Ayla
17-11-2008, 03:42 PM
Anyone Wanna Talk Maths...? This thread currently has 292 views. New Reply New Reply Print Print Thread
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 10, 2008, 11:18am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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Following on from some comments on another thread (see below), anyone wanna talk maths?
It seems to be a common sticking/freak-out/pressure point, especially when first exploring the possibilities of home education and whilst de-schooling...
From the other thread:-
QUOTE:"So I've basically forgotten all of my maths and, when the time comes to help my children with them, I still carry that helpless sensation with me that I could do the theory if I sit down, but that I am missing something which I could not possibly comprehend."
So, you've forgotten it all and feel you don't understand it, and presumably you were schooled???! What does that tell us about whether or not schooling appropriately shares mathematical knowledge and understanding???
Did you know that 98% of people do not use maths beyond primary school level in their everyday lives??? In other words, 98% of us waste all those hours of our teenage life sitting in maths classes unnecessarily!!!
Did you also know that children with absolutely no formal maths at all, when motivated to undertake formal maths (for EG, to get onto a specific course that requires it), complete the entire school maths curriculum in an average of 3 months...?
QUOTE:"I am afraid of not being able to find what maths has to do with any question they ask."
What makes you think teachers do this? It would be a very rare teacher who does. I can promise you that. You don't have to necessarily find what maths has to do with any question they ask. They may find it themselves, if necessary, or you may find it together, or it may not be of interest or relevance....
QUOTE:"It would be easy if they were at school!"
Easy, only because you can pretend the responsibility is not yours, not because school is actually providing that for them. School is the place most guilty of separating maths from reality and turning it into something dull and isolating (from everyday life).
QUOTE:"Just bring the equations and I'm sure that going over the theory, I'll get it. But what if they want to calculate something say, to build a cabbyhouse?"
Do you know what the funny thing is: if your child is motivated to build a cubby house, s/he will do so with great joy and understanding - without equations and obvious, formal, mathematical calculations. And I can guarantee an adult attempting to create a 'teachable moment' by bringing calculations to their attention at this time will completely kill the joy of building it.
And, if they want to go on to be a builder or an architect, they'll trot off and formalize their maths with any necessary bits of paper in that average of 3 months...
Does this need a thread of its own do you reckon??? It certainly comes up as a common theme, especially for those newly exploring home education possibilities. And I sooo wish I knew 13 years ago what I know now with regards to maths and the myths of it formal significance....
Anyone else like to comment/explore further....?
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artemis of the eucalypts
July 10, 2008, 8:56pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Personally I dont have a maths brain. I think Ab may be better at it than me, but she isnt an einstein either! C has shown a greater interest in numbers than letters, which may mean she will be more inclined that way, or may mean she has dyslexia, and numbers dont swim the same way as letters.
I dont have any fear around math when it comes to home learning, nor do I panic about 'english' when it comes to the whole verb/noun/adverb thing (which I still dont get any of! and I have 2 uni degrees!). Maybe I have my head in the sand on it all, but I just assume I will be able to help where I can, and where I cant will find someone who can
R a i n b o w mumma to 2 natural learners dd '03 and ds '07
"...unfree education results in life that cannot be lived fully...... only the head is educated. If the emotions are permitted to be really free, the intelect will look after itself" A. S Neill
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Gullygirl
July 11, 2008, 7:48am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Seedling
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I was good at maths, especially in early highschool. It was the one subject that you could be singled out for and put into an advanced group. I strongly believe/d I should have been put ahead a year as I was sooo bored. I got around that eventually by moving interstate and sneaking up a year then (even though it was into qld and i was moving into my own age group anyway, most people stay in the lower age group but same "year" when they cross the border". Anyway. I I was good at it and got awards at school and I enjoyed it immensely. When I moved I missed a heap of content as In year 10 there was stuff you continued in year 12 and, well, I didn't do year 10. So I was all of a sudden an average student. The method of teaching was stooopid and I struggled. I started going out with the maths dux and got even worse lol.
The move killed my passion. It was more than the year skip (in every other subject I thrived). At my earlier school we (the small group of advanced students) would be sent into a store room with a complex problem and left to work it out together. At the new school it was formula after formula and drills and board (bored) copying. ick. I talked most of the way through class.
I don't really have any fears about maths and my boy. For starters it is a long way off before it gets all complex and by high school age he MAY even have chosen to go to school lol. But regardless I can see in him little things that he is learning for himself with zero effort from me (almost).
Example one: He is often to be found lining up stones or crackers or cards in row and telling me "Mum, 2 row of three is 6" etc. It is slowly getting more complex.
Example two: we had a book with some 1cm square coloured beads on a string which had all sorts of things on the pages you could measure. I found it at an opshop. The book actually rotted in the vege garden in the rain but I rescued the string of beads and since showing him how to measure with it he has been about the house measuring everything. "Mummy, my finger is 3 centimetres!" (though he sometimes forgets and calls it km or something.
I expect that little things like this will occur more and more, or with more complex situations. If he is interested in more theory then I will direct him to some good texts. Pity my grandfather wasn't such as arse, he is a genius physicist. We might find soemone in the community who might be able to mentor him though.
mama to a 4yr old boy
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Miss Molly
July 11, 2008, 10:50am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sprout
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Gullygirl I hear you about the transfer thing messing with your head!
I went from a below-average in primary in Japan, moved to Australia in year 5 and suddenly caught up for a couple of years, during which time I gradually became average again.
The biggest shocker was in yr 12, when at the beginning of the year I got shifted class (evening out student numbers or something like that) which distracted me for the whole year, and proudly failed.
But... I can shop, measure things, and use the calculator. What else would I need, really
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Gullygirl
July 11, 2008, 10:55am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Seedling
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Oh and I should add, I remember no more than the most basic algebra now. I used to love algebra in early highschool.
mama to a 4yr old boy
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majikfaerie
July 11, 2008, 11:18am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Tree
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i wanna talk math, but i'm being a cat and pretending to hide in the bedroom while dd runs away, and just stealinga quick moment... bbl to talk math
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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artymamma
July 11, 2008, 3:15pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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I was doing 4 unit maths in highschool, but don't even remember how to do long division these days! LOL! I do still remember the basics I need to know and can calculate stuff in my head well. (Thanks Mum who wouldn't let me have a calculator!)
DD1 loves numbers and maths and has taught herself how to add and subtract.
One method I LOVE of introducing math concepts to kids is through the story of the math gnomes they use in steiner schools.
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SuburbanDweller
July 11, 2008, 3:20pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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I've heard of and seen pictures of the math gnomes but have never actually read/heard the story and seen how they are used.
I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator.
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Sam
July 11, 2008, 3:37pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
Did you also know that children with absolutely no formal maths at all, when motivated to undertake formal maths (for EG, to get onto a specific course that requires it), complete the entire school maths curriculum in an average of 3 months...?
This is a bit like my son. We worked on very basic numeral work to Year 2 level using workbooks and after that only what we needed in our daily life - very basic maths with a bit of % when shopping or working our km per gallon of petrol for a road trip being the only harder things. Now my son is having to learn higher maths at TAFE. He, along with all of his classmates who were all schooled, are learning everything from scratch and 90% of the class are having extra tutoring. He is finding it challenging and he's not loving it but none of it has been too difficult and he is no slower at picking it up than his classmates. He was explaining some of it to me the other day. I'd forgotten it all but it was vaguely familiar. I will seek his advice if I ever need to learn it again.
Sam
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Beatrice
July 11, 2008, 3:54pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Sapling
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I still amuses me that I'm quicker at mental maths and better at estimating than my maths geek husband
Homeschooling mama to B (7/97), K (3/05) and H (11/07)
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 11, 2008, 5:16pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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QUOTE:"I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator."
My DH 'failed' maths at school - his paper was 'ungraded' (IE worse than just failed!!)
He went straight on to run all aspects of his own successful business, with the bank offering him $1,000,000 business development loan at age 23! (Which he declined; packed up and headed over to Australia to live in remote Arnhemland with the Golumala tribe instead!).
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greendraggon
July 11, 2008, 6:31pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Yeah B, I was a maths geek but I never memorised the times tables. I didn't see the point.
DH's best friend is a maths professor. His work is really interesting, but you don't need more than early high school maths to understand the concepts he talks about (the execution is where it gets tricky).
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 11, 2008, 6:40pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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We had a friend who was a bigwig maths professor and he pissed me off majorly one day by 'testing' my son, who would then have been aged about 11, and concluding then announcing to me with my son in earshot that he was 'behind'.
His son (a school year older than my son) had just been paid $50 to memorize his times tables and could parrot them off with ease.
My son couldn't parrot but completely understood the concepts and automatically used them in daily life, without realizing he was doing it, or knowing what they were called!
Oh, how I wish I'd known then what I know now. I totally bought into the pressure at that time and it was one of the many factors that added to us choosing school soon afterwards...
Now I'd just think 'behind what????' and 'fuck right off!'
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artymamma
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Quoted Text
Now I'd just think 'behind what????' and 'fuck right off!'
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Sadorian
July 14, 2008, 11:27am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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I always had a closet love for maths ( I would never have said that out loud, it was sooo uncool!) but in hindsight I can see how that flame was slowly and painfully extinguished.
Anyone here read "A Mathematicion's Lament" in the HEN Otherways mag? It is a beautiful article, sums up how I would have felt about maths, had I been raised differently.
The most worthwhile journey of life is the one from ignorance to awareness, or understanding, or wisdom.
The journey from ignorance to knowledge is also a worthwhile journey, but a wasted one if the knowledge is of no significance.
- John Marsedon
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 14, 2008, 11:59am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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sums up??
Pun intended...?
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Beatrice
July 14, 2008, 2:28pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Sapling
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I posted a link to that here a while ago, Sadorian *rummages through old threads*
http://www.joyouslearning.info/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1208514151/
Homeschooling mama to B (7/97), K (3/05) and H (11/07)
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw
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majikfaerie
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Tree
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ahhh i love lockhearts lament
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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gdDH
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You mean I'm living with a woman who doesn't know her times tables. I had to find out like this. Quell'horreur!!!
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gdDH
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Quoted from greendraggon
you don't need more than early high school maths to understand the concepts he talks about
Ah the great cornerstone of friendship - nod and smile, nod and smile (guess mines a little "earlier")
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Aeron
July 14, 2008, 10:51pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sprout
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I loved maths at school, not so much at uni. But through my chemistry degrees (only one finished) the stuff I loved tutoring was the basic chemistry that involved maths equations! I would get a real thrill from completing useless simple equations. They didn't have to be hard, in fact the easier the better! And I was really good at teaching stuff that had to be learnt for exams, but not necessarily at caring what to do with the learnt stuff (hence the unfinished postgrad degree!).
I guess my part in deschooling myself is to let go of the fact that I loved this and resisting 'teaching' it to dd. I would love it (I could sit for hours and do maths workbooks, I suspect!), but she wouldn't necessarily, and hopefully if she does, we'll find out.
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valleymama
July 14, 2008, 11:26pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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I was really crap at maths at school and I thought it was because I just didn't have the right brain for it. So I had the mindset that I wasn't good at it and so I wasn't. BUT later on, when I got real life jobs that required the use of maths, I actually found that I was really good at it and not only that, I really ENJOYED it! It was a curious and pleasantly surprising discovery.
Suddenly I completely turned around the idea that I couldn't "do maths". Reflecting on it much later on, I have realised that what it took was for me to be applying maths in a practical situation which had a clear purpose that was evident to me. Doing all that stuff at school for no apparent reason didn't help me learn at all!
homebirthing, home educating mum to 3 free range learners
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gdDH
July 15, 2008, 12:45am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Some random thoughts - taking maths as a point of departure:
My experience is that the more abstract concepts are the more difficulty adult brains have coping with it, because we try to understand it and it can't find a way through our convoluted network of relationships. Familiarity in the mind is acquired. Exposure to the same material many times allows the brain to build a contextual network or environmental and topical factors. At some point critical mass may be reached giving rise to the "aha" experience.
I only lapped up high school geometry in early primary school because there was nothing to get in the way and a family friend taught me at every church gathering we were at.
If the number of aha's increases slowly over time, and the amount of time between each one increases, does that mean they occur with decreasing frequency?
Wasn't the insistence on Latin because of a unified logical unfoldment at the heart of the classical education. Times tables are useful for "chunking" and pattern recognition - but aren't patterns just the mind recognising itself and thereby running the risk of obscuring the way things naturally are. The same criticism can also be applied to logic.
But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society. Is it possible, ie is there time/inclination to implement an "and" kind of education whereby the school curriculum is absorbed, extended and discarded without a constrictive/constructive impact on a free-range mind/person. That way the free-range mind/people can better understand and shape society. Rather than being the alternative, they can shape from the heart/core.
What is more useful for young minds - I tend toward curiosity led saturation in the world. In most instances all I can do is to try to limit the impact that my lack of freedom and ability could impose and try to facilitate connections to knowledge/experience.
And there emerges community.
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majikfaerie
July 15, 2008, 1:23am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from gdDH
You mean I'm living with a woman who doesn't know her times tables. I had to find out like this. Quell'horreur!!!
the dh is always the last to know
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 15, 2008, 5:04pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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QUOTE:"But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society."
I could have missed your point, but would you please clarify that for me. Are you saying that 'this "natural" thing' compromises being social and living in society....?
QUOTE:"is there time/inclination to implement an "and" kind of education whereby the school curriculum is absorbed, extended and discarded without a constrictive/constructive impact on a free-range mind/person?"
gdDH, can you just clarify for me please? Are you suggesting/assuming that natural learning doesn't do this....? Or have I missed your point?
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gdDH
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Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
QUOTE:"But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society."
I could have missed your point, but would you please clarify that for me. Are you saying that 'this "natural" thing' compromises being social and living in society....?
Not at all quite the opposite, it provides an opportunity to develop society. There is however, as has been demonstrated by other recent posts, a tencency for society "at large" to rail against the actions of those who choose. This was also an allusion to other discussions about community and a lack of desire to become exclusive.
Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
QUOTE:gdDH, can you just clarify for me please? Are you suggesting/assuming that natural learning doesn't do this....?
No, I'm suggesting that in choosing natural learning we might include and subsume rather than reject. I don't believe I made any assumptions, because I don't believe that natural learning assumes a fixed form.
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 15, 2008, 7:08pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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Thank you
Now I have an 'aha' moment in getting your meaning
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greendraggon
July 16, 2008, 3:42pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from SuburbanDweller
I've heard of and seen pictures of the math gnomes but have never actually read/heard the story and seen how they are used.
I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator.
I just found this:
http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/gnomes-and-gnumbers-a-mat.html
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rubymoon
July 19, 2008, 8:37pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Did anyone see the article in a recent Otherways about maths? It talked about the hypothetical scenario of "waht if people went about teaching music the way they teach maths" ie making it totally boring, illogical, and totally killing it's relevance and beauty in the process . How totally ridiculous and damaging would that be (ie making the point that the whole maths hang-up thing is stupid)
Maybe someone else who's brain is more functional than mine atm has read it and can give a better summary than that!
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greendraggon
July 19, 2008, 8:49pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Sounds interesting. They do teach music like that in some places. Google "Schenkerian analysis"
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rubymoon
July 19, 2008, 9:23pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from greendraggon
Sounds interesting. They do teach music like that in some places. Google "Schenkerian analysis"
Now I'm sure my brain couldn't cope with that atm...lol!
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rubymoon
July 19, 2008, 9:29pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Sadorian
I always had a closet love for maths ( I would never have said that out loud, it was sooo uncool!) but in hindsight I can see how that flame was slowly and painfully extinguished.
Anyone here read "A Mathematicion's Lament" in the HEN Otherways mag? It is a beautiful article, sums up how I would have felt about maths, had I been raised differently.
See...if I'd just read the whole thread then someone else has already made my point most succintly...
It was a great article , eh? I liked the way it pointed out that some people are "musical" (or maybe we all are, but that's another thread...) and they study music and some people are "mathematical" so they study maths...But whilst "unmusical" people aren't forced to study music ad infinitum in a most uninispired way..."unmathematical" people ARE forced to learn maths in for a looooongn time in a most uninspired way ...or at least they are in schools ...thus...ANOTHER reason why school sux (to quote a lovely old teenage days phrase)
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 10, 2008, 11:18am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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Following on from some comments on another thread (see below), anyone wanna talk maths?
It seems to be a common sticking/freak-out/pressure point, especially when first exploring the possibilities of home education and whilst de-schooling...
From the other thread:-
QUOTE:"So I've basically forgotten all of my maths and, when the time comes to help my children with them, I still carry that helpless sensation with me that I could do the theory if I sit down, but that I am missing something which I could not possibly comprehend."
So, you've forgotten it all and feel you don't understand it, and presumably you were schooled???! What does that tell us about whether or not schooling appropriately shares mathematical knowledge and understanding???
Did you know that 98% of people do not use maths beyond primary school level in their everyday lives??? In other words, 98% of us waste all those hours of our teenage life sitting in maths classes unnecessarily!!!
Did you also know that children with absolutely no formal maths at all, when motivated to undertake formal maths (for EG, to get onto a specific course that requires it), complete the entire school maths curriculum in an average of 3 months...?
QUOTE:"I am afraid of not being able to find what maths has to do with any question they ask."
What makes you think teachers do this? It would be a very rare teacher who does. I can promise you that. You don't have to necessarily find what maths has to do with any question they ask. They may find it themselves, if necessary, or you may find it together, or it may not be of interest or relevance....
QUOTE:"It would be easy if they were at school!"
Easy, only because you can pretend the responsibility is not yours, not because school is actually providing that for them. School is the place most guilty of separating maths from reality and turning it into something dull and isolating (from everyday life).
QUOTE:"Just bring the equations and I'm sure that going over the theory, I'll get it. But what if they want to calculate something say, to build a cabbyhouse?"
Do you know what the funny thing is: if your child is motivated to build a cubby house, s/he will do so with great joy and understanding - without equations and obvious, formal, mathematical calculations. And I can guarantee an adult attempting to create a 'teachable moment' by bringing calculations to their attention at this time will completely kill the joy of building it.
And, if they want to go on to be a builder or an architect, they'll trot off and formalize their maths with any necessary bits of paper in that average of 3 months...
Does this need a thread of its own do you reckon??? It certainly comes up as a common theme, especially for those newly exploring home education possibilities. And I sooo wish I knew 13 years ago what I know now with regards to maths and the myths of it formal significance....
Anyone else like to comment/explore further....?
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artemis of the eucalypts
July 10, 2008, 8:56pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Personally I dont have a maths brain. I think Ab may be better at it than me, but she isnt an einstein either! C has shown a greater interest in numbers than letters, which may mean she will be more inclined that way, or may mean she has dyslexia, and numbers dont swim the same way as letters.
I dont have any fear around math when it comes to home learning, nor do I panic about 'english' when it comes to the whole verb/noun/adverb thing (which I still dont get any of! and I have 2 uni degrees!). Maybe I have my head in the sand on it all, but I just assume I will be able to help where I can, and where I cant will find someone who can
R a i n b o w mumma to 2 natural learners dd '03 and ds '07
"...unfree education results in life that cannot be lived fully...... only the head is educated. If the emotions are permitted to be really free, the intelect will look after itself" A. S Neill
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Gullygirl
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I was good at maths, especially in early highschool. It was the one subject that you could be singled out for and put into an advanced group. I strongly believe/d I should have been put ahead a year as I was sooo bored. I got around that eventually by moving interstate and sneaking up a year then (even though it was into qld and i was moving into my own age group anyway, most people stay in the lower age group but same "year" when they cross the border". Anyway. I I was good at it and got awards at school and I enjoyed it immensely. When I moved I missed a heap of content as In year 10 there was stuff you continued in year 12 and, well, I didn't do year 10. So I was all of a sudden an average student. The method of teaching was stooopid and I struggled. I started going out with the maths dux and got even worse lol.
The move killed my passion. It was more than the year skip (in every other subject I thrived). At my earlier school we (the small group of advanced students) would be sent into a store room with a complex problem and left to work it out together. At the new school it was formula after formula and drills and board (bored) copying. ick. I talked most of the way through class.
I don't really have any fears about maths and my boy. For starters it is a long way off before it gets all complex and by high school age he MAY even have chosen to go to school lol. But regardless I can see in him little things that he is learning for himself with zero effort from me (almost).
Example one: He is often to be found lining up stones or crackers or cards in row and telling me "Mum, 2 row of three is 6" etc. It is slowly getting more complex.
Example two: we had a book with some 1cm square coloured beads on a string which had all sorts of things on the pages you could measure. I found it at an opshop. The book actually rotted in the vege garden in the rain but I rescued the string of beads and since showing him how to measure with it he has been about the house measuring everything. "Mummy, my finger is 3 centimetres!" (though he sometimes forgets and calls it km or something.
I expect that little things like this will occur more and more, or with more complex situations. If he is interested in more theory then I will direct him to some good texts. Pity my grandfather wasn't such as arse, he is a genius physicist. We might find soemone in the community who might be able to mentor him though.
mama to a 4yr old boy
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Miss Molly
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Gullygirl I hear you about the transfer thing messing with your head!
I went from a below-average in primary in Japan, moved to Australia in year 5 and suddenly caught up for a couple of years, during which time I gradually became average again.
The biggest shocker was in yr 12, when at the beginning of the year I got shifted class (evening out student numbers or something like that) which distracted me for the whole year, and proudly failed.
But... I can shop, measure things, and use the calculator. What else would I need, really
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Gullygirl
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Seedling
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Oh and I should add, I remember no more than the most basic algebra now. I used to love algebra in early highschool.
mama to a 4yr old boy
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majikfaerie
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i wanna talk math, but i'm being a cat and pretending to hide in the bedroom while dd runs away, and just stealinga quick moment... bbl to talk math
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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artymamma
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I was doing 4 unit maths in highschool, but don't even remember how to do long division these days! LOL! I do still remember the basics I need to know and can calculate stuff in my head well. (Thanks Mum who wouldn't let me have a calculator!)
DD1 loves numbers and maths and has taught herself how to add and subtract.
One method I LOVE of introducing math concepts to kids is through the story of the math gnomes they use in steiner schools.
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SuburbanDweller
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I've heard of and seen pictures of the math gnomes but have never actually read/heard the story and seen how they are used.
I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator.
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Sam
July 11, 2008, 3:37pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
Did you also know that children with absolutely no formal maths at all, when motivated to undertake formal maths (for EG, to get onto a specific course that requires it), complete the entire school maths curriculum in an average of 3 months...?
This is a bit like my son. We worked on very basic numeral work to Year 2 level using workbooks and after that only what we needed in our daily life - very basic maths with a bit of % when shopping or working our km per gallon of petrol for a road trip being the only harder things. Now my son is having to learn higher maths at TAFE. He, along with all of his classmates who were all schooled, are learning everything from scratch and 90% of the class are having extra tutoring. He is finding it challenging and he's not loving it but none of it has been too difficult and he is no slower at picking it up than his classmates. He was explaining some of it to me the other day. I'd forgotten it all but it was vaguely familiar. I will seek his advice if I ever need to learn it again.
Sam
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Beatrice
July 11, 2008, 3:54pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Sapling
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I still amuses me that I'm quicker at mental maths and better at estimating than my maths geek husband
Homeschooling mama to B (7/97), K (3/05) and H (11/07)
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
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Sapling
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QUOTE:"I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator."
My DH 'failed' maths at school - his paper was 'ungraded' (IE worse than just failed!!)
He went straight on to run all aspects of his own successful business, with the bank offering him $1,000,000 business development loan at age 23! (Which he declined; packed up and headed over to Australia to live in remote Arnhemland with the Golumala tribe instead!).
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greendraggon
July 11, 2008, 6:31pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Yeah B, I was a maths geek but I never memorised the times tables. I didn't see the point.
DH's best friend is a maths professor. His work is really interesting, but you don't need more than early high school maths to understand the concepts he talks about (the execution is where it gets tricky).
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
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Sapling
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We had a friend who was a bigwig maths professor and he pissed me off majorly one day by 'testing' my son, who would then have been aged about 11, and concluding then announcing to me with my son in earshot that he was 'behind'.
His son (a school year older than my son) had just been paid $50 to memorize his times tables and could parrot them off with ease.
My son couldn't parrot but completely understood the concepts and automatically used them in daily life, without realizing he was doing it, or knowing what they were called!
Oh, how I wish I'd known then what I know now. I totally bought into the pressure at that time and it was one of the many factors that added to us choosing school soon afterwards...
Now I'd just think 'behind what????' and 'fuck right off!'
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artymamma
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Quoted Text
Now I'd just think 'behind what????' and 'fuck right off!'
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Sadorian
July 14, 2008, 11:27am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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I always had a closet love for maths ( I would never have said that out loud, it was sooo uncool!) but in hindsight I can see how that flame was slowly and painfully extinguished.
Anyone here read "A Mathematicion's Lament" in the HEN Otherways mag? It is a beautiful article, sums up how I would have felt about maths, had I been raised differently.
The most worthwhile journey of life is the one from ignorance to awareness, or understanding, or wisdom.
The journey from ignorance to knowledge is also a worthwhile journey, but a wasted one if the knowledge is of no significance.
- John Marsedon
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 14, 2008, 11:59am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
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sums up??
Pun intended...?
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Beatrice
July 14, 2008, 2:28pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Sapling
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I posted a link to that here a while ago, Sadorian *rummages through old threads*
http://www.joyouslearning.info/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1208514151/
Homeschooling mama to B (7/97), K (3/05) and H (11/07)
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw
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majikfaerie
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Tree
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ahhh i love lockhearts lament
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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gdDH
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You mean I'm living with a woman who doesn't know her times tables. I had to find out like this. Quell'horreur!!!
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gdDH
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Quoted from greendraggon
you don't need more than early high school maths to understand the concepts he talks about
Ah the great cornerstone of friendship - nod and smile, nod and smile (guess mines a little "earlier")
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Aeron
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Sprout
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I loved maths at school, not so much at uni. But through my chemistry degrees (only one finished) the stuff I loved tutoring was the basic chemistry that involved maths equations! I would get a real thrill from completing useless simple equations. They didn't have to be hard, in fact the easier the better! And I was really good at teaching stuff that had to be learnt for exams, but not necessarily at caring what to do with the learnt stuff (hence the unfinished postgrad degree!).
I guess my part in deschooling myself is to let go of the fact that I loved this and resisting 'teaching' it to dd. I would love it (I could sit for hours and do maths workbooks, I suspect!), but she wouldn't necessarily, and hopefully if she does, we'll find out.
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valleymama
July 14, 2008, 11:26pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sprout
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I was really crap at maths at school and I thought it was because I just didn't have the right brain for it. So I had the mindset that I wasn't good at it and so I wasn't. BUT later on, when I got real life jobs that required the use of maths, I actually found that I was really good at it and not only that, I really ENJOYED it! It was a curious and pleasantly surprising discovery.
Suddenly I completely turned around the idea that I couldn't "do maths". Reflecting on it much later on, I have realised that what it took was for me to be applying maths in a practical situation which had a clear purpose that was evident to me. Doing all that stuff at school for no apparent reason didn't help me learn at all!
homebirthing, home educating mum to 3 free range learners
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gdDH
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Some random thoughts - taking maths as a point of departure:
My experience is that the more abstract concepts are the more difficulty adult brains have coping with it, because we try to understand it and it can't find a way through our convoluted network of relationships. Familiarity in the mind is acquired. Exposure to the same material many times allows the brain to build a contextual network or environmental and topical factors. At some point critical mass may be reached giving rise to the "aha" experience.
I only lapped up high school geometry in early primary school because there was nothing to get in the way and a family friend taught me at every church gathering we were at.
If the number of aha's increases slowly over time, and the amount of time between each one increases, does that mean they occur with decreasing frequency?
Wasn't the insistence on Latin because of a unified logical unfoldment at the heart of the classical education. Times tables are useful for "chunking" and pattern recognition - but aren't patterns just the mind recognising itself and thereby running the risk of obscuring the way things naturally are. The same criticism can also be applied to logic.
But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society. Is it possible, ie is there time/inclination to implement an "and" kind of education whereby the school curriculum is absorbed, extended and discarded without a constrictive/constructive impact on a free-range mind/person. That way the free-range mind/people can better understand and shape society. Rather than being the alternative, they can shape from the heart/core.
What is more useful for young minds - I tend toward curiosity led saturation in the world. In most instances all I can do is to try to limit the impact that my lack of freedom and ability could impose and try to facilitate connections to knowledge/experience.
And there emerges community.
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majikfaerie
July 15, 2008, 1:23am Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from gdDH
You mean I'm living with a woman who doesn't know her times tables. I had to find out like this. Quell'horreur!!!
the dh is always the last to know
It takes a village
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Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 15, 2008, 5:04pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
Posts: 541
QUOTE:"But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society."
I could have missed your point, but would you please clarify that for me. Are you saying that 'this "natural" thing' compromises being social and living in society....?
QUOTE:"is there time/inclination to implement an "and" kind of education whereby the school curriculum is absorbed, extended and discarded without a constrictive/constructive impact on a free-range mind/person?"
gdDH, can you just clarify for me please? Are you suggesting/assuming that natural learning doesn't do this....? Or have I missed your point?
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gdDH
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Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
QUOTE:"But the last few days I've been wondering about this "natural" thing: because we are social critters we do, and will still live in society."
I could have missed your point, but would you please clarify that for me. Are you saying that 'this "natural" thing' compromises being social and living in society....?
Not at all quite the opposite, it provides an opportunity to develop society. There is however, as has been demonstrated by other recent posts, a tencency for society "at large" to rail against the actions of those who choose. This was also an allusion to other discussions about community and a lack of desire to become exclusive.
Quoted from ThirdArmBabySlingProject
QUOTE:gdDH, can you just clarify for me please? Are you suggesting/assuming that natural learning doesn't do this....?
No, I'm suggesting that in choosing natural learning we might include and subsume rather than reject. I don't believe I made any assumptions, because I don't believe that natural learning assumes a fixed form.
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ThirdArmBabySlingProject
July 15, 2008, 7:08pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Sapling
Posts: 541
Thank you
Now I have an 'aha' moment in getting your meaning
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greendraggon
July 16, 2008, 3:42pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Quoted from SuburbanDweller
I've heard of and seen pictures of the math gnomes but have never actually read/heard the story and seen how they are used.
I always think I suck at maths because of not great grades in high school. I get by but I tend to avoid doing anything fancy without a calculator.
I just found this:
http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/gnomes-and-gnumbers-a-mat.html
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rubymoon
July 19, 2008, 8:37pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Did anyone see the article in a recent Otherways about maths? It talked about the hypothetical scenario of "waht if people went about teaching music the way they teach maths" ie making it totally boring, illogical, and totally killing it's relevance and beauty in the process . How totally ridiculous and damaging would that be (ie making the point that the whole maths hang-up thing is stupid)
Maybe someone else who's brain is more functional than mine atm has read it and can give a better summary than that!
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greendraggon
July 19, 2008, 8:49pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
Seedling
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Sounds interesting. They do teach music like that in some places. Google "Schenkerian analysis"
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rubymoon
July 19, 2008, 9:23pm Quote Quote Delete Delete Modify Modify Report to Moderator Report to Moderator
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Quoted from greendraggon
Sounds interesting. They do teach music like that in some places. Google "Schenkerian analysis"
Now I'm sure my brain couldn't cope with that atm...lol!
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rubymoon
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Quoted from Sadorian
I always had a closet love for maths ( I would never have said that out loud, it was sooo uncool!) but in hindsight I can see how that flame was slowly and painfully extinguished.
Anyone here read "A Mathematicion's Lament" in the HEN Otherways mag? It is a beautiful article, sums up how I would have felt about maths, had I been raised differently.
See...if I'd just read the whole thread then someone else has already made my point most succintly...
It was a great article , eh? I liked the way it pointed out that some people are "musical" (or maybe we all are, but that's another thread...) and they study music and some people are "mathematical" so they study maths...But whilst "unmusical" people aren't forced to study music ad infinitum in a most uninispired way..."unmathematical" people ARE forced to learn maths in for a looooongn time in a most uninspired way ...or at least they are in schools ...thus...ANOTHER reason why school sux (to quote a lovely old teenage days phrase)
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