Blogs to soothe your math anxiety

Me and math, we get along pretty badly. How badly? When I was in high school, my dad began researching innumeracy because dammit, there had to be an explanation for my seven As and one F, or a reason why the first time I took intermediate algebra I earned a C and the second time "earned" an F.

So yes, you might say I have some math anxiety. In fact, I've been flummoxed since the textbooks combined letters with numbers back in sixth grade. It was only in my first semester of college, in a classroom full of similarly anxious women, and with a professor who was a woman, that I managed to understand some letters-and-numbers math. Thanks to that class, if I'm ever imprisoned, I could run the license-plate assembly line because I can calculate all the permutations and combinations of letters and numbers on a license plate. Yay me! (I also may have some latent mad gambling/card counting skillz, but I have yet to put them to the test.)

Anyhoo, imagine my delight (OK, horror) when I discovered there are math blogs, written by people who do math for fun. Fortunately for me, many of them are geared at the amateur--and are written by women--so if you need some brushing up on your math skills or just a reminder that sometimes (sometimes!) math can be fun, follow me. . .

Denise at Let's Play Math! covers a multitude of K-12 math topics, including historical math trivia (how to write Egyptian fractions) and lots of math games and puzzles.

The blogger at ZeroDivides is chronicling her journey toward becoming a mathematician:

thought that perhaps, someday, assuming all goes well, it might be fun to look back and view the process of becoming a mathematician, post by post. Kind of like watching paint dry, or grass grow, only…perhaps even less interesting, if that’s possible.

[...]

This blog is a way for me to lay claim to that desire — the desire to be a mathematician. I hope it is a way to keep myself focused on my ultimate goal. I hope that by making my desire so public, I will feel more entitled to it.

So there it is.

I want to be a mathematician.

ZeroDivides is funny and fascinating and wry. Go check it out.

Maria Miller blogs at Homeschool Math, where she helps other homeschooling parents make sense of math and the teaching of it.

Over at Mindless Math Mutterings, a concerned Connecticut parent keeps her readers up-to-date with the latest issues in math education. Her latest post asks parents to see if their child is on track to take algebra in eighth grade and discusses why that's an important milestone.

Catherine Johnson of Kitchen Table Math (Oy! my kitchen table math days. . . Sorry, Dad!) has made the transition from housewife-blogger to math warrior. Go read her blog to find out how and why.

I wish this blog had been around between, oh, 1987 and 1991, my worst math years: Math Homework Help. The blog is authored by Vanaja, who points out she does not do homework for students, but she will provide step-by-step solutions if you e-mail her algebra, trigonometry, geometry, or calculus problems. The site also offers "free math lessons, puzzles, brain teasers, illusion pictures and much more..."

And where was Ramblings of a Math Mom after I missed the day when we learned to calculate square roots by hand? She argues for (and against) knowing how to do this calculation by hand, and points out two posts at Homeschool Math that explain exactly how to compute a square root. If, like me, you missed that day in class, go check out those posts and (finally!) conquer your square root phobias.

The high school math teacher who blogs at Math Notes explains why statistics shouldn't be advertised as an "easy" class. (I once had a high school counselor tell me I was enrolling in a "low-math" physics class. What she meant to say, I'm sure, was "calculus-free." Ends up there is a big difference.)

Julianne at Cosmic Variance discusses an age-old problem at research universities: how to norm grades across sections taught by different teaching assistants.

Jackie of Continuities provides some year-end stats about her blog readership, and does so in style. Venn diagrams, people--I'm talking Venn diagrams! Since I'm very much a visual learner when it comes to numbers, I always appreciate a good math graphic.

Confessions of a Mathematician also has some excellent pie charts illustrating her life's path. Interesting stuff--and inspiring. How would you best chart your life on a pie?

Finally, at Learning Curves, my favorite math blog--yes, I've been reading it for quite a while now--Rudbeckia Hirta is always ready to offer student miscalculations for our amusement (and, ahem, my edification).

Can you think about a better way to overcome your math phobias than through reading blogs? I mean, you know, besides actually doing any math?

Leslie Madsen-Brooks helps university faculty--yes, even mathematicians--improve their teaching. She blogs at The Clutter Museum, Museum Blogging, and The Multicultural Toy Box.