All is quiet on New Year's Day
It's so weird to walk around on a nice day and everything is closed! It's weird enough to see the empty parking lots in the 'burbs. In the city though, everything has gates locked down. Normal to see in the middle of the night, but rarely in day light, block after block after block.
Something happened today that got me thinking once again about math problems. I guess I've had all these thoughts before, but once in awhile, something happens and it occupies my brain again for awhile.
We were playing a board game this afternoon and I was scoring points during my turn. I had two separate bonuses and I counted them "plus one, plus two." Joaq said something because he thought I was giving myself 3 bonus points. I answered back and I think he thought I snapped at him, but I wasn't angry, I just wanted to him to understand that I was just thinking about the same thing with different language.
On my way home, I started thinking about how my frustration was similar to how kids feel when they don't follow the teacher in math class. It's not that the student can't think about the same idea, maybe it's that the language we use to think about it isn't the same somehow. Or way of thinking about it, I guess.
I wish it was OK for people to think about math the way they do and not have to conform to the way we're supposed to in school. Everyone whose natural habits don't happen to gel with The Way seem to get left behind. You can't change the way your mind thinks about math. Why do we have to make everyone think the same way about math. It's so incredibly frustrating.
Crossposted at educationreform and soopahgrover
Something happened today that got me thinking once again about math problems. I guess I've had all these thoughts before, but once in awhile, something happens and it occupies my brain again for awhile.
We were playing a board game this afternoon and I was scoring points during my turn. I had two separate bonuses and I counted them "plus one, plus two." Joaq said something because he thought I was giving myself 3 bonus points. I answered back and I think he thought I snapped at him, but I wasn't angry, I just wanted to him to understand that I was just thinking about the same thing with different language.
On my way home, I started thinking about how my frustration was similar to how kids feel when they don't follow the teacher in math class. It's not that the student can't think about the same idea, maybe it's that the language we use to think about it isn't the same somehow. Or way of thinking about it, I guess.
I wish it was OK for people to think about math the way they do and not have to conform to the way we're supposed to in school. Everyone whose natural habits don't happen to gel with The Way seem to get left behind. You can't change the way your mind thinks about math. Why do we have to make everyone think the same way about math. It's so incredibly frustrating.
Crossposted at educationreform and soopahgrover