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Overcoming Math Anxiety
Sheila Tobias said it first: mathematics avoidance is not a failure of intellect, but a failure of nerve. When this book was first published in 1978, Tobias's political and psychological analysis brought hope and made "math anxiety" a household expression. 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.
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.
260 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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164 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 16, 2016
I'm a former math PhD student. Although I never had math anxiety, I'm aware that all too many people do suffer from this. (Just try telling people you're getting your PhD and watch their reaction.) It's unfortunate that, in the decades since Tobias's book was published, it seems as though only minimal progress has been made toward improving the math teaching landscape. (In my opinion this is due to entrenched interests including teachers' unions, textbook publishers, and risk-averse politicians.)
While the content of the book is only moderately actionable, it does an excellent job of describing the problems in the teaching of mathematics. In particular, Tobias indicates how the unnecessary isolation (group work is rare), abstractness, and lack of intuition do little to comfort struggling students.
I found it interesting to read about "math detox" workshops. I get the sense that it's important for people to (a) talk about their previous "math trauma" and (b) re-explore math in a low-stakes, supportive environment.
Although Tobias doesn't get too specific with prescriptions for better teaching, thankfully a number of admirable math and STEM educators (at least at the college level) have stepped up with very effective techniques to improve teaching and learning. In particular, *collaborative learning* has become very popular. This involves having students work on problems and discuss them together. This appears to not only increase student motivation and improve their attitudes, but it also helps to close the gender gap!
Other recommended strategies of mine: Frequent low-stakes assessment to help students self-regulate, articulating specific learning objectives for students to help them study, and give students real-world applications of the material you teach!
While the content of the book is only moderately actionable, it does an excellent job of describing the problems in the teaching of mathematics. In particular, Tobias indicates how the unnecessary isolation (group work is rare), abstractness, and lack of intuition do little to comfort struggling students.
I found it interesting to read about "math detox" workshops. I get the sense that it's important for people to (a) talk about their previous "math trauma" and (b) re-explore math in a low-stakes, supportive environment.
Although Tobias doesn't get too specific with prescriptions for better teaching, thankfully a number of admirable math and STEM educators (at least at the college level) have stepped up with very effective techniques to improve teaching and learning. In particular, *collaborative learning* has become very popular. This involves having students work on problems and discuss them together. This appears to not only increase student motivation and improve their attitudes, but it also helps to close the gender gap!
Other recommended strategies of mine: Frequent low-stakes assessment to help students self-regulate, articulating specific learning objectives for students to help them study, and give students real-world applications of the material you teach!
March 12, 2020
“How far do we want to go? ...surely far enough so that our fear of math no longer makes decisions for us.”
Even though this edition is quite outdated, it still lends amazing insight into why people are math averse. I particularly found the portion on how the language of math is antithetical to our daily use to be an interesting approach to what I thought was a numbers problem. The author does a great job explaining the factors that impact all people’s ability to understand math but with particular emphasis on why those factors tend to have exacerbated effects in women.
It’s sad that problems from the 1970s in math education are still problems I encountered as a student in the 2010s. In that sense, not much has changed and even older editions of this book are still very relevant.
Even though this edition is quite outdated, it still lends amazing insight into why people are math averse. I particularly found the portion on how the language of math is antithetical to our daily use to be an interesting approach to what I thought was a numbers problem. The author does a great job explaining the factors that impact all people’s ability to understand math but with particular emphasis on why those factors tend to have exacerbated effects in women.
It’s sad that problems from the 1970s in math education are still problems I encountered as a student in the 2010s. In that sense, not much has changed and even older editions of this book are still very relevant.
April 18, 2019
In the '70s Sheila Tobias wanted women to have an equal opportunity in life with men. At first, she thought the problem was a devaluation of traditionally feminine careers such as elementary education, counseling, and secretarial work. Then she came to the conclusion that it was how girls were being educated in math. She found that girls had been receiving very different treatment at a time when one could argue for the primacy of mathematics (1978):
a. It helps one get into a university.
b. It doubles the majors one can choose from.
c. It doubles the colleges they can attend on campus.
d. It helps with getting a technical job.
e. It helps with non-technical jobs.
f. It helps with business jobs.
g. It helps with non-profit jobs.
h. It helps with vocational jobs if one does not attend a university.
How were girls being treated at a time when math was becoming an essential component to literacy, the New Latin? With indifference or opposition. It was OK to be bad at math if you were a girl. Women weren't considered as capable in it. Even if promise was shown in the subject, it was thought to be masculine. It was in this context that girls expressed anxiety over math.
What's the solution? Dispel myths. First, it's not OK to be bad at math, and relegated to the illiterati of the 20th century, now 21st. The days of relegating women to positions indicative of mother, wife, or decoration are over. Second, a woman's brain is just as capable. Third, all the research done, as well as labs on helping women overcome math anxiety demonstrate a common fear and way out: acknowledging those feelings and dealing with them. The only real barrier for a woman getting ahead in math is herself.
It really stood out to me that the author thinks boys are not allowed to fail at math. That they are not told they lack a mathematical mind. That boys are more likely to do well in math because rather than give up, they know the value of math for their future so they press on regardless of the challenge. It made me wonder what kind of world was I born in, where the primacy of mathematics appeared to be common knowledge -- both of my grandfathers were math teachers -- and yet the urgency to learn it was almost nowhere to be found until I moved to South Korea and saw an almost universal discipline in it, male and female. For me, the advice she gives to women is also helpful to boys and men. She acknowledges this, but sees her audience as primarily female. I just hope she's right!
"If you ever said,'I'm no good at numbers,' this book can change your life. It is a cure for the ailment that is keeping many women (and some men) out of the twentieth century."
-- Gloria Steinem
*She also says math by its nature is anxiety-inducing. The best mathematicans prefer to be alone when they tackle new problems, they struggle for hours, days, months, years, and even a lifetime, never solving some of the current challenges (Millennium Prize Problems). What makes them mathematicians is their ability to live in the Abyss. It's a lot like computer programming! It's not whether people feel anxiety, but how they manage those feelings that determine their ability to get through the process of problem-solving.
It's in this context that she sees a boy's upbringing as giving an unfair advantage. They have been told that they have a mind for math, are encouraged to pursue "masculine" careers, and as a result they are much more likely to cope with the recurring uncertainty. They are better able to face the endless failure, triumphing in the end because they have a culture behind them, both in the home and in public.
**"The message that we are trying to get across is that if you do not know what you want to be, at least take science and math, especially math. So that when you get into college, if you change your mind and you like science or math more, or if you find that you want to get into it then you will have the background that is needed. Many women find later on that they do not have the background in mathematics because they copped out early on."
--Margaret Butler, advice to high school students**
a. It helps one get into a university.
b. It doubles the majors one can choose from.
c. It doubles the colleges they can attend on campus.
d. It helps with getting a technical job.
e. It helps with non-technical jobs.
f. It helps with business jobs.
g. It helps with non-profit jobs.
h. It helps with vocational jobs if one does not attend a university.
How were girls being treated at a time when math was becoming an essential component to literacy, the New Latin? With indifference or opposition. It was OK to be bad at math if you were a girl. Women weren't considered as capable in it. Even if promise was shown in the subject, it was thought to be masculine. It was in this context that girls expressed anxiety over math.
What's the solution? Dispel myths. First, it's not OK to be bad at math, and relegated to the illiterati of the 20th century, now 21st. The days of relegating women to positions indicative of mother, wife, or decoration are over. Second, a woman's brain is just as capable. Third, all the research done, as well as labs on helping women overcome math anxiety demonstrate a common fear and way out: acknowledging those feelings and dealing with them. The only real barrier for a woman getting ahead in math is herself.
It really stood out to me that the author thinks boys are not allowed to fail at math. That they are not told they lack a mathematical mind. That boys are more likely to do well in math because rather than give up, they know the value of math for their future so they press on regardless of the challenge. It made me wonder what kind of world was I born in, where the primacy of mathematics appeared to be common knowledge -- both of my grandfathers were math teachers -- and yet the urgency to learn it was almost nowhere to be found until I moved to South Korea and saw an almost universal discipline in it, male and female. For me, the advice she gives to women is also helpful to boys and men. She acknowledges this, but sees her audience as primarily female. I just hope she's right!
"If you ever said,'I'm no good at numbers,' this book can change your life. It is a cure for the ailment that is keeping many women (and some men) out of the twentieth century."
-- Gloria Steinem
*She also says math by its nature is anxiety-inducing. The best mathematicans prefer to be alone when they tackle new problems, they struggle for hours, days, months, years, and even a lifetime, never solving some of the current challenges (Millennium Prize Problems). What makes them mathematicians is their ability to live in the Abyss. It's a lot like computer programming! It's not whether people feel anxiety, but how they manage those feelings that determine their ability to get through the process of problem-solving.
It's in this context that she sees a boy's upbringing as giving an unfair advantage. They have been told that they have a mind for math, are encouraged to pursue "masculine" careers, and as a result they are much more likely to cope with the recurring uncertainty. They are better able to face the endless failure, triumphing in the end because they have a culture behind them, both in the home and in public.
**"The message that we are trying to get across is that if you do not know what you want to be, at least take science and math, especially math. So that when you get into college, if you change your mind and you like science or math more, or if you find that you want to get into it then you will have the background that is needed. Many women find later on that they do not have the background in mathematics because they copped out early on."
--Margaret Butler, advice to high school students**
February 21, 2025
This book was originally written in the 70's from a feminist perspective, so some of the concepts aren't as relevant in this day and age, but I'd still recommend this book to any woman that has struggled with mathematics growing up due to a poor learning environment and / or had parents uninterested in their children's education. It offers pretty decent insight into the psychological aspects of math anxiety and how it may develop, the issues that come along with teaching math and debunks certain myths that some women may have negatively internalized in their youth.
Currently reading
June 1, 2020Interesante y muy llamativo
January 29, 2022
This book helped me get through college.
August 20, 2025
it’s a useful quick read, nothing crazy
August 25, 2008
"The best therapy for emotional blocks to math is the realization that the human race took centuries or millennia to see through the midst of difficulties and paradoxes which instructors now invite us to solve in a few minutes.” –Lance Hogben p225
“Willing suspension of disbelief is a concept that comes not from mathematics or science but from literature. A reader must give the narrator an opportunity to create images and associations and to “enter” these into our minds…to carry us along in the story or poem. The very student who can accept the symbolic use of language in poetry…may balk when mathematics employs familiar words in an unfamiliar way. If suspension of disbelief is specific to some tasks and not to others, perhaps it is related to trust. One counselor explains math phobia by saying, “If you don’t feel safe, you won’t take risks.” People who don’ trust math may be too wary of math to take risks…[This] does not imply that there are two kinds of minds, the verbal and the mathematical. I do not subscribe to the simple-minded notion that we are one or the other…Rather, I think that verbal people feel comfortable with language early in life, perhaps because they enjoyed success at talking and reading. When mathematics contradicts assumptions acquired in other subjects, such people need special reassurance before they will venture on.
Conflicts between mathematic language and common language may also account for students’ distrust of their intuition. If several associated meanings are floating around in someone’s head and the text only considers one, the learner will, at the very least, feel alone…This problem is not unique to mathematics, but when people already feel insecure about math, linguistic confusion increases their sense of being out of control.” p58-59
“Partial information is by no means peculiar to mathematics, but, as we have seen, some people have a lower tolerance for “ambiguity” in math or science than in poetry, history, or foreign languages. Is this because they have already learned to distrust math and to doubt their ability to extrapolate from partial information to the knowledge they need? Or can they be taught to cope with partial information in every field.” p163
“One of the most obvious differences among individuals in attacking word-problem solving is their willingness or unwillingess to keep at it, to pick it up after an interval and tr again even if an apparent solution turns out to be false. Some people’s attention is disrupted by failure. Others have just the opposite reaction: The joy of mathematics is precisely the challenge of it, the feeling that it is there to come back to, and the knowledge that there is no need to finish it in one sitting. Failure, or lack of immediate success (which is quire another way to think about failure), bothers them not at all.” p163
“Willing suspension of disbelief is a concept that comes not from mathematics or science but from literature. A reader must give the narrator an opportunity to create images and associations and to “enter” these into our minds…to carry us along in the story or poem. The very student who can accept the symbolic use of language in poetry…may balk when mathematics employs familiar words in an unfamiliar way. If suspension of disbelief is specific to some tasks and not to others, perhaps it is related to trust. One counselor explains math phobia by saying, “If you don’t feel safe, you won’t take risks.” People who don’ trust math may be too wary of math to take risks…[This] does not imply that there are two kinds of minds, the verbal and the mathematical. I do not subscribe to the simple-minded notion that we are one or the other…Rather, I think that verbal people feel comfortable with language early in life, perhaps because they enjoyed success at talking and reading. When mathematics contradicts assumptions acquired in other subjects, such people need special reassurance before they will venture on.
Conflicts between mathematic language and common language may also account for students’ distrust of their intuition. If several associated meanings are floating around in someone’s head and the text only considers one, the learner will, at the very least, feel alone…This problem is not unique to mathematics, but when people already feel insecure about math, linguistic confusion increases their sense of being out of control.” p58-59
“Partial information is by no means peculiar to mathematics, but, as we have seen, some people have a lower tolerance for “ambiguity” in math or science than in poetry, history, or foreign languages. Is this because they have already learned to distrust math and to doubt their ability to extrapolate from partial information to the knowledge they need? Or can they be taught to cope with partial information in every field.” p163
“One of the most obvious differences among individuals in attacking word-problem solving is their willingness or unwillingess to keep at it, to pick it up after an interval and tr again even if an apparent solution turns out to be false. Some people’s attention is disrupted by failure. Others have just the opposite reaction: The joy of mathematics is precisely the challenge of it, the feeling that it is there to come back to, and the knowledge that there is no need to finish it in one sitting. Failure, or lack of immediate success (which is quire another way to think about failure), bothers them not at all.” p163
May 23, 2008
I read this book more than once to help students, friends, and family with their anxiety when it comes to mathematics. The book contains many reasons as to why people have a phobia when it comes to math. The book also gives some very practical advice as to how to overcome anxiety when it comes to math. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with math or knows someone who is stuggling with math.
August 10, 2009
I stumbled upon this book at the library while looking for something else. I was intrigued by the title. Other than a sort of self diagnostic test to see if you suffer from math anxiety, it really didn't provide much in the way of explaining how to overcome the affliction, should you have it. The author is a feminist and spends a lot of time ranting about how girls are directly or indirectly influenced to avoid math and I thought it was a bunch of hogwash.
September 17, 2009
It's a fascinating book that talks about some approaches that have been taken to create a space for people who have traditionally been excluded from mathematics (with a focus on white women). It also serves as a primer on all of the sexist justifications dressed up as 'science' that have been used to justify the gender imbalance in math.
I wish it had more practical stuff in it, though.
I wish it had more practical stuff in it, though.
October 8, 2015
This book did not cure me of my math anxiety (that's a lot of pressure for a book) but it did help me to see that math anxiety is surmountable with the right tools. Some of the information is a little outdated, as girls generally aren't discouraged from math in grade school anymore. As someone who occasionally teaches math it was also helpful to see what kind of troubles they might be facing.
May 11, 2013
Brought up some interesting points. Read various parts as an extra credit assignment for my math class. Don't think I would have picked it up otherwise.
July 25, 2013
This book helped me realize my hidden potential and love for math and science.
November 10, 2013
I don't really have math anxiety but I saved an older version of this book from being thrown out at my old internship. Quite charming.
December 18, 2009
Some things were interesting, but this book wasn't all that helpful.
Want to read
March 20, 2010Just curious as I saw someone next to me on a plane reading it.
Read
May 22, 2016i think this book is very important for me. because i need this book for my literature
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews