When I was young, one of my teachers commented that among all the subjects taught in school, Mathematics IS the easiest... He said , the subject will become easier if I were to think positive and psyche myself up saying that "I CAN DO IT... I CAN DO IT !" all the time.
Looking back now, I think he is right. I notice that, my students, once they have what I call as a 'defeatist mentality', they tend to easily give up and stop trying such that even if they were given simple problems, they won't be able to solve them.
So, each time I encounter students like these, the most important thing that I try to do is build up their self-confidence first. Something must have happened in their history of learning Maths so much so that they've become so negative towards Maths.
I once had a student who repeated her class for MAT xxx. When she was in my class, surprisingly, I noticed that she understood whatever that was being taught in class and could answer all the assignments given correctly. I asked her what exactly happened when she took the course the first time. She said, whenever she asked her previous lecturer, she was always rebuked with the phrase, "Don't tell me you don't even know a simple thing like that?", which made her feel so turned off and rejected. So, she stopped trying and stopped asking.
I can understand her plight. My own son who was in primary school years ago once came home and told me that when he asked his teacher how to solve a particular Maths problem, was given this answer instead: "Go back and ask your mom!" The teacher was lucky he wasn't in front of me at that time.... for if not, I would have strangled him!
