero desire for maths
A tenth works. A hundredth works too. But a thousandth? «I can do that,» says Iman. The 11-year-old uses her fingernail to carefully pick a piece of modelling clay from a hundredth that she had previously taken from a tenth. And then another and another until there are ten tiny pieces in front of her. «Done,» she says.
Iman smiles proudly at her support teacher. Five years ago, nobody would have thought that she would enjoy learning fractions. In kindergarten, she hid her learning materials at the back of the cupboard. In first grade, she didn't know what to do during maths lessons. She got bored, then scared. She was sure that maths was difficult. And she is far from alone in this conviction.
It's a vicious circle: if anxiety about maths increases, performance decreases, which in turn increases anxiety.
According to the 2012 Pisa study, more than half of 15-year-old pupils think that maths lessons are difficult for them. Tension, helplessness and fear of poor grades are side effects of this concern. For some of these children, this develops into a fear of maths. They experience fear, despair, inability to act and concentration problems in maths-related situations.
Anxiety can already occur in the first years of school and intensify over the years. Children with a learning disorder in maths are particularly affected. They can fall into a vicious circle: if their anxiety increases, their performance decreases, which in turn increases their anxiety.
Maths is still popular
Although maths is perceived as difficult by many in the aforementioned study, this obviously does not detract from performance. Swiss pupils perform well in a country comparison. Anxiety and difficulties therefore do not necessarily lead to poor performance.
Conversely, not all underachieving children are afraid of this subject. Some even enjoy it, as a study by Elisabeth Moser Opitz shows. In order to examine the extent to which good performance is linked to the popularity of the subject, the Professor of Special Needs Education, Education and Integration (SBI) at the University of Zurich compared the attitudes towards maths of children with different levels of maths performance. The finding: the subject is also popular with a large proportion of children with poor maths performance. The children's reasons for this are varied: the desire to play with numbers or the relevance for their future careers, for example.
The contradictory findings - the popularity of the subject or the good performance in the Pisa studies on the one hand and the reputation of the subject as difficult on the other - raise questions. Why do so many children find maths difficult or are afraid of it? How do lower-performing children manage to retain their enjoyment of the subject? And how can parents and teachers encourage this enjoyment?
There are no standardised answers. In the words of Elisabeth Moser Opitz: «The relationships are complex.» Various factors play a role in whether a child likes maths or not: the subject, the relationship with the teacher, the form of teaching or the experience of learning maths, to name but a few.
«Mathe braucht es überall», hat Lian, 8, aus dem Berner Seeland festgestellt. Lesen Sie hier seine Erzählung: «Kann dich die Mathematik fressen?»Whether there is an interest in maths or not, we live with and in it from the very beginning, says Iman's remedial teacher Lis Reusser. She is a special needs teacher and lecturer at the Institute for Special Needs Education in Bern and occasionally offers private lessons for pupils with maths difficulties.
«The sense of numbers is innate,» she says. «Babies realise as soon as they are born when a quantity changes.» Perhaps they don't focus on the number, but on the expansion. Three dolls need more space than two. With language development, children begin to need number words, provided their environment also uses them. These are taught socially. In infancy, children do not yet understand their meaning. They use them anyway by imitating counting: «One, four, seven, seven.»
Maths has a hierarchical structure and is becoming increasingly complex. That's why the basics have to be right.
Later, they learn to understand that the numbers have a certain order when counting and that you don't always have to start from the beginning, but can start along the way. They also recognise that each of these number words is a single word. You can count on for a certain number of steps. A child should have these skills when they start school. The final stage of counting development involves naming neighbouring numbers and counting in steps. «Some children with dyscalculia do not reach this stage of counting development,» says Lis Reusser.
So we come into contact with maths at an early age. And yet it often triggers fear of contact and difficulties in understanding. One reason for this is the hierarchical structure of maths. If a child does not understand the difference between dative and accusative in German lessons, they can still write an essay about their last summer holiday. In maths, the knowledge builds on each other, the requirements become more complex, so the basics have to be right. «Anyone who doesn't understand the decimal place value system has no chance of progressing in arithmetic,» says Elisabeth Moser Opitz.
Abdominal pain and screaming cramps
Iman knows what it feels like not to get ahead. «In first grade, I didn't understand maths. I sat there and didn't know what to do. Maybe I asked the teacher. Maybe I didn't. She was strict.» Iman's mother Mirka also experienced this time as strict. «After three weeks, the teacher realised that Iman wasn't at the same level as the other children. After five weeks, it was decided that she should repeat first grade. It happened too quickly for me.»
Iman received support from a special needs teacher and her classmates were informed. She was ashamed. Her blocks were so great that she feared questions and comments from the teacher. Then came the stomach pains, early morning screaming fits when maths was on the timetable, and finally, after refusing to go to school, the change of school.
«Ausser in der Mathematik kann ich mir Dinge gut merken», sagt Samuel, 14, aus Schüpfen BE. Lesen Sie hier seine Erzählung: «Manchmal sass ich einfach da und wartete»This is what «not making progress» can feel like. Not knowing where to start thinking, freezing and allowing yourself to be trapped by this stubborn certainty: «I'm stupid.» Iman was convinced of this as a 6-year-old. 14-year-old Samuel from Schüpfen also felt stupid, especially when he had to ask the teacher for help every five minutes. But for Samuel, it was clear what had led him into this predicament: a lack of time. Everything happened too quickly for him.
One person who sees the lack of time as the main cause of children's difficulties with maths is Peter Geering, former professor of subject didactics at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. He knows the consequences of time pressure: a lack of understanding, development breaks down, motivation and interest are lost, and children try to relativise all of this by looking for a conclusive explanation: I'm just not gifted. «That's counterproductive, of course,» says Geering.
He has observed that children blame themselves more for their failure with girls than with boys. The girl thinks «I can't do it», the boy says «The task was too difficult». This also corresponds to the observations of Stefanie Rietzler and Fabian Grolimund from the Academy for Learning Coaching in Zurich. They say that the main difference between the sexes is not performance, but confidence in their own maths abilities.
Statements such as «I'm not good with numbers», «Logical thinking doesn't suit me» or «I'm just too stupid for maths» often come from girls and women. «Such thoughts are like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are also consciously or unconsciously repeatedly signalled that you are simply not made for maths, discouragement is inevitable,» says Stefanie Rietzler. This attitude is not innate. Studies show that parents and teachers can contribute to negative attitudes towards maths if they themselves had or have such attitudes.
When the interest came, worlds opened up for me.
Mirka, mother of 11-year-old Iman
Lis Reusser often encounters this topic in her day-to-day work. That's why she also addresses the gender aspect in her training. «I sensitise students to the stereotypes that still prevail but are not justified.» Her female students and mothers of schoolchildren often have an ambivalent relationship with maths. Advising parents to encourage their girls more or to adopt a different attitude does not usually work, she says. «Emotions are stronger than the head. As long as they can't face their own fears and have different experiences, nothing will change.»
She then advises parents of her tutoring students to get support themselves if necessary. This also applies to Iman's mum Mirka. She used to find maths difficult herself. «I was distracted and didn't get any support, so I lost the connection from year 4 onwards.» At the time, she thought: «I can't do it.» Today she knows: «I can do it. I just didn't have the interest. When the interest came, worlds opened up for me.»
The question then arises: how do children find this interest in maths? Peter Geering says that it is important to relate maths to everyday life. Learning through active discovery with suitable visualisation is now part of every conventional maths textbook. The reference to everyday life helps to build up inner images, which makes the abstract world of numbers comprehensible. However, teaching materials do not always tie in with children's everyday lives.
This was also the experience of 12-year-old Michelle from Bern. She is good at maths, but she is not entirely satisfied with the workbook for the number book. To make it more fun, she would set the tasks differently: Why add one number to another and not horses? «22,135 horses + 39,798 horses?» In this way, she creates a link to her everyday life and her passion: animals. She would also like teachers to invent more games. That way, she learns easily. «Games can support learning progress,» confirms Elisabeth Moser Opitz. «But not games in general, but games that specifically involve maths. We know this from studies in kindergarten.»
Children react individually to games. Iman, for example, has less trouble visualising numbers than exposing himself to arithmetic. «Sometimes we walk around the classroom. The teacher sets tasks: Something plus something, then minus again. Whoever knows the solution quietly is allowed to go to the other corner.» Because she can't do maths in front of others, she uses social media to help herself: She joins her friend without having done the maths when she changes corners. What helps her more is courage. «My teacher sometimes praises me. She says when I do something well.»
Time, attitude, reference to everyday life, inner images, games, praise - something essential is still missing, which 8-year-old Lian from the Bernese Seeland gets to the heart of the matter: Practising. Learning the rows. If you can do them well, the joy of maths will come.
Maths with all the senses
Practising requires understanding. If the difficulties are too great to be tackled in regular lessons, measures such as special educational support, coaching or learning therapy are available. Individualised support makes possible what is almost impossible to achieve in regular classroom lessons due to time constraints: the child is picked up where they are and the lessons are adapted to their individual characteristics.
Samuel benefited greatly from this measure. His learning goals were adapted, he was able to work at his own pace and learnt maths with all his senses with his special needs teacher. It came alive for him. Since he has been in the upper school, he now works mostly according to the same plan as the class. He feels comfortable. His classmates accept him for who he is. And what is he like? «I'm a Loki, the others are an ICE,» he laughs.
At the school's request, Iman had herself assessed by an educational counsellor. She was diagnosed with dyscalculia, which allows for compensation for disadvantages. This was waived for Iman. Like Samuel, she also received individualised learning goals and support from a special needs teacher, but not all the time. The number of special education lessons available to a school is limited. In the canton of Bern, there are usually two to three lessons per week per class. This is not always enough for everyone who needs support.
Is compensation for disadvantages sensible and fair?
The point of compensating for disadvantages in the area of maths is controversial, says Peter Sonderegger, Head of the Canton of Bern's Educational Counselling Department. As the learning objectives have to be maintained, it is difficult to find suitable measures. However, it depends on what is being tested. «If the focus is on text comprehension and not maths, a calculator can be useful.» But even then, the child must understand what they have to type into the calculator.
Who receives the diagnosis is also controversial. In the canton of Bern, it is based on a discrepancy analysis. The child undergoes an IQ test and a maths test. If the discrepancy between the two tests is large, the child is said to have a maths disorder. This means that very intelligent children with slightly below-average arithmetic performance already fulfil the conditions for compensation for disadvantage. Less intelligent children with a smaller discrepancy, on the other hand, are not entitled to compensation. In the case of an intellectual disability, measures to compensate for disadvantages are excluded.
Iman's mother therefore looked for her own solution and organised individual lessons for her daughter with Lis Reusser. The mother pays for the weekly lessons herself. Other services such as learning therapies or learning coaching are also usually paid for by the parents, which raises the question of what happens to children whose parents do not have the financial means for these support programmes. Is understanding a question of money?
Parents should not learn maths with children
In fact, studies show correlations between performance in maths and socio-economic status, for example that attendance at a higher type of school is dependent on social class, even if subject performance is the same. Furthermore, a study by the Swiss Coordination Centre for Educational Research shows that in 2011 and 2012, more than 34 percent of Swiss young people attended paid private tuition, most frequently in the subject of mathematics. The children often came from socially privileged homes.
Less privileged children sometimes receive an allowance from social services, provided the family is involved with social services. This is the experience of secondary school teacher and learning therapist Lisa Kühni in her practice in Lyss. But even in her case, it is usually the parents who pay, often over a period of several years. But the relief that therapy brings is worth the money for the parents. «Some enrol their children with me because they want to outsource learning and reduce the pressure in the family. There are no arguments with me,» says Lisa Kühni.
Michelle, 12, aus Bern, nervt das Kopfrechnen – sie erfindet lieber ein Mathe-Spiel. Lesen Sie hier ihre Erzählung: «Ein bisschen lustig ist Mathe schon, aber nicht ganz»Experts advise parents not to learn maths with their children. In most cases, this leads to arguments, confusion and tension, especially if the child has gaps in understanding. Learning under stress is difficult. This is why Lisa Kühni begins her learning therapy sessions by clarifying the child's state of mind before she starts working with them. She uses tests to assess the maths skills of her clients to identify any gaps. She starts with these and creates a link to the current material. It is important to her that the child finds their own solution and sticks with it.
She promotes an understanding of numbers and quantities through specific tasks, games and by strengthening the ability to visualise: measuring, weighing and estimating distances are some of the practical tools used in Lisa Kühni's learning therapy. Whether counting steps on the move or sitting at a table, Lisa Kühni's therapy involves travelling with a person and their difficulties. She shares their joys and sorrows. «Our rope team is part of the success, the shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with my clients is the basis of learning therapy.»
I'm doing well at the moment. Sometimes I can even help a classmate.
Iman, 11 years old
The rope team with Lis Reusser brought relief to Iman and her mother. Iman was able to greatly reduce her anxiety. She is now partly working according to the regular curriculum again. However, she owes a large part of this success to herself. With her perseverance and openness to support, Iman found her own approach to maths. She is learning to understand. In a gentle and patient way, as her tiny self-kneaded thousandths reveal. Her self-confidence in maths has grown. «I'm doing well at the moment. Sometimes I can even help a classmate.»
Now she's off work. The lesson is over. She doesn't play the multiplication table game. So that the author of this text can still see what it's all about, she plays along instead of Iman. Lis Reusser sets the tasks. «3×6?» - «18.», «7×4?» - «28.», «9×8?» - - - - - «57.»
«72,» Iman corrects quietly as she packs up her school things.
No, she doesn't need to be afraid of maths. Lian is right: maths won't eat you.
Book tips and useful links
Hans Magnus Enzensberger: Der Zahlenteufel. dtv 2014, 264 pages, approx. 20 Fr. If you are afraid of maths, the number devil will teach you better: He lights up the grey world of numbers.
Timo and Juliane Leuders: Being able to do maths. A guide for parents. Kallmeyer 2012, 192 pages, approx. 30 Fr. If parents want to support their child, this book helps them to reacquire the necessary knowledge. It also serves as a reference book for pupils.
Daniela Götze, Christoph Selter, Elena Zannetin: The KIRA book: Children do maths differently. Understanding and supporting maths lessons. Kallmeyer 2019, 168 pages, approx. 39 Fr. The reference book shows typical calculation methods and frequently observed errors in arithmetic and offers tips on how teachers can adapt learning to learners' ways of thinking.
Marion Mohnhaupt: Tina's Aha. Learning maths works! Let your brain do the maths! Visual Ink Publishing 2021, 56 pages, approx. 27 Fr. Tina's Aha is a fascinating story with valuable, up-to-date knowledge about our brain and learning maths for children, but also for adults who accompany and shape children's learning.
Fabian Grolimund and Stefanie Rietzler offer a varied website with learning tips for parents of primary school children, for young people and for teachers.
Whether it's a day school, courses, tutoring or counselling: Lernstudio offers professional support to anyone in the Zurich area who wants to learn.
An offer from Lisa Kühni, a learning therapist working in Lyss BE, for children, young people and adults with learning difficulties.
The «Atlas Mathematik» is an alternative or supplementary maths teaching aid designed by Peter Geering and Werner Fessler. It was created in collaboration with teachers, students and children.
Online tutorials on YouTube or via an app, scripts and much more can be found on the website of maths helper and educational architect Daniel Jung.
