Using the concept of perezhivanie to understand and reduce maths anxiety

NICHOLAS PEATFIELD, SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, BATH SPA UNIVERSITY, UK For students to learn mathematics in a way that makes it useful to them in their lives beyond the classroom, they need to go beyond learning the algorithms necessary to answer standard GCSE questions. It is clear that they must at least learn in a way that avoids instilling widespread anxiety around mathematics, as current models tend to (Ashcraft, 2002; Boaler, 2015; Lee C et al., 2018), and also lets them construct some meaning around their mathematics. The late work of Vygotsky on the lived experience of learners, via his concept of perezhivanie, stemmed from his knowledge of the ‘system’ of acting developed by his contemporary Stanislavski (Veresov, 2016). The main idea behind this ‘system’ – a pre-cursor to method acting – is that actors must attempt to put themselves in the position of the roles that they are playing to really feel the emotions that those roles require. This idea, of the necessity of