After realizing yesterday that my assumptions about myself were completely wrong, I spent some time learning about just how destructive the “math person” myth can be, and I created version 1 of my plan to squash my own “not a math person” myth once and for all.
Links about math anxiety and the myth of the “math person”
- “The Myth of ‘I’m Bad at Math’ by Miles Kimball and Noah Smith
- Video: “A math major talks about fear” by Saramoira Shields
- Study: “Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention” (Full Text PDF)
- What it Feels Like to Be Bad at Math by Ben Orlin
- If We Talked About Other Subjects the Way We Talk About Math by Ben Orlin
My goals for this month
- Publilsh a video every day to share my learning process
- Publish a blog post every day to serve as a brain dump of all my ideas and questions and to compile a list of helpful resources
- Improve my computational skills (starting with arithmetic)
- Track my progress by taking pre- and post-tests
- Learn more about real math – the more creative, abstract mathematics!
- Interview at least three mathematicians or people who enjoy math
- Interview a couple people who don’t like math
- Explore connections between math and my other interests (like language, music, history, art, psychology, etc)
- Make a couple small creative projects to explore mathematical concepts – maybe a small programming project or just some silly drawings!
- Read math books, listen to math podcasts, watch math videos – really immerse myself in this fascinating new world!
- Track how much time I’m spending on all of this!
Schedule version 1
- 2 hours on math practice problems
- 2 hours reading about math more generally
- 2 hours making my daily video
- 2 hours on my other projects, like a small freelance web development job and running Learn to Code LA, the meetup group I started earlier this year
If I feel like working more than 8 hours, then I will; otherwise, I’ll try to reserve time for working on my other goals like socializing and making more friends in meatspace.
Time breakdown
- Video production time: 3 hours 24 min
- Script writing/preparation: 1 hour 8 min
- Filming/setup: 27 min
- Video editing: 1 hour 23 min
- Publishing: 26 min
- Math study time: 2 hours 3 min
- Practice problems: none
- General research: 2 hours 3 min