• Motto

This Week in Motto: What We’re Getting Wrong

2 minute read

I always hated math. I was not good at it (I have the grades to prove it), and it never electrified my mind the way reading, history or art do. But reading Stanford professor Jo Baeler’s piece this week, I reconsidered more than just QRMS and Trig 101. She made me rethink how we learn to think.

The bottom line from Jo: female students like to engage deeply with material, but we tend to blame ourselves when we don’t understand something. Math, meanwhile, is often taught in a quick, rote style. So, my hatred of math may not have been a self-fulfilling prophecy but a teaching style-fulfilled one. What else do we blame ourselves for that may in fact be the effect of much greater cultural forces?

In other news, where do you stand on Leggingsgate?

Happy Friday,

Claire

Claire.Howorth@time.com

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