baby steps

Remember Bill Murray in What About Bob?

Today in class when I was helping students with a problem, I noticed everyone just wanted to rush to the answer.  They'd read the question.  They'd see the empty blank on the right side of the page.  Then they'd freak.  Dizzy spells.  Nausea.  Cold sweats.  Hot sweats.  Fever.  Blisters.  Difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, blurred vision, involuntary trembling, dead hands.   Numb lips.  Fingernail sensitivity.  Pelvic discomfort. 

Math anxiety isn't any different from Bob anxiety and solution for both is baby steps.  Instead of getting frustrated, panicked, or pelvis discomforted when trying to throw an answer in the blank, take a baby step.  What is the problem asking for?  Baby step.  What information does the problem give us?  Baby step.  What's the first step in getting from here to there?  Baby step.

Teaching someone to take baby steps is hard.  Even if you do, oftentimes  it will still only get a student halfway.  Still, I think this is a is a good model.  What's a teacher for, besides helping a student find the next baby step when they can't find it themselves?  

One class-wide baby step I've been happy about is the willingness to ask for help.  Of the students that need the most baby-stepping, some of the shy ones are now asking for help and some of the loud ones are quieting down and doing the same.  At the same time, some students are unfortunately stepping down a class- a few faces I'd grown accustomed to helping are no longer there.  

Not much I can do but take it one step at a time.