Yahoo! Finance Instructions

Maddie Parker: A lot of people would say “I have that” and to a degree, a lot of people do, but it’s more than feeling like you don’t do well on exams. Kids who have math anxiety almost always have a physical inability to respond to being tested or asked to perform on math-related tasks. It is just built up over the years of different experiences, and it stops them from being able to learn any further.

MW: Is it something adults face?Parker: It translates from kids to adulthood. When you get out of school, you’re less exposed or have less experience being tested so the anxiety may seem like it’s gone away but any time math or that skill is required, the anxiety comes right back. I think it has been perpetuated as a weird acceptance in our country, that it’s OK to be bad at math. Like, “oh, math is hard and it’s OK not to get it.” It definitely follows into adulthood and affects people dealing with finances, because they have to do math and they don’t know how to do it, and they’re stressed or embarrassed to ask for help.

MW: How can math anxiety impact personal finances?

Parker: In high school, you’re not required to take personal finance and the math you’re doing is unrelated to what you do in real life. And that real life math in your brain is still tied to calculus so you think, “I couldn’t do that at 16, I probably can’t handle finances now.” But it is different math. It’s not to say it’s simple, but it’s different, and it is applicable in such a way that people do find it easier to understand. It is not quite as challenging as graphing logarithmic equations. It’s a lot different.

MW: There are many people who say women generally are more likely to have math anxiety than men. Is that something you’ve seen?

Parker: There are great articles and podcasts and TED talks about the same concepts, of how we’re raising our girls to be perfect and raising our boys to be brave. And there was one example at a girls’ coding camp, where they have to learn to do coding and the girls specifically would type up all this stuff and then if they couldn’t figure it out they’d erase it all and call the teacher over. The teacher would press undo and show all of this work and that they were really close, but because the girls couldn’t make it work they wanted to tell the teacher to show them from the beginning. They didn’t want to show this not perfect work.

It is just a good example that demonstrates that girls are being raised to be perfect and not in the same way as boys, who may say (like in that example) that they don’t care and at least they’ll get partial credit. The only way to learn is by making mistakes, but that gets lost on girls when they feel they have to be perfect.

MW: Does that concept translate to adult couples in financial planning?

Parker: It is more apparent for women when they are single individuals. They’re more comfortable saying “I don’t get it” or it’s more evident. They’re not as afraid to ask for help. It’s when they’re with their spouses it is easier to be quiet or let them talk and pretend you understand things because your partner is helping you, but it is still relevant. I always work with most clients together and I will

ask them both “do you understand this?” or make sure they’re both on the same page.

MW: How would you say your background as a math teacher benefits you and your clients?

Parker: One of the biggest ways is in my ability to explain things. It’s funny, I majored in math and decided to be a high school math teacher, but when I was in high school, I struggled with math. I had good grades and I didn’t have math anxiety, but I wasn’t some freaky Einstein genius kid who got it all. It made sense when I didn’t get something right and because I liked it so much I worked hard to understand it. I was good at explaining things to my friends. But my own struggle made me good at explaining it. A lot of math teachers are geniuses who understand it, and that makes it hard to explain it to students who are struggling.

That ability translates nicely to doing financial plans. I can see what is probably going to confuse them and where they’ll get lost.

MW: Are there any math-related topics that clients typically have a hard time understanding?

Parker: It varies, but one big thing we talk about is inflation and compound interest. The need to factor in inflation because a dollar today is not going to be a dollar 10 years from now, and that it is a slow climb. People are amazed at how different the numbers look when I factor in 2.5% inflation.

MW: Is there any way to overcome math anxiety?

Parker: It is important that there be no stigma about it. There’s this expectation people have of themselves that they should know more about finance because it applies to their life. I am a financial adviser and I don’t know how to fix my car, so I bring it to be serviced by professionals. I don’t feel stupid because I didn’t focus on that and I know nothing about it.

It can be scary if you don’t know who you’re going to and unfortunately there are some bad people out there, but if you do your homework to find the people to help you, you don’t need to feel ashamed or embarrassed. That’s the whole reason you find a professional to begin with — someone who is trained. That’s their job.

XI

THE PROBLEMS

INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR, WOMEN MAKE UP ONLY...

RTSWS HAS A SOLUTION

OUR OUTCOMES

ARTICLE

Keeping Girls in STEM: 3 Barriers, 3 Solutions

An article from Edutopia by Carly Berwick, March 12, 2019

Stereotypes and cultural norms dampen girls’ interest in STEM, but educators can counter the disparities with small changes to their practice.

Mathematicians and scientists are socially awkward men who wear glasses—at least, according to children.

In several studies, when children were asked to draw a mathematician or scientist, girls were twice as likely to draw men as they were to draw women, while boys almost universally drew men, often in a lab coat. I decided to try this out at home with my 12-year-old son, who said, “Really anyone can be a mathematician, but this is your average one,” and promptly sketched a man in a checked oxford shirt with a pocket protector.

Persistent, subconscious images of male mathematicians and scientists that start at the earliest ages may be one explanation why girls enter STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—at dramatically lower rates than boys.

As an English teacher at a STEM magnet high school in New Jersey, I see these gender disparities in our engineering and computer science (CS) academies, even as our dynamic, thoughtful girls work hard to dispel stereotypes and recruit younger girls through coding camps and workshops. Our teachers certainly reflect the STEM fields of a generation ago: Three of our four CS teachers and engineering teachers are male.

The irony is that girls perform as well as boys in math. Nationally, math test scores for girls have been consistently equal to or within two points of boys in fourth and eighth grades over several years; middle school girls pass algebra at higher than boys. In science, girls perform on par with boys and enroll in advanced science and math courses at equal rates as they move into high school. And then something happens: A gender gap in participation starts to appear as girls take fewer of the more advanced STEM courses and tests as they get closer to college. This gap widens the longer girls are in school and is often compounded by issues of race and class.

Researchers don’t know yet if these continuing disparities in STEM reflect the slow pace of societal change, childrearing expectations, or something deeper and more entrenched, such as the way we think about girls’ minds. But teachers can play a significant role in influencing or dispelling stereotypes in STEM education. Here are some studies from researchers and educators that may offer a few insights—and a few solutions.

BARRIER 1: BUILDING A MATH IDENTITY

The problem: One explanation for the gender differences in STEM participation may lie with those formative ideas about who a mathematician or scientist is.

Stereotype threat—the mere perception that a group one belongs to is not good at a task—has been linked to lower academic performance, according to researchers. When girls become aware through both subtle and overt cultural messages about male superiority in math, it makes each encounter with math and technology more fraught, triggering self-doubt in even the most studious young girls.

Both teachers and curriculum can inadvertently contribute to these perceptions.

In one striking study from 2015, Israeli researchers divided sixth-grade exams into two sets for grading: One batch was graded by the teachers and included students’ names, and the other contained no student names and was graded externally. In math, teachers graded boys higher, while external graders rated girls higher. Those low teacher grades then dissuaded girls for years to come.

Teachers often harbor these biases about themselves, too. Elementary school teachers are predominantly female, and many are anxious about teaching math, which can lead to lower achievement in math for girls.

This persists into high school, where anxious teachers might be overly reliant on textbooks and rote methods of instruction. Images in those same textbooks can subconsciously trigger self-doubt in girls. One study found that when female high school students viewed chemistry textbooks containing pictures of female scientists, they performed better than female students who viewed textbooks containing only pictures of males.

Solutions: In response, researchers say teachers can foster a growth mindset in students by emphasizing that practice rather than innate ability improves performance. Other studies show that brief, targeted interventions in which students learn that intelligence is not fixed but can be improved through training and hard work can help them persist through challenges, a trait that, in math and science, should be particularly advantageous for girls.

Adding images of female mathematicians or scientists throughout classroom materials and assigning individual or group work that summarizes or contextualizes women’s achievements in these subjects can also shift perceptions about who belongs.

Tackling the STEM gender bias can also warrant some self-reflection on the part of teachers.

“For me, it starts with a belief, these expectations I have for all of my students, that all kids can learn—every teacher doesn’t have that belief,” says Cicely Woodard, a middle school math teacher in Franklin, Tennessee, and the state’s 2018 Teacher of the Year. “When the kids walk in the door I immediately believe they will get this content.”

Stanford University professor and researcher Jo Boaler recommends that female teachers avoid phrases that imply their discomfort or dislike of math—like “I’m bad at math” or “This is hard”—and get creative with assignments that show they are truly interested in the topic. They may also want to grade papers anonymously, where possible.

BARRIER 2: THE QUESTION OF RACE AND CLASS

The problem: Our assumptions about who does math well—and the academic and financial support that follows— may, in fact, impact performance more than raw aptitude. This has particularly profound implications for low-income students and black and Latino females, who are significantly less likely to take advanced STEM courses and pursue STEM professions later in life.

A recent study by Sean Reardon at Stanford University revealed that girls often do better than boys on math in racially diverse districts, while boys perform better in affluent white districts. He theorized that in higher-income communities, parents are more able and more likely to invest in enrichment for their children—like robotics camps or theater classes —that adhere to stereotypes. Children in these communities may also be more likely to see men in positions like doctors or engineers that reinforce the narrative about who pursues STEM careers.

Additionally, research “has clearly [indicated] that black girls view themselves as outsiders in mathematics and teachers view them as outsiders,” says Nicole Joseph, assistant professor of mathematics and science education at Vanderbilt University. Joseph points to tracking in math, more common in middle and high school than in the humanities, as a key structure infused with bias that restricts access to rigorous math education for black students.

Solutions: In a review of 62 studies on the perseverance of black women and girls in math, Joseph and her coauthors found that several measures can help build math identity and interest among black girls. For starters, schools can consider “structural disruptions” to how math instruction usually happens. San Francisco Unified School District, for example, recently eliminated accelerated math in middle school and allowed all

students to take Algebra I in ninth grade—effectively ending tracking—which led to a rise in algebra test scores and a decrease in repeat rates for all students, including black and Latino students.

Joseph also suggests that “community influences and resilience strategies” from extra- or co-curricular programs, single-sex programs, teacher training in culturally responsive teaching strategies, and black and female role models in STEM can help.

Educators like Norman Alston, a Seattle-based educator, and Patricia Brown, a technology integration specialist in Ladue, Missouri, are