Follow up to "rocket science" post...

[mareserinitatis]

I guess there are two things I failed to make clear in that post, and I'd like to explain here.

1 - The thing that made me angry was that the student didn't even try to think about the question I posed, and immediately assumed that any question related to math was too complicated for that student to answer

Comments

[ext_93272]

Exactly.

[oddprofessor]

Yep. I have seen far too many people (sadly, it seems to skew female, but I don't know of actual statistics) who laughingly share that they can't balance a checkbook or figure out what, exactly, a 30% off sale means to the bottom line. I decided very early on that my daughters would never be scared of math. They didn't have to take it up recreationally or professionally, but they would be competent, and by God, they are. But we played math games constantly when they were little, and we introduced math concepts very early on. I remember my little daughter helping me buy cookies for her day care class, counting them off backwards as she put them in the bag. She helped me figure out how many bags of mulch to buy for the garden when she was in about 3rd grade, with the aid of diagrams to talk about volume (bags of mulch) and area (garden bed). It was fun for all of us, and both of them are very good in math.

It's a matter of literacy.

[crayonbreakygal]

My boys are definitely not scared of math. My younger one is a wiz at the mental math. I do keep telling him though when he starts doing difficult algebra, that he'll have to show the steps. My oldest always has a math error when he does mental math. I actually love numbers, loved algebra in school. My niece is studying to be a math teacher! I think she wants to teach either middle or high school level. Yay for her. She's a terrific student too.

[tomysky]

Great observations!

~Luke