Each of us has encountered someone who has expressed some hesitancy or dread surrounding math or math classes. The Ghost of Mathematics provides teachers, students, and parents alike with tips and strategies for overcoming these anxieties and inhibitions surrounding particular areas and topics in mathematics that are known to trigger math anxieties. We can begin to eliminate math anxiety by building proficiency in mathematics at the elementary school and address math anxiety by building proficiency in mathematics at the early childhood and elementary school levels.

Author and mathematician, Joseph A. Porzio details how to overcome these self-imposed obstacles surrounding learning. School leaders, math coaches, classroom teachers, and even parents must support young students in developing and mastering conceptual understanding; procedural fluency; and, problem solving strategies.

About the Author

Joseph A. Porzio is a retired Director of Mathematics for Community School District #19 in the New York City Board of Education. He has directly served and guided school leaders, math coaches, classroom teachers, as well as parents and students by providing a focus on practices that sharpen conceptual understanding; procedural fluency; and, problem solving skills (i.e. make a model, draw a picture, and guess-and-check).

Joseph A. Porzio has provided professional development sessions for both New York State and New York City through his work at New York University and Fordham University. He is the honored recipient of the 2007 Outstanding Educator Award by the NYS Education Department and the NYC Department of Education, in recognition of his support of the Reading and Math Institutes.

He is currently serving as an Adjunct Lecturer at St. John’s University. Recently, he presented at the Long Island Math Conference where he shared his unique Graphic Prompts for Questions (GPQs) which have been widely accepted by classroom teachers, tutors, parents and students, especially ELLs. The GPQs promote and support communication and language development as well as math skills.