How to raise a "math person"
This post was originally shared in our community.
Last updated
This post was originally shared in our community.
Last updated
Adopt the growth mindset instead of the fixed mindset:
Have you heard about the story of the Polgar sisters?
However, it's also important to know the 4 things it takes to become an expert at anything:
Read Paul Lockhart's essay called "A Mathematician's Lament". Here is an excerpt:
Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “we need higher standards.” The schools say, “we need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong. The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right.
Eddie Woo says "Mathematics is the SENSE you never knew you had"
Watch this TED talk "5 principles of extraordinary math teaching" by Dan Finkel in its entirely. Here are the 5 principles:
Start with a Question
Give students time to struggle
You are not the answer key
Say yes to your students' ideas
Play!
IMHO, the most important principle is #3. You don't have to know all the answers to be able to explore mathematics with your child.
This one you can begin at a very early age. Sense-making is what kids do. You can talk about the idea of negative numbers every time you take the elevator with your child. When you count things arrange in a rectangular grid:
you are demonstrating the fact that
The technical jargon for the above is "multiplication is commutative" but of course you don't have to use the jargon.
If you need more ideas, there is an entire hashtag #tmwyk on twitter for it!
Some people don't even seem to know about the entire subculture of recreational mathematics. Check out both the books Kiran has written:
Mathematical approach to puzzle solving
The magic and joy of exploding dots
Telling a young person that they're smart or gifted, gives them a crippling fear of failure. Bryan Cantrill made this point forcefully in his talk "Coming of Age":
Many families seem to be missing out on fantastic explanations (including interactive explorables) that elucidate math concepts because of their blanket policy against any screen-time. For example, if you learn about functions from a static textbook, and never try them out in Geogebra or Desmos, you are truly missing out. If your child is a high-schooler and neither of you have heard about 3Blue1Brown's extraordinary math videos, you are doing screen-time/internet-time wrong!
