The Stigma Against Math Practice

Consider for a moment the following phrases:

• football practice
• tennis drills
• soccer drills
• violin practice
• piano practice
• dance rehearsal
• read lots of books
• go to the driving range to practice golf

It is well understood that the activities above are essential to becoming good.  Nobody questions these things, and in fact, we highly encourage them.  Why?  Because we know that lots of repetition at such activities is the only legitimate way to make you good.  Now consider these phrases:

• math practice
• math drills

If you are like most American adults, you react negatively to those phrases.  Why?  Clearly you understand that practice is essential to become good at anything, including math.  Don't tell me you don't like math practice because math is hard!  You want hard?  Try violin!  Compared to that, math is incredibly easy.  

Well, here's the explanation, at least in my opinion: Tennis drills, dance rehearsal, etc. are often fun.  No doubt they entail hard work, but they are still fun.  Rarely do you find a person who says that practicing math is fun, or do you?

In my personal experience, the things I enjoy the most are the things that I'm best at.  I'd much rather play tennis than soccer because I'm way better at tennis.  I'd rather play piano than violin.  I like to play games like bridge, chess, and sudoku because I'm good at logic problems.  I really have fun creating complex computer algorithms for the same reason.  I also like math.  Why do I like math?  Honestly, it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm good at it.

What I've observed over the years is that lots of kids like to "play MathScore".  In fact, my own child Skyla uses the word "play" when she refers to using www.mathscore.com.  If actual kids want to play MathScore, then apparently they like to practice math because that is what they are actually doing, and in great quantities!  I believe this is the case because I know that students are statistically becoming better at math as a result of using MathScore.  So my hypothesis is that these kids have become good enough at math that math has actually become fun.  MathScore teaches grit.

From a marketing standpoint, my realization is that I must express this reality.  We've made MathScore sufficiently fun without sacrificing on the quality of practice.  Students are literally drilling thousands of math problems each while having fun at the same time.  For too long I've been emphasizing the fact that we provide great math practice and are proven to raise test scores.  This sounds good, but unless the consumer believes it will work with her own child, it doesn't matter.  If I can instead convince the average American consumer that kids will want to play MathScore and ask to play it again, perhaps that's the message that matters.  After all, that's why people buy math games.

And since I've just mentioned math games, time for a short rant.  Most math games suck.  Frankly, math games appeal to parents because they are afraid that real math practice will be too boring.  Unfortunately, math games typically are only good at reinforcing skills, and terrible at teaching new skills.  So if your child is behind in math, I can guarantee that playing math games will not do the trick.  

This is the battle that I fight everyday as I build MathScore.  I refuse to build something that is a bunch of fun, but educationally ineffective.  It takes an incredibly delicate touch to deliver an educationally effective math product that happens to be just fun enough for kids to want to play.  That is why MathScore matters.  I just have to be better at expressing this.