I have seen many of these math myths in action in my own math education. One that strikes an especially significant chord for me is “It’s always important to get the answer exactly right.”  In all the years of math education from k-12, every teacher I had was ultimately concerned with getting the answer exactly right. In high school courses, such as Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus, not only was it necessary to get the answer exactly right, I also was required to get all the steps written correctly with the answer. After teaching math in grades 6-8, especially in pullout resource room sections, I saw that I could learn more from my students mistakes. Requiring them to write the steps out as they were developing concepts was an important tool for them and for me to assess their thinking process. Did they reach an incorrect answer because they did not understand the problem or because of a simple computational error. By examining the problem solving process , they could learn the how and the why of the concept.

Additionally, there are also instances where an exact answer is not necessary. For example, if one of my students is shopping for school clothes with a $100 budget, being able to estimate or approximate a total will help them stay under budget before reaching the checkout. This gives kids a real life application for learning mental math skills of rounding and addition within a practical context.

“Math requires a good memory, and memorizing formulas and rules is the best way to learn it.” I am an ultimate example of why this statement is a myth. Because rote learning came easily to me, I could plug numbers into rules and formulas and get the answers. This resulted in being placed in advanced classes but really having no concept of why the formulas worked. I did not really learn or retain much from Calculus and Trigonometry because there was no context or application I could associate the concepts with. Working with special ed students helped me dispel this myth since they often have poor rote skills and simply memorizing could not work for them. I had to find other strategies that allowed them to construct meaning. Trial and error and as many real world applications as I could include allowed my students to develop math skills. I also allowed them to create their own reference sheets with formulas and rules and use them when problem solving. Students wrote in their math journals to describe their trial and error process, their results, and propose changes they would make after examining the errors. This encouraged them to keep making efforts to learn new concepts.