1 Resilience and mathematical resilience in learning

Pause for thought

Working with triangles is an important part of the syllabus in the Indian curriculum. You can find it in the textbooks for Class IX and Class X where triangles, congruency and similarity are addressed. (In the NCERT books, chapters 7 and 8 for Class IX, and chapters 6, 11 and 13 for Class X.)

Why do you think it is studied so often? Do you agree with its emphasis in the curriculum?

Resilience is the ability to cope with problems and setbacks; to keep going even when the going is tough. We all need to be resilient to some extent to function well in life.

Current educational practice and research focuses on the importance of being resilient in learning and the effect of resilience on academic achievement and professional success. Lifelong learning is becoming the norm in society. Resilient learners will have a positive stance towards learning and will continue with their learning even when there are problems and obstacles, which can range from home issues such as not being able to find a quiet place to work or feeling hungry, to learning issues such as not being able to make sense of mathematical formulae.

Having mathematical resilience is particularly important. Lee and Johnston-Wilder (2013) describe mathematical resilience as ‘a learner’s stance towards mathematics that enables pupils to continue learning despite finding setbacks and challenges in their mathematical learning journey’. They argue that ‘pupils require a particular resilience’ in order to learn mathematics because of various factors that include:

  • the types of teaching often involved (Nardi and Steward, 2003)
  • the nature of mathematics itself (Mason, 1988)
  • pervasive beliefs about mathematical ability being ‘fixed’ (Dweck, 2000).

Pause for thought

Think back to when you last worked on mathematics yourself. Would you describe yourself as a mathematically resilient learner? Why is that? What do you do in your learning that makes you consider yourself a mathematically resilient learner or otherwise?

Think about some students in your classroom and how they deal with learning mathematics. Think of one particular student that you consider mathematically resilient, and one that is not. What is the same and what is different in their learning behaviour?

What you can learn in this unit

2 Teaching for mathematical resilience