A study that found that math-anxious female teachers pass on their fears to young girls underscores the need for more teacher training programs like Intel Math and, even better, the hiring of math specialists in early grades.

The Los Angeles Times reported on the study, which was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Two University of Chicago psychologists interviewed  seven female first and second grade teachers who displayed a discomfort and expressed a lack of confidence in their math abilities. Their students were tested at the start and end of the school year.

By spring, girls in those classes ended up believing the myth  that boys are naturally better than girls in math, and their test scores had fallen relative to the boys in their class. Girl students in classes with self-confident female teachers – and most teachers in those grades are women – showed no gap in test scores with boys.Math phobia starts at home, with parents, but teachers, too, must be aware of the verbal and non-verbal cues they send, particularly to girls, who regard them as role models. Many elementary teachers didn’t excel in math and haven’t taken a course in years. That’s why Intel Math  can be valuable. The 80-hour course gives teaches math concepts – the underlying principles behind, say, fractions, so that teachers feel confident and avoid dreading what they don’t understand. (I remember my daughter’s second grade teacher, a whiz at writing, going days without teaching math, because, she confessed one day, she didn’t like teaching it.)

If girls can get to middle school without getting down on math, then  they’re taught by teachers with math credentials, who can share their enthusiasm. If the University of Chicago study is accurate, another generation of girls is vulnerable to a math contagion.