After semesters of struggling to fulfill my natural science and math credits, I have come to the conclusion that I am no more a math person than second-floor Clemons is a real library.
Many others struggle with certain subjects. I commonly overhear students categorize themselves as either humanities-oriented or math-and-science-oriented. We tend to believe that we are predisposed to be good at one or the other, but not both. Yet new studies prove otherwise.
Recently conducted studies from Purdue University show that there are two different types of students. There are some who are geared toward “incremental orientation,” which means they believe their ability to learn is malleable and can increase with effort. Then there are students with “entity orientation” who believe intelligence is fixed and does not increase with effort. The entity orientation is what I, and many other students, struggle with. It is harmful to perceive ourselves as either mathematically gifted or mathematically challenged, and to believe we are stuck in those molds. The reason for this type of thinking is analyzed by Miles Kimball and Noah Smith, who say it derives from our development early in school.
Kimball and Smith are experienced math professors and teach economics at the University of Michigan and finance at Stony Brook University, respectively. They claim they have witnessed the exact moment in a student’s life when the student decides whether he or she is less inclined for mathematics.
They write:
“Different kids with different levels of preparation come into a math class … The unprepared kids, not realizing that the top scorers were well-prepared, assume that genetic ability was what determined the performance differences. By deciding that they ‘just aren’t math people,’ these students don’t try hard in future classes, and fall further behind. The well-prepared kids, not realizing that the B-students were simply unprepared, assume that they are ‘math people,’ and work harder in the future, cementing their advantage. Thus, people’s belief that math ability can’t change becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
This “self-fulfilling prophecy” is what leads us to think that success, and failure, in certain subjects is genetic. I grew up constantly being told I was destined to be a writer because many of my relatives were English professors and authors. I was taught to read and write early on and was praised for everything, even my cheesy rhyming poems. I took creative writing classes, had mandatory “writing time” every day in the summer and worked to cultivate the skill I was told I had. Once in school, I impressed my teachers with my papers, but did poorly on my times-tables “mad minute” exams compared to others students because I had not been preparing.
It is true that we are drawn to one subject over another. Perhaps I am good at humanities because it is something I enjoy doing, but my math skills did not have to fall behind as a result. They did, though, because I was told I was a writer, cultivated that skill and psyched myself out in math and science since I did not believe that’s what I was “destined” to succeed in. Had I tried harder earlier on to better my math and science skills too, I would have had a better chance of being successful in those subjects.
There is good news, however, for students who suffer from this “entity orientation”: we can force ourselves to become more “incremental” and stop thinking we are naturally bad at certain subjects. We are not doomed or locked into fields. At this point in our lives, it may seem as if our paths are set and that taking the required credits in subjects we struggle with is a huge burden, but it does not have to be. We can succeed in those classes too. All we need to do is stop allowing ourselves to be victims of the self-fulfilling prophecy, and then we can begin to learn and cultivate skills we never thought we had.
Meredith Berger is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. Her columns run Mondays.
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