Fear = Hate

A couple of weeks ago I had to read an article for my math methods class.  It was talking about why kids hate math and what we, as teachers, can do about it.  The article started out addressing the fact that most of the time students hate math because they fear it.  They don't know how it works, they don't want to make a mistake, so they hate it.  Of course!  This made me start to think about some of the things I strongly dislike (I really don't like the word hate...).  There's really only two things I strongly dislike, but the dislike is pretty strong.

First of all, there's my strong dislike for endings.  I dread the end of summer, the end of the semester, Christmas break, my practicum month, basically the end of anything good.  As I got thinking, I dread them because I fear them.  I fear losing relationships with people I think are great!  I fear losing my fun schedule that I've finally created.  

I also dislike snakes.  I'm highly terrified of them.  They are creepy, and slithery, and dangerous.  They're the worst.  

As I looked at these two things and thought about things that other people don't like, I was convinced that hate directly correlates with fear.  So, to get over disliking things we don't like, we've got to get rid of the fear of them.  Bringing it back to my teaching life, to get kids to like math, I've got to help them to not be fearful of math.  I've got to make it fun, exciting, and relevant.  So, to conquer dislikes, we've got to find ways to get rid of the fear.  Anyways, I just thought this was very interesting, and I love when I'm able to make connections between my schooling and my personal life :)