I have mentioned that I'm completely math deficient. However, I'm coming to realize what I have long suspected- that it's only in a practical sense. When I was a kid, I couldn't get math concepts for squat. In my senior year of high school, I was still taking (and failing!) math funformentals. I remember my music teacher trying to get me to understand the circle of fifths and my eyes just kinda googling around. However, I was musically inclined. Clue. And I liked the most intricate jigsaw puzzles and needlework designs. Clue. Later, I became passionate about intricate quiltmaking. Clue. Now I feel the same about knitting. Clue.
When people criticized me (which believe me, they did) because of my decision to homeschool my kids, I figured that it didn't matter because we'd learn together. Well, I was right. I'm finding that schools just have a backwardsass way of teaching math! They show you symbols on paper and how to manipulate them and then show you how to apply them to real life. However, from a young age, I work with my kids with practical applied math, not calling it anything but cooking, or knitting, or whatever it happens to be. We explore the MEANING of each number, not the numerical value. Then I show them how to represent the numbers. With my eldest, most of it seems to be taking care of itself. She'll say "Oh, this is like when..." and she'll write it out and then use other examples and get excited that she can make her own. Then she naturally makes a connection to the next logical process or concept, without me having to introduce it and then we explore it together. I find she has absolutely no trouble doing problems on paper this way.
Like I thought it would, it's affecting me too. I'm thinking differently. I'm seeing the concepts. I'm actually starting to like it. I never thought that would happen. I'm practicing my violin again, which will stimulate that part of my brain as well. My ADHD meds are helping too. Now if I can figure this stuff out, why can't so called "professionals?" Why would educators and adolescent psychologists simply use terms like "lazy" or "stupid" instead of giving a kid what she needs? Clearly, it's not difficult.
I recently read an internet post in which a woman with red hair wanted to knit a scarf using the red hair gene as a pattern. I thought that was incredibly cool! I looked a bit further for such ideas and saw that someone made a pair of striped socks using the Fibonacci sequence. That was even cooler! Now I'm very intrigued. My project list includes a large tote bag for my knitting supplies. I think I will do it in Fibonacci stripes. Who knows where it will go from there?
I'm figuring that by the time I'm finished homeschooling my youngest, I will have gotten a far more thorough education than I could have ever gotten in school. My fantasy is to have enough money to go back to college when Angus starts, and put my new education to good use.
3 comments:
Any educator or child psychologist who uses terms like "lazy" or "stupid" needs to have their credentials pulled.
I could never "get" math either (except for Geometry which I could see) but still tested very high. It wasn't until a post-grad course for Math-a-phobes that I even remotely understood concepts. Before the emphasis had been on rote memorization.
No 'one size fits all' for learning.
Oh, and very cool about Fibonacci! The eye just naturally sees the sequence as beautiful. Hence, The Golden mean of classical Greece. Yay, you!
I always thought my "math block" was from my mother who was a math teacher (fill in your own Freudian story there). But I really now believe that it was because of the emphasis on memorization rather than understanding. Being very ADD I couldn't memorize well and then...you got it Bert... I was an "underachiever" because I tested very well. You can't win for losing, as Grandmother Anna Belle would say.
You guys rock.
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