Research School Network: I am a teacher of .….. – what has maths got to do with me? A look into the role of non-maths teachers in developing students mathematical identities and perceptions

I am going to start this blog with two statements:

• I am not a maths teacher – I’m a geographer
• I love a pub quiz

The reason I mention this is that last Friday I was at a pub quiz in which there was both a maths and geography round. Strangely I was the only one who seemed displeased by the geography round – I mean geography pub quizzes rarely ask questions about coastal erosion processes etc. – and yet the announcement of a maths round was met with an audible groan by nearly all in attendance.

This got me thinking – what is the issue with maths, why don’t we like it and what role do teachers (mathematics or otherwise) have to play in addressing this? Maybe I am the odd one out but I distinctly remember enjoying maths at school, and still do, however I was interested in why the prevailing disposition to maths is often negative.

The research around this concept is quite extensive, with various causes of the issue discussed. Hernandez-Martinez and Pampaka (2017) in their longitudinal study found evidence of declining dispositions towards maths throughout secondary schools, and often an apathy towards the subject. In their amusingly entitled work ​“I would rather die – reasons given by 16-year olds for not continuing their study of mathematics” Brown et al (2008) explore the common reasons students gave for not continuing maths. The most prevalent reason students in the study gave was that ​“maths is difficult”, with rejection of further study even common in students projected to be successful in the subject. The issue of difficulty is messy. One reason for this is that the message of difficulty comes from many external sources such as the experience of friends, family and most importantly (for us) teachers. Every interaction between a student and teacher has huge potential to predict future attitudes and actions, and therefore interactions between students and teachers (most likely those outside of maths) that suggest maths is a challenging subject often add to the perception of difficulty and reduce student willingness to study the subject further.

The next most prominent reason for disliking maths given by students is a lack of enjoyment and/​or belief that the subject is boring. This resonates with work by Nordi and Stewart which found that students often see maths as something that has to be done, but has little relevance to the real world. Despite best efforts messages about the importance of mathematics are not being heard by students. This aligns with the work of Thornton and Hogan (2004) who note that as students spend much more of their school life out of maths than in it, the relevance of maths is closely linked to its use in a range of curriculum areas. Thornton and Hogan spend more time examining the role of teachers (especially teachers of other subjects) and their role in promoting numeracy/​mathematical study. They propose that teachers can take multiple stances in relation to the maths within their own subjects. For example, they claim that some teachers will take a ​“separatist” position in which they believe developing maths skills is ​“the job of the maths teacher”. Separatists will often believe that when students struggle with a mathematical concept within their subject it is likely because they have not learnt it or been taught it well enough in maths. This belief may exist due to fear/​negative views of maths or a failure to acknowledge the quantitative aspects of their subject. Alternatively, some teachers may position themselves as theme-makers believing that mathematics and other learning areas should be integrated, although this can sometimes dictate an overly simplistic view of maths.

So…what does this all mean for the non-maths teachers amongst us?

Firstly we need to think about our role in perpetuating students’ beliefs about maths and identities as mathematicians. Various authors suggest that there is much work to do in addressing teachers attitudes towards maths, from their formative training years and beyond. As non-maths teachers we need to reflect on our own attitudes towards maths and the discourse we may have with and in front of students in relation to this. For example, flippant comments such as ​“oh I was never any good at maths/​maths is hard isn’t it” may have a much greater impact than we realise.

In addition, it could be argued that the wider school context, and in particular the way maths is seen and used across the wider school curriculum, likely plays a key role in the development of students’ mathematical self-perceptions. The development of maths within students cannot and should not be laid exclusively at the feet of the maths teacher, and much like the now widely accepted approach that all teachers are responsible for literacy, we must all take responsibility for teaching maths in our own subjects – providing students with greater opportunities to connect maths to real world examples. Thornton and Hogan argue that school mathematics alone is unlikely to develop the necessary capacity in our students to understand the underpinning role of mathematical ideas in problem solving, communication and debate, and therefore argue that all teachers must make a conscious effort to engage in mathematical thinking within their own areas, so as to model its importance beyond the walls of the maths classroom.

We should also acknowledge and embrace the maths elements of our subjects. It can be easy to distance our subjects from maths (take a separatist view), but in reality, there will always be opportunities for maths in our subject, even when it may not seem obvious – for example in English (i.e. understanding the scale of the triffids from the novel) or in citizenship when understanding government formation through differing voting systems. We must remember that the reason some teachers may actively avoid these aspects of their lessons is a lack of confidence, as such we must designate subject co-planning time and professional development to these areas and plan how to teach these in the context of our own subjects.

I started this blog by saying I am not a maths teacher – but maybe I need to reconsider my definition of being a maths teacher…

Ben Crockett, Deputy Director Durrington Research School

Further reading:

Brown, M., Brown, P., & Bibby, T. (2008). ​“I would rather die”: reasons given by 16-year-olds for not continuing their study of mathematics. Research in Mathematics Education, 10(1), 3 – 18. 

Paul Hernandez-Martinez and Maria Pampaka (2007) Chapter 7 – ​“I did use to like maths…”: Emotional Changes Toward Mathematics During Secondary School Education

Thornton, S., & Hogan, J. (2004). Orientations to numeracy: Teachers confidence and disposition to use mathematics across the curriculum. In M. J. Joines, & A. B. Fuglestad (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28^th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 4−313−4−320). Bergen University College.