I remember sitting in my first grade classroom, my hair in pigtails and my favorite sandals strapped on my feet, watching my teacher hand out the dreaded ‘Mad Minute.' My legs started to shake and my freshly sharpened Ticonderoga began to wobble in my hand. My friend turned to me and whispered “Good luck,” but I just flashed her a dry smile and looked forward again, not wanting her gratuity to break my attentiveness. I only had 60 seconds to disprove my teacher’s “concerns” that I was “falling behind the others in math." I had yet to fully complete an entire worksheet in the allotted time thus far that year; I seemed to always mix up the sevens, eights and nines. Does eight times seven equal 56? Or was it 52? The numbers always jumbled in my brain, seemingly turning into a mathematical version of Alphabet Soup, and as the product of eight times seven seemed to sink further down the bowl, the 60 seconds was up and half of my worksheet was blank.

The Mad Minute skulked behind me my entire elementary school, ambushing me unexpectedly and laughing as I tripped up on a single problem and failed yet again.

But did that mean I was bad at math?

I entered junior high school with a personal stigma; I was good at English and bad at math. I started my non-advanced math courses, and to my surprise I found that I caught on very quickly compared to my other classmates and was easily bored with the redundant reviews that my teachers pushed upon us. But I was still so convinced that I was bad at math, that maybe it was just this unit that was easy and that I would stumble upon the next unit, so I never pushed myself past the slow-paced familiarity of regular math.

When I started Algebra 1 in high school, I found that many of my classmates were stuck in my same position: the concepts came easily to them, but doing rapid mental math was far from being considered a strength. None of these kids were bad at math, and neither was I. But from an early age we were told that pace was essential to be a strong math student, and it ended up holding us back from taking any educational risks.

In theory, the ‘Mad Minute’ does make sense. The test is simple: you have one minute to complete 25 multiplication, division, addition or subtraction problems. By ingraining the simple math in children’s brains at a young age could be, and probably has been, hugely beneficial when standardized testing hits. Easy mental math is typically the last step to solving question 40 and beyond on the ACT or a complicated Pre-Calc test question, and sometimes when you’re not paying attention, you accidentally write that two times three is five rather than six. These slip-ups could cost you test points or could cause that deck that you’re building to be a couple inches longer than intended (oops). So, the basic repetition of the ‘Mad Minute’ is the perfect solution; it solidifies the multiplication table while enforcing the importance of speed.

However, the quality of someone’s mathematical skills doesn’t lie in such rudimentary repetition. What really matters is your ability to grasp concepts and apply them to not only #28 on p. 263, but also to things that really matter; like doing your taxes or making large investments. I realize now that a fast pace may get you brownie points, but it certainly isn’t the only thing that matters. If only I had figured that out sooner, then maybe I would have had the confidence to challenge myself with a more rigorous set of math classes. But when told at such a young age that I was struggling with the entire subject just because of a task as trivial as the ‘Mad Minute,’ the opportunity to fuel that confidence becomes less and less of an option.

In essence, I’m not bad at math, and I never really have been. But I just wish that someone would have told my elementary-school-self that.