Top 6 Reasons Math is Hard to Learn

By Justin Smith, Mathnasium Instructor

I've been teaching at Mathnasium since early 2016. Here's my take on why some kids struggle with math and how they can turn it around to become confident and successful math students.

1. You’re either right or you’re wrong.

This is one of the most frustrating aspects of math for young minds. When it comes to most things in life, there’s some gray area. People aren’t “good” or “bad.” Rules can often bend. But in math, that’s almost never true. 1+1 will always equal 2. The square root of pi will never change. And sometimes, it may feel overwhelming. It may feel like you need to have everything memorized, the way you would in a history class. That isn’t how math works, though. Math works best when you understand the rules, and make sure to follow them.

2. Even when you’re doing it right, you might still be wrong.

I see this all the time. A student has worked out a long word problem, gotten all of the numbers correct, and then written the wrong answer in the provided “blank space.” Or, a student is working on an algebra problem and has done every step correctly, but misplaced a negative during step 7. At the end of the problem, the answer is wrong. And as an instructor, I have to tell the student that he or she is incorrect. It can feel frustrating to have done so much only for it all to have been for naught, and it’s difficult to verbalize to a student that they’ve done everything correctly. Of the 25 steps in the problem, there was only one mistake. And it wasn’t a “bad at math” mistake, but a reading mistake. Often, a student will tell him or herself, “I am bad at math,” instead of being proud of the work that was done correctly.

3. Math builds on itself.

You can’t move to the next phase of math until you understand the level you’re on. If you’re constructing a building, you have to lay the foundation before you can build the walls. In math, every new lesson is a brand new foundation. It’s a structure with new rules piling up on top of each other forever. If any one of those foundations is weak, there’s no moving on. The reason so many students fall behind is not because they are incapable of learning, but because they are missing one key ingredient from a prior lesson that makes it impossible to move on. They begin to tell themselves that math is impossible, instead of expressing their confusion and putting the missing piece into place.

4. Understanding the method but not the reason leads to forgetting.

Getting an “A” on a test does not mean that you understand the material. It means you studied, and perhaps remember, at least for now, the method on how to solve a particular type of problem. If you understand that 4+6=10, but not why those two numbers can combine to make 10, you may not learn as quickly that 40+60=100. Or that 104+6=110. When it comes to the more difficult concepts, especially once algebra is involved, it’s very easy to learn how to solve a problem but not why the solution works, making it impossible to move on to the next concept.

5. A “C” is not a passing grade in math.

In many classes in school, and in many households across the country, a “C” in a class means, “you understand the material pretty well, and you’re on par with the rest of the students.” In math, this isn’t the case. If you get a “C” on a math test, it means that you don’t understand the material. If you have a “C” in a math class, it means there are fundamental building blocks of your math education that are missing. Because math is cumulative and builds on itself, a “C” means that the next class is going to be even harder, and even if you’ve memorized most of the formulas, there will be problems that are nearly impossible to solve until you’ve gone back to learn what is missing.

6. Teachers don’t have enough time.

Acknowledging that the above problems are true, there is no feasible way for a math teacher to make sure that all 30 to 100 of their students fully understands all of the material. Time is a very limited resource for teachers. They use it to teach, plan a syllabus, grade papers, teach outside programs, and tend to their own personal lives. There isn’t enough time in a week, or a month, to spend one-on-one time with each student to ensure that they are up to speed. If a teacher gets a student who is already months or years behind, there is nothing they can do for him or her without disrupting class time and slowing the learning of the other students. At a certain point, it’s time to go back and relearn the concepts, or get a tutor to help with the basics. It may feel insulting or diminishing, but if the problem isn’t solved right away, it will only persist and grow stronger as the concepts in math get more complicated.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

1. Identify where the issue in learning is. Take a test online or go to a center and find out where the gaps in math learning are so that your child doesn’t fall any further behind.
2. Practice concepts. This can be done at home. If there is a concept that you understand, you can help run drills to enforce and strengthen understanding. If you don’t have time, there are games designed to help practice math concepts where your child may not even realize he or she is learning.
3. Hire a tutor. A private tutor or a tutor at a learning center can help give your child the one-on-one attention he or she needs to learn and understand concepts that may have been tricky or confusing before.
4. Use math at home! Try to use terminology like “half,” “less than,” “more than,” or counting when doing everyday activities with young children. With older children, see if they can calculate the tip at a restaurant, or calculate the number of “kilometers per hour” the car is moving while on the highway. Make it fun, have kids race each other for the answer, or reward them for correct answers. Any opportunity can be a learning opportunity.

Learn more about how the Mathnasium Method builds confidence and makes math fun and easy to learn.

Contact us to schedule a FREE math skills assessment for your child.