数学，或许是一个令人闻风丧胆的永恒谜题。很多如今不再上学、已经工作的朋友，一听到这个词还是会本能地产生恐惧。更让人在意的或许还有他人对于一个“数学差生”的眼光。数学差，往往被人们认为智商不够高。“数学差的人智商低是真的吗？”——这是存在于知乎上的真实提问。如果你也曾有这样的自我质疑，今天这篇文章或许会帮到你，它向我们揭示了数学差背后的原因。

'People are scared of looking foolish': how maths anxiety is holding us back

Nearly everyone will know they have felt anxious about a maths question at some time in their lives. What may not seem so obvious is that many other people have felt the same way and that maths anxiety is a real problem.
几乎每个人都将意识到，在生命中的某一刻，他曾因为一道数学题焦虑过。不过可能没那么显而易见的是，很多人也曾有过类似的感受，以及数学焦虑症是个实际存在的问题。
So much so that the Maths Anxiety Trust has been set up to raise awareness of the issue. A poll for the trust found more than a third of 15- to 24-year-olds feel anxious when shown a maths problem. The same applies to one in five British adults.
甚至于有人创立了数学焦虑症信托基金会来唤起大众对于这一问题的关注。一项调查为该基金会提供了支持，调查发现，在 15 至 24 岁的人群中，超过三分之一的人会在面对一道数学题时感到焦虑。这一现象在五分之一的英国成年人身上也同样显著。
This comes as little surprise to Celia Hoyles, professor of mathematics education at University College London (UCL). “With maths, there’s a right or a wrong answer and that’s why people can feel so anxious — they’re scared of looking foolish,” she says.
对于伦敦大学学院数学教育教授西莉亚·霍伊尔斯来说，这一发现并不令人意外。她表示：“对于数学，答案非对即错，这就是人们会感到十分焦虑的原因——人们害怕显得愚蠢。”
One issue that needs to be tackled is how maths is taught. “We need teachers to be empathetic and to see other points of view, to understand where pupils are finding aspects of the subject difficult so they can be encouraged to overcome those hurdles,” says Hoyles.
如何教数学，这是件需要去解决的问题。霍伊尔斯认为：“我们需要老师们具有同理心且善于看到不同观点，以理解学生们在这门学科的哪些方面感到困难，从而鼓励学生们去克服那些难题。”
Technology in the classroom often gets teachers and parents hot under the collar, prompting dire predictions of “robot teachers” replacing real people — and many education technology products have been launched with great fanfare in the past few years only to fall by the wayside. Simply digitising how maths is taught with appealing graphics and games isn’t enough, says Georgie Hart, education director at Sparx — learning technology needs to be designed with deep understanding of how pupils learn and a healthy reality check around how teachers want to use it.
课堂中的科技常常令老师和家长们大为光火。它激起了“机器人老师”会替代真人这一耸动的预言——而在过去的几年中，大张旗鼓推出的很多教育类科技产品却不料后劲不足。Sparx 的教育主任乔基·哈特认为，仅仅把数学教学数字化，配以吸引人的图像和游戏是不够的——设计教育类科技产品需要对学生如何学习有深刻的理解，还需要客观地理解教师想要使用产品的方式。
Beware of bandying terms such as artificial intelligence (AI), she says. “AI can be a very disempowering term for teachers, it’s not helpful. But the concept of adaptive teaching allows teachers to do more of the job they love,” says Hart.
哈特还认为，要小心那些被随意使用的词汇，比如人工智能。她说：“人工智能对老师们来说，可能是个让他们很无力的概念，这毫无助益。但是适应性教学这一理念，却让教师们可以在他们热爱的工作更好地施展身手。”