Bad in Maths, it's on the head!

Square roots, theorems, geometry ... nothing to do, it does not. intelligence question? Rather emotions, meets the psychologist Anne Siety. With her young "traumatized" make encouraging progress.

Marie-Madeleine Péretié

Who is Anne Siety?

Former student of the ESCG (Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris) and holds a DESS of clinical psychopathology, Anne Siety has specialized in the field of psychology of mathematics. She practices in private and in different institutions, and teaches at the University - Paris X and Paris-VIII - the educational sciences. She is also the author of Mathematics, dear terror (Hachette, 2003).

What anxieties and difficulties faced by children since math is the yardstick of the "good student"! In the work she has put into this, Anne Siety, psychologist, debunks two prejudices. A: math would be inhumane. Rather, it argues, there is nothing more human. This discipline refers to our body, our identity, our experience of the relationship and separation ...

Two: the math blocks would be an intellectual. That is, conversely, because this discipline mobilizes deep emotions that math can be so agonizing. Because the strength of affects blocking intelligence. Nothing therefore serves to subject to "zero in math" intensive training. It is first necessary to listen to the students and let them express what is the source of their anxiety. This is the path chosen has Siety Anne.

Psychologies: Why were you interested in math?

Anne Siety: When I was a student, I gave little math, and I realized, listening to my students how math triggered pain and anguish. Why do we have such a passionate relationship with this renowned abstract matter? Start the subject at a dinner and he will raise a host of anecdotes and memories more or less "traumathisants". Students say zero, see their teacher write on the board as if it were easy, finding that their peers seem to understand and say they'll never make it. I then noticed that math referred them to very concrete anxieties related to their history.

How is this related?

The mathematics affect us very profoundly. Roots, landmarks, parentheses, problem statements tell us of identity, separation, loss. The famous "X" - the stranger whom the children are taught not to talk - as negative numbers pose many problems ... The geometry is difficult because it seems very real; students finally based on a real drawing, and are asked to get in, to in abstract, to perform a demonstration. Again, it comes to separation. Gradually, I became convinced that if a child has problems with math, it's not because he is not smart, but because something in him prevents him from accessing his thinking and to use its capabilities. It has something to do with its history. It is on this that we will work through the course and exercises.