The Book for Math Empowerment: Rethinking the Subject of Mathematics
by Sandra Manigault Godosan Publications, 1997, Stafford, Virginia 112 pages, Soft cover: $12.95
A student once told me, “Mathematics is something you do, not
something you understand.” Sadly, among secondary as well as
post-secondary students, this perception of mathematics is rather
widespread.
Over the past thirty years, and more intensively since the 1980s,
mathematics educators have developed innovations to reform pedagogical
practices that contribute to this perception. These reform efforts have
mainly focused on changing curriculum materials and teaching methods.
In efforts to address student perception of performance in mathematics,
few educators have directly addressed students around issues that they
can indeed influence. Only three books come to mind: Marilyn
Frankenstein’s 1989, Relearning Mathematics: A Different Third
R-Radical Maths; Claudia Zaslavsky’s Fear of Math: How to Get Over It
and Get On with Your Life, published in 1994; and the subject of this
review, The Book for Math Empowerment: Rethinking the Subject of
Mathematics, by Sandra Manigault.
In a clearly original approach, Professor Sandra Manigault helps
students work on their own psychology so that their attitudes about
themselves and mathematics are positive.
Divided into two parts, the book is for, according to the author’s
introduction, “those with a history of negative math experiences who
wish to experience math recovery and math empowerment; and those who
wish to provide positive math experiences for their children or their
students.” Manigault takes a decidedly therapeutic and spiritual
approach to helping individuals recognize, and then eliminate, their
learned dislike of mathematics.
The book’s first part contains three chapters, each presenting
tools for personal empowerment. Here is where the originality of
Manigault’s approach is most evident. She challenges conventional and
received — even trendy — ideas about mathematics learning. For many
educators and students, Part One may be uncomfortable at first because
the approach is novel. However, read it with an open mind and suspend
judgement until you have tried the approach.
