It All Adds Up.

Take math.

Please.

OK, enough lame jokes.  The truth is, when there’s a battle between me and the numbers, the numbers often win.  It’s why I rarely play the lottery, and why I suffered tiny panic attacks just before the market opened every day when I worked in stock brokerage.  Talk about a math-heavy career!

Thanks to a certain University of Maine professor, however, I coped, though a good calculator is still my best friend.

Twice a week, as an adult student in Professor Carolyn Foster’s Probability class, I would make my way to her office 40 minutes before class began to take advantage of office hours.  I wanted extra help, though I was fairly certain I was doing the problems correctly.  I was unsure of myself, but didn’t know why.  After several weeks of this, Professor Foster removed her glasses (more on those later) and looked me in the eye.

“Diana.  If you would just get over your math phobia, you would be fine.”

Phobia?  Me?

Could it be that I was afraid of math?  Afraid of failing to decode its secrets?   As the diagnosis sank in, however, it made sense.

I recalled one afternoon in seventh grade, when our teacher divided up the class into “A”, “B” and “C” levels for Algebra class.  When my name was called out for the “B” group, I was horrified.  Why hadn’t I been selected for the “A” group?  I was one of the best readers, and always, always did my homework in every class.  I had very good grades, I thought.

After the shock wore off, resignment set in.  “I just must not be as good as the “A’s,”‘ I rationalized, and at that moment my 12 year-old mind decried math as my weak suit.  After all, my teacher thought so, and he certainly knew better than I who belonged in “A”-group.  I condemned myself for not properly memorizing all the times tables through the twelves — it had just been so boring! My heart sank.  All was lost.

Even more humiliating, we were instructed to change desks to be with our assigned group.  I had to sit with the mediocre kids.  Mediocre!  Me!

I sat in the middle, close to the back.

The kids in the “B” group talked to each other when class was in progress.  Our teacher looked the other way, and I swear he paid more attention — and told jokes to — the “A” group kids.  In retaliation, one “B” boy entertained us by drawing rudimentary pictures of….well, I’m sure you can guess.  It was the first time I had been “bad,” but my heart was no longer in the class.  I believe I may have gotten a “C” in that class, which convinced my parents, like me,  that I was bad at math.

Enough.  Let’s just say it was all downhill from there, until, at age 30, I met Professor Foster, and she hit me with her best shot.

I got an “A” in Probability.  I also enjoyed Stats, and later received an “A” in Business Calculus.

Calculus!  Me!

I had to spread the word about math phobia.  It was obviously real.

I an sure Professor Foster didn’t know what to expect when she arrived at my 6 year-old daughter’s Brownie Troop meeting in Saco, Maine.  Awaiting her were nearly a dozen wide-eyed little girls, some wearing the traditional felt beanie, and most — including my daughter — wearing chocolate brown vests or sashes, heavy with badges.

After the requisite introductions, Professor Foster clasped her hands.

“How many of you like math?” she asked.  Might as well get that out of the way, I winced.

Neither of us were prepared for the response.

Every single girl immediately raised her hand.   Some supported their waving arm by grabbing it with their other hand for extra emphasis.

“Me!  I do!” They cried out, smiling.  Their eyes were bright, their faces innocent.

I can’t describe the shock on Carolyn Foster’s face.  Perhaps it mirrored mine.  After years of struggling with math — me on the receiving end, her on the end that tried to raise women like me up — Professor Foster saw a glimmer of hope.

They had never heard of math phobia.

Yet.

I don’t remember much about the rest of Professor Foster’s presentation.  My mind was swimming.  The educational community has wondered for years:  What happens in middle school that makes girls lose ground in math class?

I knew.  It’s the same thing that makes women lose ground in the workplace, and continue to earn less than a man in the same job.  It’s a lack of belief in ourselves, a lack of resiliency.  It has nothing to do with the brain.  It has to do with us.

So where do we go from here?  Fifteen years later, I still don’t know.

Yet.