Dear Parents,

I have been studying the recent brain research available about learning, and math learning in particular.  Math skills can be developed and improved with practice, that is, people don't just get math or don't get math.  My class will celebrate mistakes to reduce fear and anxiety about math learning, and because the brain develops more neurons and pathways when mistakes are made.  I will work hard to relieve anxiety and build deep underlying conceptual understanding for your students.  Please be relaxed about math around your child at home.  I will down play some traditional myths and  understanding people our age grew up with.  I do not think that speed is equal to math intelligence.  I do not think that only asking questions that the students already know how to do is as helpful as asking open ended questions that can be approached in different ways.

While taking an online free course about math teaching at Stanford University, the teacher said, " For parents, you know by now that I think one of the biggest helps you can give your children is to dispel myths. And now that comes in the ways that you help and guide them. So first of all, encourage mistakes at all times. And importantly, don't share with them your own painful experiences of math in school if you had those. Research has found that as soon as mothers told their daughters that they were bad at maths in school, which mothers often say to help their daughters feel better, their daughters achievement immediately went down. If you're not confident with math yourself, the best thing to say is great. We can learn this together. I don't know this either. You can help me with this. And whenever they come home with math homework, greet it with cheers. Say yay, I'm so excited, math homework. I love working on math, especially math I can't do."

"The final piece you're going to be surprised about, of advice is to dissociate math from speed. The new common core didn't do enough in my view to make the content of the curriculum the content that our young people will need, but they did something really important, and they said that it's only useful to be learning content if you're also learning what they set out in the mathematical practices to solve problems, to reason, to be persistent, and so on. But of course that takes longer as there's a need to go deeper, which is great, and I think teachers would have been really helped in my opinion if the content had been slimmed down. Although that's just my, my opinion but for parents it's just as important not to use speed, not to use things like flash cards or other speed math practice."

The above quotes were taken from:

Jo Boaler
Professor of Mathematics Education

Dr Jo Boaler is Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, editor of the research commentary section of JRME, and author of seven books, including "What's Math Got To Do With It" (US) / "The Elephant in the Classroom" (UK). Former roles have included being the Marie Curie Professor of Mathematics Education in England and a mathematics teacher in London comprehensive schools.

Drilling kids with timed tests and encouraging perfection are proven ways to increase anxiety, pressure students to stay with what they already know how to do, and turn them off of higher level math.