Math phobia. Math anxiety. Fear of math. Whatever you call it, many of our learners have it. Many educators, too! In fact, chances are there is an official psychiatric diagnosis for math loathing!

What is it about mathematics that strikes fear in so many people? This question forged the backdrop for our motivation to attend the Teaching Adult Numeracy Certification pilot course (offered through SABES and the Adult and Community Learning Services at the Massachusetts Department of Education.) As instructors we aren't much different from our students; we bring our own academic history with us, and in our case, we also had two totally different personalities, age perspectives, degrees of enthusiasm, and levels of numeric comfort. We soon learned that the only factor we needed to have in common was the willingness to look at math in a new way -- to view it as FUN.

Under the guidance of coordinator Esther Leonelli, with assistance by Marilyn Moses, Barbara Goodridge, and Mary Jane Schmitt, we actually did learn to look at math differently and we did have fun. Each week we were presented with a new learning technique. Early feelings of intimidation were quickly replaced by simple successes, and self-doubts gave way to confidence inspired by the bonds of camaraderie within our little class of five adult learners. The social "ice" was broken in the first class when we shared our math autobiographies. My c0worker, Jen, the younger and more positively energized of our learning duo, wrote of numerous constructive mathematical experiences.

I, on the other hand, had retrieved memories of being taught to play poker at an early age and encouraged to compute odds - to know literally when to hold and when to fold. Esther placed equal enthusiasm on each of our experiences and proceeded to predict numeric "greatness" for all of us. I was a little less sure of this than my bubbly coworker but gamely hung in there. Each week we extensively studied personal conceptions of knowledge in regards to mathematical functions -- that is, multiplication, division, fractions, percents, etc.-- while never losing sight of individual learning styles. We were also required to take the GED math to explore our own anxiety levels and shortcomings. Taking the math test also helped us reflect on our teaching expectations and our use of teaching strategies.

Applications
This is where the "fun" began. Each of our weekly lessons also incorporated an "application problems" assignment. These sheets were usually twelve problems long and the course required us to choose two or three different problems, introduce them to our students, and document our experience in our weekly numeric journals. (These diary-type notations provided each of us with a written commentary on our readings and our experiences: what we wanted to try, what we did try, what worked, what didn't, and suggestions of how we could improve our future performance. These notations were time consuming yet proved to be a valuable tool in reflecting on and improving our practice. To help us effectively present these problems to our students, we were required to tackle a similar exercise in our numeracy class while utilizing a variety of manipulatives.

Hands On
My educational background had not included this hands-on approach, so as coworker Jen gleefully played, placed, designed, organized, and, seemingly, mastered blocks, dots, plastic chips, beans, cards, and fractional slices of almost everything imaginable, I wondered how I was to introduce all of these techniques while still remaining within my realm of comfort. That answer came as a very pleasant surprise to me. After admitting that I'd rather clean bathrooms than teach anything resembling geometry, I was soon shown how to feel confident enough to say to my class, "I'm not exactly sure what the answer is. Let's see if we can find it together." What the best teachers already knew is what we learned: relinquishing the belief that as an educator one must "know" all of the answers has its rewards. Our students didn't look at us as being less of a teacher, but as being more of a modeler. And following that statement with an exploration of what tangible items we could use for our learning process resulted in a "win-win" situation for all of us.

Each week in the pilot class we shared strategies, documented feedback from our students, encouraged each other, and were encouraged in return. We tried it all: blocks, graphs, labels, diagrams, magnified rulers, sand, coupons, water, and more. But mainly we battled against the staleness and futility of the "drill and kill" method of teaching math. We recognized that life-skill relevancy expands beyond the confines of comfort. When a student needs to know how many square feet of floor tiles she should purchase or has the need to find the congruent angles for the stability of a backyard fence, then tidy little worksheets go out the window.

The Teaching Adult Numeracy Certification pilot course encouraged honesty in mathematics. If we accept the fact that there are numerous ways in which we learn, it is logical to support the idea that there is more than one way to teach.

Joan Fournier and Jenifer Mullen are ABE and ESOL teachers at the Taunton Public Schools/Bristol Community College Adult Education Partnership. The two have combined experiences in family literacy, curriculum frameworks, and workplace education. Jenifer can be reached by e-mail at rcmullster@cs.com  Joan can be reached by phone at 508-977-9565.