"Rose's mathematical experience aligning with Tobias"
When Rose explains his mathematical experience in " I just want to be average" he explains the sheer frustration that is coming along with his mathematical skills, or lack there of. The reason that Rose has experienced this is because his teachers up to this point have been largely ineffective. Rose sees problems that he knows are lower level material. He knows that he has seen this before. He knows he should know how to do it. The frustration begins to build. He tries to fight through it. He sets the problem up. He thinks back okay "How did Jones do this". There is no light bulb, no moment of clarity where the sweat stops beating down his forehead. He attempts to relieve this frustration with a little day dreaming. He thinks about football, the new attractive girl, he thinks of anything to try to take his mind of his mental inadequacies. After a few moments of reprieve he tries again, only to have the mounting frustrations boil over to a crumpled paper and a case of the F it's. This is similar to a few examples in Tobias's "Symptoms of Math Anxiety". In her piece she states " It is not hard to figure out why failure to understand mathematics can be hidden for so long. Math is usually taught in a discrete bits by a teachers who were taught this same way". (150) Rose was maybe no even taught this well. Rose might not have been taught at all. It might have been a chalkboard lecture with no attention to the students who didn't pay attention. Where it is similar is in the next few sentences. She (Tobias) then goes on to say "Some (students) never get a chance to integrate all the pieces of information, or to even realize what they are not able to do"(150). Rose definitely never got a chance to explore what he might be able to do. He was not taught right because he was considered a remedial student with not upside potential. Because of this Rose turned into one of the students that Tobias later describes as the an avoid errors at all cost student "Instead, they just sit in the back of the room hoping the teacher will put those flash cards away". I just wrote a piece on the "effective teacher". With an effective teacher both articles could be very different.
I too chose to write about the relationship between Tobias and Rose, but I found a different relationship. I found that Tobias made a lot of relatable points throughout her passage and I was also able to relate to some of the experiences of Rose even though I was never apart of the alternate education program. I honestly have felt the same way Rose has when dealing with math, although its less often than in his school. I like how you put in the quote about flash cards because I remember dreading doing those in class but now I really enjoy studying with them.
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