Passing on learning attitudesI've written a lot on the Brilliant Blog about how relationships can enhance learning. We learn better when we "apprentice" ourselves to someone more knowledgeable, for example; when we ourselves teach others; and when we discuss and debate with our peers.
But there are also times when relationships suppress learning.
This is the case when parents and teachers—figures of towering
importance in the world of children—pass on negative views about
particular academic subjects. This passing-on is not deliberate, of
course. No parent or teacher would wish to impart feelings of anxiety or
aversion regarding learning. And yet that’s often just what happens,
according to Elizabeth Gunderson, a researcher at the University of
Chicago.
Gunderson and her colleagues recently published an article in the journal Sex Roles
that examined the “adult-to-child transmission” of attitudes about
learning—in particular, how mothers’ unease with mathematics may be
passed down to their daughters. Parents’ “own personal feelings about
math are likely to influence the messages they convey about math to
their children,” Gunderson notes—and kids will readily recognize if
these feelings are negative. Becoming aware of our anxiety is the first
step toward stopping such transmission in its tracks.
Previous studies have looked at how parents’ stereotypes (“boys are
better at math, and girls are better at reading”) and expectations (for
example, holding sons’ academic performance to a higher standard than
daughters’) affect their children’s orientation toward learning.
Gunderson takes a different tack, suggesting that parents may influence
their offspring’s attitudes in two more subtle ways: through their own
anxiety, and through their own belief that abilities are fixed and can’t
be improved (expressed in commonly-heard comments like “I’ve never been
good at science,” and “I can’t do math to save my life”).
Research shows
that school-aged children are especially apt to emulate the attitudes
and behaviors of the same-sex parent—a source of concern if we want to
improve girls’ still-lagging performance in traditionally male-dominated
fields like science and mathematics. If mom hates math, a young girl
may reason, it’s O.K. for me to dislike it too.
Teachers aren’t immune to negative feelings about learning, either. In fact, studies show
that undergraduates who study elementary education have the highest
math anxiety of any college major. Instructors who are uncomfortable
with mathematics feel less capable teaching the subject, research
indicates, and are less motivated to try new and innovative teaching
strategies. A study by cognitive psychologist Sian Beilock, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science in 2010, demonstrates how teachers’ unease with math can influence the students in their classrooms.
Beilock and her coauthors evaluated 52 boys and 65 girls enrolled in
first and second grade and taught by 17 different teachers. At the
beginning of the school year, there was no connection between the
students’ math ability and their teachers’ math anxiety. By the end of
the year, however, a dismaying relationship had emerged: the more
anxious teachers were about math, the more likely the girls in their
classes were to endorse negative stereotypes about females’ math
ability, and the more poorly these girls did on a test of math
achievement.
Adults who want to avoid passing on pessimistic attitudes about learning
can do more than simply watch their language (no more “I’m hopeless at
math” when the dinner check arrives at the table). They can jump into
the subject they once feared with both feet, using their children’s
education as an opportunity to brush up on their own basic skills. Learn
along with your kids, and you may find that math and science, or
writing and spelling, are not so scary. And let kids know that it’s
always possible to change and improve our abilities—you being a prime
example.
