So, I am determined that my posts here will be helpful, if perhaps not frequent. One fun hobby is to look at how education research shows up in everyday life. I read a Mo Willems book to my daughter and note the scaffolding for imaginative play of the type that has been shown to improve executive function in later life. Or the New York Times reports on the importance of teaching handwriting. So I wasn’t surprised to see Amy Cuddy’s work show up in the context of math anxiety, since much of her work deals with negative stereotypes of women. (Can anyone tell I am just now embracing hyperlinking? So fun.)

One specialty of MathAffect is combating stereotype threat – artificially deflated math performance in girls due to an unconscious belief that women are not as good at math as men are. Sian Beilock’s research has been the gold standard on this front, demonstrating that our girls enter elementary school ready to learn, and by the end of first grade, they are under stereotype threat, most often modeled by a math anxious and math avoidant female first grade teacher. So we need an arsenal of weapons against stereotype threat, right from the get-go (true math anxiety is qualitatively different and carries its own list of coping strategies). Luckily, Ms. Cuddy’s work tells us that a mere two minutes assuming “high-power poses” can cause a decrease in cortisol (our stress hormone) and a rise in confidence, effectively combating the negative effects of one of the most pernicious stereotypes women encounter: “Girls are bad at math.”

A friend of mine sent me the following link the other day: Your Posture May Change Your Math Skills. A great synthesis between Mark Ashcraft’s seminal research on math anxiety and Amy Cuddy’s work on body language, it’s a must-hear for all parents and students. As the reporter Manoush Zomorodi asks herself, “if I had done power poses in the stall in the elementary school bathroom, could that have made a difference?”  For MathAffect, the answer is a resounding YES.