Rebuilding confidence in mathematics – Jamaica Observer

Dear Editor,

“Sir, mi cyaan do maths.” Every mathematics teacher has heard these words. Sometimes they are spoken quietly before the lesson even begins. Sometimes they are whispered after a difficult question appears on the board. Occasionally, they are said with a nervous laugh that hides years of frustration and self-doubt.

What makes these words particularly heartbreaking is they are often spoken before the student has even attempted the problem. Somewhere along the journey, many of our children become convinced that mathematics is not a subject they can learn. They begin to believe that mathematical ability is something you are either born with or forever denied.

As a graduate student researching mathematics education, I recently set out to understand why. I expected to find a straightforward explanation. Students fear mathematics, and because of that fear they perform poorly. Instead, I discovered something that challenged my own assumptions.

International research consistently demonstrates that mathematics anxiety is associated with lower academic performance in mathematics. Researchers have linked this anxiety to reduced confidence, lower participation, weaker problem-solving, and even changes in how the brain processes mathematical information under stress.

Yet when I examined the emerging research from Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, I found a different story. Our students certainly experience mathematics anxiety. That much is undeniable. But the limited research conducted in our region does not clearly show that mathematics anxiety alone explains why so many students underperform.

That surprised me. And perhaps it should surprise all of us, because maybe we have been asking the wrong question. Perhaps the issue is not simply: Why are our students afraid of mathematics? Perhaps the better question is: What is it about our mathematics classrooms that contributes to that fear in the first place?

Think about the average Jamaican student’s experience. From primary school, mathematics quickly becomes one of the most heavily scrutinised subjects. By grade six, students face the pressure of the Primary Exit Profile (PEP). By high school, the focus shifts almost immediately to Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) mathematics. For many students, mathematics becomes less about discovering patterns, solving problems, or making sense of the world and more about preparing for the next examination.

Some students begin to associate every mathematics lesson with judgement. Every wrong answer feels public. Every mistake feels permanent. Every test feels like a measure of intelligence rather than learning. When that happens repeatedly, fear quietly replaces curiosity.

Of course, classrooms are not the only influence. Family beliefs, previous academic experiences, peer comparisons, teacher expectations, and the pressures of high-stakes examinations all shape how students think and feel about mathematics. Mathematics anxiety rarely develops because of a single experience; rather, it emerges through the interaction of many factors over time.

The irony is that mathematics was never meant to be learnt this way. Mathematics is built on exploration. It is built on trying. It is built on making mistakes, correcting them, and trying again. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us have unintentionally taught students that getting the wrong answer is something to avoid rather than something to learn from.

If we can replace fear with curiosity and judgement with encouragement, we may discover that our students are capable of far more than they, or perhaps even we, have imagined. Perhaps that is where our greatest challenge lies.

O’Jae Adlam

ojaeadlam@gmail.com