Learning to become comfortable with being uncomfortable | Mike Ellicock | TEDxRoyalHolloway
I'm going to take you back a few years to your math classroom which I hope didn't look something like this and I'm going to ask your maths question and then I'm going to get one of you to stand up and tell us all the answer so what is 17 times 24 now I'm not actually going to get one of you to stand up because that'll be horrible and I've put the answer up here on the board because to stop those of you who like this kind of thing from being unable to hear me until you've worked it out but for most of you the majority I suspect to stop that uncomfortable feeling that it's maybe something like this or this or this or this everyone has a physiological response to a question such as seventeen times twenty-four your heart rate elevates your pupils dilate is part of your so-called fight-or-flight mechanism which by its nature is uncomfortable it's great for the original purpose of preparing you to run away from a lion or to fight the tribe coming over the next hill but it's not so great for mental arithmetic so the easiest response for many is to fold your arms and say I can't do that especially when others seem to always get the answer before you and there are some real problems that with the way we conceive of maths here in the UK in school it's often a very starkly binary approach with all the focus on the answer rather than the process and when you're going through the process the question either seems impossible because you haven't worked it out yet or easy because you just have which brings to mind Nelson Mandela's quote that everything seems impossible until it's done nowhere is this more glaring than in maths and inevitably for the majority of children they'll always be other kids who seem to get the answer more quickly and easily than they do while they're still stuck at the impossible stage an Oran thew Z Azzam four categorized by ability at a young age and then put kids into ability groups or sets creates an unhelpful divide between those who are fast at maths at a young age which in itself is not a great predictor of future potential Einstein for example was very slow and those who aren't so if you're slow you get put in a bottom or a low set and which kids is it that often end up in these sets we'll often those who've had less parental input or less rich intellectually stimulating out of school or preschool experiences in other words nothing to do with their future potential and we've got research to show that 85% of kids who get put in a bottom set for maths stay there throughout their school career which is hardly a recipe for social mobility at national numeracy we don't believe these children are actually bad at maths but they start to see themselves in that way and others categorize them as such and so maybe it's slightly logical to kind of give up on maths and focus your efforts on other areas where you feel yourself as being good at or others other people say that you good at and we think a fundamental problem with maths here in the UK and it's also true in the u.s. is our enthusiasm to categorize current low attainment as some kind of quasar genetic low ability the math gene myth something that simply doesn't happen in high-performing countries as an example the OECD asks 15 year olds what does it take to be successful in maths they didn't ask the question here in the UK but in the u.s. 40 percent of kids said it's about talent you buy the got it or you haven't in Japan which performs much more highly 80% of kids said matters about effort you just need to stick with it so how does this relate to later life and does being able to calculate 17 times 24 rapidly really matter I'd argue not really it's important to know the answer is going to be about 400 but we all carry around with us a tool in our pocket that has more computing power than it took to get to the moon but and this is a big but if the formative moments in your math classroom mean that I can't do maths is your overwhelming emotion when you're presented with numbers and data in adult life then it really does matter because it's simply not possible to make good decisions without engaging with and potentially manipulating quantitative information so what kind of things are we thinking about well potentially mundane activities such as choosing a phone contract or planning a journey socially important activities such as cooking a meal for your new girlfriend or boyfriend boring but personal vital things such as checking your pay statement or planning your future finances and I also think it's important to be able to use numbers and data to engage effectively as a citizen in a democracy and yes I absolutely am thinking about three hundred and fifty million pounds on the side of a bus but surely most people just get masks qualifications at school and that sets them up just fine unfortunately that's not the case the most recent government commissioned survey of adult skills use questions such as this one to assess everyday math levels and that's multiple choice and also using a calculator remarkably less than a quarter of those who had got a 2 C at GCSE within the last eight years were able to answer this kind of question correctly and across the whole population that figures 22% so I'm pretty sure this room is not a representative sample but if it were that would just be this little group down here he's getting worse for numeracy but getting better for literacy and it really does matter both for the UK and for individuals themselves for the UK a conservative estimate sees poor numeracy costing the economy twenty point two billion pounds a year and for individuals research than the OECD suggests that good numeracy is the best protection against unemployment low wages and poor health more significant than literacy or any other variable but they measure so this is an issue for millions across the country and indeed across the world but there is a way forward and it's not about teaching ever more complex in schools instead there are three things that we need to enable everyone to be confident and competent to use numbers and data in daily life the first is value valuing the importance not so much of the complex maths in simple situations that you're often presented with at school but instead the value of being able to use normally rather simple maths but to help you make good decisions in daily life the second element is belief or mindset and this is basically shifting from I can't do maths to I can't do math yet there is no math gene or to put it another way we all have the genetic makeup to become numerous and there's a growing body of evidence from neuroscience and behavioral psychology from the work of Carol Dweck Angela Duckworth Joe bola Daniel Kahneman 17 times 24 is from him by the way and indeed our work at national numeracy that's starting to destroy what Matthew cyi calls the talent myth something particularly prevalent around maths and the final elements is effort what does it feel like when you don't know what to do formative moments always start by being uncomfortable that's mentally but it also applies physically we've got to struggle and get things wrong a lot in order to eventually succeed indeed as NASA Nicholas Taleb points out acute or short-term effort and discomfort is good or probably even vital for us and the avoidance of short-term discomfort leads to chronic or long-term discomfort and if you buy that it might be worth thinking about when was the last time you were outside your comfort zone and I'm not including a few seconds nine and a half minutes ago so to sum up the lesson that we need to take from the mass classroom is not I can't do maths but instead that discomfort is the starting point for any formative moment or opportunity for learning and that this is at its most stark in so no matter what stage of life you're at you can reform formative moments if you need to you can become numerous indeed you can do almost anything to a decent level but only if you're prepared to become comfortable with being uncomfortable thank you [Applause]