math phobia

Do you suffer from math phobia? Does it stop you from achieving your goals? The first thing people remember about failing at math is that it felt like sudden death. Whether it happened while learning word problems in sixth grade, coping with equations in high school, or first confronting calculus and statistics in college, failure was instant and frightening.

Math Anxiety

Mathematics is not fuzzy, mathematicians insist. But it is often taught fuzzily. Students who experience such difficulties feel they are just dumber than everyone else, but in fact they may be smarter. A mind that is bothered by ambiguity - actual or perceived - is not usually a weak mind, but a strong one. This point is important because mathematicians argue that it is the learner - not the subject (or its teaching) - who is imprecise.

Sheila Tobias first wrote Overcoming Math Anxiety in 1978. In her updated version, she expands her analysis of the attitude and approach variables that interfere with students' performance. Math anxiety is a failure of nerve in the face of having to do a computation or an analysis of a problem involving numbers, geometries, or mathematical concepts. Math anxiety is a response, over time, to stress in the math classroom where tests are frequently given under time pressure, in the home where there is competition with siblings, or at the work place.

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