This afternoon I continued with the math course. The topic: Some big ideas -from five people for whom math is central in their lives.
This is the mind map – my interpretation of the big ideas offered by each (if you click on the mind map, you’ll be able to read it!):
Put this all together and you have “An Inquiry Relationship with Math“.
The question:
Now you have watched all 5 I would like you to choose one of them and write about a cool lesson idea (teachers) or/discussion topic (parents) that their words and ideas makes you think of. One of them, at least, I am sure inspired you to do something interesting in a class, or in a conversation with your child. I will give you space for that now to write a paragraph about that.
Big Idea: We’re using math all the time without realizing it!
I’ll start with myself:
- Today at the post office the postage on a small package came to $1.54 – I handed the clerk a toony (a Canadian $2 coin) and a nickel and said you owe me $.50 (we no longer have 1¢ coins in Canada) – because I wanted 2 quarters in change;
- This morning I was finishing up a swimsuit I’m making and had to measure out the elastic needed to finish around the neckline and the leg openings;
- I loaded the dishwasher – I group the plates by size, the cutlery by kind, the bowls get nested by size;
- I filled up the gas tank in my car – recorded amount of gas and calculated the number of kms since the last fillup;
- I’m a big tennis fan – they’re playing in Washington this week – I keep a close watch on the scores (tennis scores are unusual: love, fifteen, thirty, forty, deuce –> game; six games = a set; best of three sets = win).
- I set the timer on my video recorder to capture something I want to watch later….
Lots of “math” in my daily life.
For years, I’ve engaged teachers in an activity where they list all the reading/writing they’ve done in the past day or two, what’s the purpose, who’s the audience, and compare that to the reading/writing going on in their classroom; what’s obvious is the diversity of purpose and audience in the reading/writing going on in people’s everyday lives but reading/writing in school is largely limited to reading textbooks for the teacher as examiner.
Having people explore the diverse ways “math” comes into their daily lives would be interesting; doing that collaboratively would generate very rich lists. Taking that one step further, have them think about the “math” in their classrooms would show the same limited purposes/audience we see for literacy, I’m sure, and spark discussion about how can we change that.
I’d want teachers to make it possible for their students to develop an inquiry relationship with math. A relationship that lets students feel comfortable working at something they don’t know how to solve yet, that allows them to begin by inventing their own language for talking about the new math situation, where they know they’ll have some time to work at the problems, and a couple of other people to explore with; they’ll be able to experiment; where they can feel comfortable exploring their intuitive understanding, and they’re not limited by right answers, fixed procedures.
On Learning 
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