No one in this world is Math phobic

No one in this world is math phobic ……… believe it or not ……….. just a few terms and conditions. All basics.

I have been teaching mathematics for more than FOUR DECADES. My research on math phobia finds that if a student takes care of only two parts of Mathematics, she or he can never be a math phobic.

• SPEED AS WELL AS ACCURACY in 4 basic operations (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division)
• DEEP LEVEL UNDERSTANDING in 4 basic concepts (Fraction, Integers, Decimals, Number Theory)

The other day I visited my friend’s house and happen to meet his teenage daughter who is excellent in all her academic subjects. She was pleased to tell me about her performance in all the subjects. The moment she was asked about the subject of Mathematics, she was reluctant to tell anything saying “Please, it is different, uncle.” She claimed that math is a dull and boring subject and nobody can perfectly make calculations and that again with a speed. She was shy to tell about the tales of slow suffering in the class throughout her schooling till then. She told how difficult the compulsion of remembering different formulas and the irritating algebra is. Time for solving the math question paper is always short for her, she complained.

Though she is the daughter of a friend of mine, math phobia is her biggest problem. Her parents find no solution as they went through the same system of education and they had been facing the same problem compromising that there is no solution and they are quite helpless. As she was promoted from lower to higher classes, the problem grew gradually and she starts feeling as if math is impossible for her. Soon she starts complaining of a lack of concentration in her studies in all subjects and especially in mathematics. The problem aggravated day by day. Understanding her situation, my friend got her enrolled into extra tuition classes for math but of little help. Her phobia of math was still there.

This is not the story of one school going child. Majority of the students are facing the same problem.

It may be believed that “Mathematics Phobia” is world over problem, actually it is not. During my journey of teaching mathematics, I found that “Math is the most wrongly taught subject”. If we try to teach students by cramming or copy-paste, it will be the solution of that particular question and not the other questions of the same chapter. Many students think it as a burden which increases with every passing day and promotion in grade. Concepts become burden and accuracy becomes pain as it is treated by teachers as well as parents a HAVOC! Which is actually not. If in the beginning years, the children are given the opportunity to perform drill on operations keeping both speed as well as accuracy in mind, the concepts being taught in simplified manner, then there is no way that a child find Mathematics as a burden. With this thought, we come up with the idea of creating QMaths where Q represents Quest followed by Quick.