I have struggled with maths, even feared it my entire life. No matter how hard I tried I struggled to grasp many of the basic concepts and building blocks of it. I struggled through it in primary school, my class often moving on with topics before I had time to understand it thoroughly. I understand now that they had to obviously teach us the whole curriculum, but I always felt like I was lagging behind my peers.
This then moved into high school where I was streamed into one of the lower sets in my year group. By the start of third year our class was already labelled that we would be ‘unable’ to cope with sitting the national 5 exam, at the end of fourth year. Luckily at this point my parents got me a maths tutor, as despite always struggling with maths I really did want to do well in it. I knew I needed at least a B in my national 5 to be considered for teaching, and really wanted to sit 5 Highers in 5th year. In my school this was expected and any less they was a slight stigma around as they wanted as many higher results as possible. I failed my national 5 maths prelim miserably (with an enormous amount of work) and it looked like I could never raise my grade to even a pass. When my school advised me I should not sit my exam, I began to believe that no matter how much work I put in ‘I just had more of an English brain,’ and would never succeed in maths.
After a pity party, I started going to tutoring twice a week and maths club at lunches. I still had the mentality that I would give it my best shot but looking at my track history this did not always mean success for me. Anyway, exam day came I cried between the two papers felt that it was the WORST exam of my life. A couple of days later I visited my tutor, cried some more. My tutor had seen the paper and told me from my strengths and weaknesses I had a B or even an A. I did not believe this at all and prepared my parents for me resitting my maths again. On exam results day I was still dead set on a fail, and like my tutor said I had a B. I literally still don’t even know how that happened, as I was so convinced I had failed.
After my 5th year results I got tested at dysguise in Edinburgh, turns out I had dyscalculia and processing issues. I was entitled to a calculator in non-calculator paper, extra accommodation and significant amount of extra time. This did not actually impact the rest of my education as I passed my national 5 and left maths there. So now, knowing I have dyscalculia and haven’t done any maths since 4th year in school, I am worried about teaching it. I know this is probably more in my head than anything, but now having the ‘label’ of dyscalculia and no recent maths experience freaks me out about the responsibility of teaching future generations. I know I lack confidence in it but I know that the best I can do is learn the maths before teaching the children so I can try to be comfortable with it, so that my lacking maths ability does not affect theirs.