Your Posture May Change Your Math Skills
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2014
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fear of math is real.
In fact, psychologists now use the term “math anxiety” to describe the panic many people — particularly girls and women — have about doing math. On this week’s New Tech City, host Manoush Zomorodi plays a new video game that is being developed to alleviate math anxiety by getting physical in front of a screen. Players move into so-called 'power poses.'
It's all based on the incredibly popular TED talk below. The game Scoops! from NYU-Poly's Game Innovation Lab turns fractions into fun and attempts to put research about the mind-body connection to use all by making kids stand strong. Can it heal Manoush’s own math PTSD?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello friend, this is an episode of Note to Self, but from when we used to be called New |
| 0:05.8 | Text City. |
| 0:07.1 | Same good content, just the old name. |
| 0:09.3 | Enjoy. |
| 0:20.3 | The year is 1982. |
| 0:22.3 | I have no idea what those words mean, or really any of the lyrics on the Land Down Under |
| 0:27.6 | on the Minute Work debut album. |
| 0:29.8 | Never mind, this is the first tape cassette I have ever bought with my own money. |
| 0:37.6 | I'm in third grade. |
| 0:39.3 | I'm a pretty happy kid. |
| 0:41.1 | I like rocking out to 93.3 WMMR, reading the latest Ramona book by Beverly Cleary. |
| 0:50.0 | But I already have a dark secret. |
| 0:53.9 | In class, when I see people have finished their fractions worksheet, I'm still struggling. |
| 0:58.7 | My face feels like it's on fire. |
| 1:01.1 | I cry in the bathroom after math tests. |
| 1:04.5 | This is just the beginning of my math shame. |
| 1:09.5 | Later all the other kids in honors English are also in honors math, except me. |
| 1:15.5 | In high school, I'm discouraged from taking calculus. |
| 1:19.7 | Off more year in college, at the insistence of my parents, I take a physics class for |
| 1:24.5 | liberal arts majors, but my brain freezes over at the equations. |
| 1:29.3 | I'm lost by the second day, and I've never told anyone this, but it's the only class |
| 1:35.6 | I ever dropped. |
... |
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