Thu - November 20, 2003
Basic Arithmetic
Basic arithmetic was developed by ordinary people to
use in performing ordinary life tasks.
Posted at 12:14 PM
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Thu - October 30, 2003
Math By Any Other Name....
As unschoolers, we don't divide the world into
"subjects." We don't bother to tell the kids that reading a poem is "Language
Arts," or looking at the stars is "Science," or going to a Civil War
re-enactment is "History," and there is no reason to call playing games or doing
puzzles or even talking about mathematical ideas, "Math." If you are nervous
about whether your child is "covering" or "doing" one of these subjects, then
you can think about it that way, to ease your own mind, but the reality is that
each of those activities cuts across all subjects and artificially
differentiating them is actually detrimental to holistic learning. Learning
Posted at 12:23 PM
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Sun - October 12, 2003
My Goals
My Four Goals
What I want for my children is that they are
motivated to explore and learn mathematics because they find learning to be
intrinsically satisfying and because they appreciate that life is immeasurably
richer when we have a greater understanding of how the universe
works.
My goals are to:
(1) help my children appreciate the
pervasive role played by mathematics in the culture in which we
live,
(2) not create math anxiety in
them,
(3) support any interest and talent
they may express in advanced mathematics,
(4)
help them be able to use math in real ways in their own lives.
Posted at 06:32 PM
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Qualities Needed to be "Good at Math"
What qualities does a person need to develop in
order to do well at mathematics?
Some of these qualities might be:
persistence, concentration, hard work, willingness to start over when a mistake
is made, hope, patience, tolerance of frustration and
failure.
Stop and think about how these
qualities are developed. Is it necessary to do pages of math problems to develop
these qualities? Think about your own lifestyle and where your children have
opportunities to develop these qualities in themselves?
Other qualities I'd add to the list
would be joy and enthusiasm. But, for now, in our society, I'd settle for at
LEAST liking math enough to not be routinely negative about
it.
Posted at 06:30 PM
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Mathematical Goals
There are various ways of describing our goals and
it is NOT obvious and it is worth taking some time to consider the question.
Here are some possibilities.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
(NCTM) has come up with a set of "standards" which describe what they think kids
should learn in mathematics. It is probably worth having a look at their
standards, if for no other reason than to become more aware of all the different
aspects of mathematics that there are beyond "number crunching." The NCTM
Standards are divided into two groups: process and arithmetic. Under process
standards there are: (1) problem solving, (2) communication, (3) reasoning, and
(4) connections. Under the arithmetic standards there are: (5) estimation, (6)
number sense, (7) concepts of whole number operations, (8) whole number
computation, (9) geometry and spatial sense, (10) measurement, (11) fractions
and decimals, (12) patterns and
relationships.
Others have described
critical thinking goals (based on Blooms Taxonomy) such as: (1) learn
information, (2) understand information, (3) use information, (4) analyze,
criticize, draw conclusions, extend, sort take apart, compare and contrast, (5)
connect information to other information and put it together in new and
different ways, (6) evaluate, judge, recommend, reject
results.
Others who emphasize creative
thinking describe their goals as developing: (1) fluency (lots of ideas), (2)
flexibility (adjust ideas), (3) originality (unusual new ideas), (4) extend
(build on ideas, enlarge, expand), (5) experiment (explore ideas), (6) complex
thinking (handle multiple ideas and organize into logical structure, (7)
curious, (8) imagination (ability to envision
possibilities).
Maybe the above can
give you some food for thought as you consider what your own goals are for your
children's mathematical learning.
Posted at 06:01 PM
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Sat
- October 11, 2003
Why math?
Comparing how parents support learning to read
versus learning math.
Why do you want your child to become proficient in
reading? I have asked this question of hundreds of parents and the answers
always include: "to experience the joy of reading," "to learn to love books,"
and sometimes, "to be able to function in adult life." When I ask them how their
child is motivated to learn to read and what they do to encourage it, they say,
"reading aloud," and "provide the kind of reading materials my child
enjoys."
When I ask the same questions
about math, parents typically say things like: "I want my child to learn math so
he can understand money, get into college, get a job, handle her finances, do
well on tests." To motivate their children, they try to find the best math books
they can and they make them do their math on a regular
basis.
Comparing their approach to
reading with the typical approach to math, it is clear that parents don't
typically put "joy" and "mathematics" together as either goal or motivation even
when to do that when it comes to reading. Why
not?
You might want to stop here and
think a bit about your own attitude toward math. What are you goals for your
children in learning math? What do you wish for them? How do you support or
encourage them? Lots of times people are really not all that clear on why they
even care if their kids learn math; they've just accepted it that it is
important and they really can't articulate why that is - especially beyond some
pretty simple arithmetic that is used in everyday life. Few parents find math
enjoyable and few feel very competent in math themselves. Its no wonder that
math is the subject homeschooling parents worry about most. And its no wonder
that they find it hard to support mathematics learning in the same encouraging
and enjoyable way they do reading.
Posted at 07:13 AM
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