Overcoming Math Anxiety

By Sheila Tobias

Book Overview

The new edition retains the author's pungent analysis of what makes math hard for otherwise successful people and how women, more than men, become victims of a gendered view of math. It has been substantially updated to incorporate new research on what we know and don't know about sex differences in brain organization and function, and it has been enlarged to include problems, puzzles, and strategies tried out in hundreds of math anxiety workshops Tobias and her colleagues have sponsored.

What remains unchanged is the author's politics. She sees math anxiety as a political issue. So long as people themselves to be disabled in mathematics and do not rise up and confront the social and pedagogical origins of their disabilities, they will be denied math mental health. Tobias defines this as the willingness to learn the math you need when you need it. In an ever more technical society, having that willingness can make the difference between high and low self-esteem, failure and success.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393313077
• ISBN13: 9780393313079
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

I was throughly pleased with this purchase. What I like the most is the research that went into explaining why you would have a phobia about math.

Among Professionals Too!

I haven't read all of this book. But what I have read I've found instructive, and helpful. I would like to add or reemphasize the following. Math anxiety doesn't just among laypeople, students, high school students, upper level students, and graduate students. It exists among professional mathematicians also. Look at the resistance among many current professional mathematicians to fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logicians and people who have applied such may also have this strong aversion, because they use words when doing their applications. Look at Bart Kosko who writes books talking about how with fuzzy logic we can do science with less math. Students of the history of mathematics will also remember a certain mathematician saying "What good is your proof that pi is transcendental, when transcendental numbers don't even exist?" And who can forget another prominent historical mathematician the quote "God made the integers and the rest is the work of man." As if fractions didn't even exist mathematically! Nor imaginary numbers, or transcendental numbers! And even a contemporary, famous, first class mathematical physicist recently published a mathematical book paraphrasing this quote, I suspect, entitled "God made the Integers." Honestly, it looks like everyone, and by that I mean EVERYONE, has math anxiety in one form or another. So this sort of book can do good for EVERYONE.

An excellent read for all!

This is a great book to read if you are a math teacher, have kids, or ever had trouble with math. It explains math anxiety and what causes it. It is very interesting and really makes you think. Most people do not like math from something in their past and it makes you think of where you went wrong with math. If you are a teacher or parent, it really helps you see how one can have trouble with math and how to help them without bogging you down with equations or worksheets. Definitely a book that will make you think!

A wonderful book! Finally, I have conquered my math block.

An excellent book! I credit this book, when used along with a college course about math anxiety, with removing my lifelong (40 yrs) math block. Now I know that I'm just as smart as anyone else who can do math -- there are just different ways to look at it! And now that I no longer view math as "hard", I can actually do it -- and I am amazed to say that I actually enjoy it! By the way, although the book may sound specifically aimed at females, I am a male and found it very relevant and helpful.

A must read for all math teachers.

I read the original edition (1978) and could not put it down. I look forward to getting the latest edition, and I have recommended it to my students.