When it comes to Math, studies show that only 30% of children are successful at learning in a conveyor belt (traditional school) setting. The curriculum in these schools is also popular in home schools, where the system and methods have been in place since the industrial revolution, whose focus was to train the masses of common children who had little use for any studies that did not translate into wage-earning.
What happens to the 70% of the students who just don't get it, are bored with it, or who get a bad taste in their mouths, along with a negative self image, because the Math information being taught is not relevant? They become grown up adults with limited Math experience, just look at the current American statistics surrounding Math, and you'll find something is not working!
Twelve years ago, I started my then, pre-schooler, off with an environment full of wonderful Math, engineering and geometry type games, toys and Waldorf & Montessori inspired Math resources, in an effort to give her the best Math start. I felt like she was getting the "language" of math with a solid foundation and this would enable her to be able to learn higher concepts as she grew.
When our daughter reached seven years old we introduced the popular home school curriculum Saxon Math and required her to learn it, as a Waldorf inspired teacher I knew better, but it was what was popular, traditional, and I thought she could handle it because of her wonderful start to Math concepts!
I wanted her to be good at Math and didn't want her to have the phobias that I did towards Math study. So I took myself out of the equation and hired other home school moms and tutors through the years to teach her, thinking that would make all the difference.
By the time she was eleven years old, we had given up on the tutors and thrown out Saxon Math, while my heart broke as I realized all of my fears had come true, I had a child with a Math phobia and a low self image around being able to learn Math
At the same time A Thomas Jefferson Education aka: Leadership Education came into my life and I started to understand the concept of "inspire not require" and what the phases of learning were... so we started back at the beginning.
Using classic books and biographies of mathematicians, beginning with the Mathematicians are People Too books, which are stories from the lives of great Mathematicians, we went in chronological order learning about the discoveries , scientists and Math concepts. We watched shows, followed popular Math people in the world and we brought Math concepts to life naturally in our home. We involved her in the book keeping of our business and home, the kitchen work, the projects and we played lots of Math and deeper thinking games.
We changed the conversation from you are not good at Math, to you are one of the 70% who have a problem with the way Math is taught in schools and you will learn it differently (when you are ready) than your friends are learning it in public school, conveyor belt settings.
We also told her that it wasn't important to learn Math, that she would learn it when and if she needed it, no big deal. And whenever possible we showed her that she had a Math brain, sometimes this took lots of creativity, foresight and pulling information out of left field, so to speak, to inspire that belief in her. Changing the conversation started working but, a little part of her still was worried about getting into college and passing the SAT, that's where John Holt's writings on learning Math later in life when the skills were needed came in.
Holt, one of the founding fathers of the Unschooling movement, tells a story of a group of teens who didn't know much Math at all and decided they [wanted] to learn it. The story goes on to say that within a short period of time, 30 to 60 days, if I remember correctly, they learned the concepts from addition up to calculus. Using less rote learning and more whole brain instruction, not only could they pass a test, they owned their Math learning for life! He has similar stories about learning a musical instrument later in life when the adult [wants] too. (See Holt article below.)
How many adults can say we remember our higher Math lessons?
My daughter started buying into this theory. Her self image started shifting and we were banking on the idea that she would be able, when and if the time came, to learn all the Math concepts needed to pass an SAT in a very short period of time.
As for me, deep inside I knew that what I had focused on had expanded, I had made my worse fears come true by requiring she learn Math the traditional way. I believe our children live in our emotions and my daughter had picked up on my phobia about Math. How many times did I teach in my parenting classes that a core answer to most parenting dilemma's is, "How can you become the change you want to see in your children?" I knew if I wanted her to have a positive self image over Math, I needed to get rid of my negative one. My thoughts went something like this... I am almost fifty years old, not really interested in Math, never mind the effort it would take to over come that deep fear at this point in my life! But, my daughter needed me to shift...
As my daughter entered into the teen years I was changing too. The teen years is a time for tremendous growth, not just for our young adults but, for parents of teens, as well. My fourteen year home school journey had taught me to want to model a Love of Learning for my children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren and, to inspire them, not require them to learn!
Based on this principle, I had started down the path of my own Classical Liberal Arts studies and was one chapter ahead of my daughter in just about every other academic subject, but could I reall do that with Math too? (((MUCH FEAR)))
Foundational parenting rule here, if I wanted her to love learning Math, I need to show her how it was done!
My Classical Liberal Arts approach to learning Math began with a purpose that was full of love for my daughter, making my choice to study Math a good one (and somewhat more appealing) for me too, since inspiring her education was part of my mission in life.
Everything that I learned I told her about in natural every day conversations. She watched and even participated, as I struggled and used her Math knowledge and study skills to Mentor me. She knew more than I did, and learning came easier to her. "We teach what we need to learn", comes to mind. Together we discovered that a person who really [wants] too, can learn new and challenging concepts. I really [wanted] to learn Math, because I [wanted] her to loose the fear of it. I have to say fighting those deep, low self image demons inside of me was one of the hardest parenting things I have ever done! Once I stopped fighting my decision and let go of the fear, the rest came easily... we-e-e-l-l-l... the decision was easy anyway! LOL...
There's a saying, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." A chess master had walked into our lives after a few months into my Math study, he had decided to volunteer his Mentoring services to our Scholar Study Group in our weekly TJEd KidSchool Co-op. One day he was talking to my daughter about Math and deeper thinking, I heard her saying in response, something about her troubles with Algebraic concepts. He said, her trouble with understanding this pattern of thought, was probably because they weren't introduced to her in a good and everyday life- relevant way. He went over to the white board, showed her some Algebra, that fit in with their conversation, and about three minutes later she was asking him to be her Algebra Mentor.
Mr. G., as we call him, has been her Math Mentor ever since. He comes to our home for an hour once a week charges us $20.00 and uses a holistic, living and Classical approach that is a combination of the resources listed below when teaching. He also has the gift of inspiring by showing the students the Math relevance in life, instead of requiring his students to memorize only!
Today my daughter and I are discovering we CAN learn new and hard things and that it is best to study Math concepts as they go hand and hand with real life experience. Our success at overcoming our fears has taught us not to worry that our journey in learning Math does not look like societies (or traditional school) time line or path to learning.
We shifted our ideas, process and beliefs, and now Math is more naturally integrated in everyday things and sits in our lives just as language arts or history does, and like Language Arts there are tools inside of learning Math that we use in everyday life.
The success key: We learned how to learn Math, we do it the same way we learn History, Science and Language Arts, in a Classical Liberal Arts Setting full of simulations!
And this blows my mind...
Today, I am reading and studying Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Vol. 1 & 2!
Here's a list of our favorite Math resources:
Classical Liberal Arts Academy (CLAA)
Online Classical Liberal Arts -understand mathematics both philosophically and practically:
From their web site:
By restoring classical mathematics we are neither running away from nor neglecting mathematics as they are used today. After all, most of what modernists claim as their own was inherited from classically educated mathematicians, whose education they despise.
Our aim, like that of all classical mathematicians, is to understand mathematics both philosophically and practically. The exclusively practical focus of school mathematics courses was developed in the 1800s by the public schools, whose job it was not to train elite students but the masses of common children who had little use for any studies that did not translate into wage-earning. Today, there is hardly a school available that is not oriented toward the workplace.
Our aims are what they were among all wise men of the past. We wish, as Socrates said, "to rise out of the sea of change and lay hold of true being". That is, we wish to ascend, by means of the mathematical arts (and later by Logic), into the study of transcendent and unchanging truths that cannot be studied through the senses.
http://www.classicalliberalarts.com/Courses/QUADRIVIUM/index.htm
Living Math
~ Insisting a child must be taught traditional, scope-and-sequence arithmetic to learn mathematics is like saying one must learn classical notes and scales before one can learn music. You might get there, but you miss out on the inspiration of beautiful music created by the masters along the way. We need not master all the "basics" before being able to experience the appreciation that carries us through the hard work of learning. Think of applying living math principles as developing a "mathematical ear" while working toward the mastery of basic theory. ~
This site is dedicated to sharing resources for learning, exploring and enjoying math in a dynamic and holistic manner, for all ages.
Philosophy and holistic methods: http://www.livingmath.net/
Math U See
Our goal is to help produce confident problem solvers who enjoy the study of math. The reason we study math is so we can apply what we learn in everyday situations. The students learn their math facts, rules, and formulas, and are able to use this knowledge in real life applications. The study of math is much more than committing a list of facts to memory. It includes memorization, but it also encompasses learning the concepts that are critical to problem solving.
K-12 Curriculum: http://www.mathusee.com/
Life of Fred Series
Never again hear the question which many math students have: "When are we ever gonna use this stuff?" or "Math is boring!"
No other textbooks are like these. Each text is written in the style of a novel with a humorous story line. Each section tells part of the life of Fred Gauss and how, in the course of his life, he encounters the need for the math and then learns the methods. Tons of solved examples. Each hardcover textbook contains ALL of the material – more than most instructors cover in traditional classroom settings. Includes tons of proofs.
http://lifeoffredmath.com/index.php
ALEKS hosted through TJEd
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What is ALEKS?
Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions. A student who shows a high level of mastery of an ALEKS course will be successful in the actual course she is taking.
ALEKS also provides the advantages of one-on-one instruction, 24/7, from virtually any Web-based computer for a fraction of the cost of a human tutor.
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http://www.tjed.org/resources/aleks-math/
The following books really inspired us!!!
Inteligro Math, The Holistic Approach to math and Science for the New millennium
by Tiffany Rhoades Earl
This book will motivate youth, and practically anyone, to want to study and understand math and science. It inspires! If you know someone who needs to fall in love with math or science, have them read this book." Oliver Van DeMille, Founder of George Wythe University, and author of A Thomas Jefferson Education
http://shop.lemimentortraining.com/Books_c8.htm
The Math Book,
From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathmetics
By Clifford A. Pickover
A wonderful coffee table book that we purchased at the Smithsonian last summer!!
http://www.amazon.com/Math-Book-Pythagoras-Milestones-Mathematics/dp/1402757964/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292450411&sr=8-1
Here's a little inspiration for you... An excerpt from an interview with John Holt on teaching Math
copied from An Unschooling Life
http://anunschoolinglife.com/john-holt/
John Holt (1923-1985) was a teacher and controversial education writer who advocated school reform and ultimately became one of the forces behind the homeschooling movement of the 70’s and 80’s. He wrote ten books about education and founded the magazine Growing Without Schooling. John Holt’s books Instead of Education: Ways to Help People do Things Better, How Children Learn and How Children Fail are still popular among parents and people seeking a self-directed education.
Although John Holt’s work primarily discusses children, the overall message can be applied to learners of all ages. If you want to cultivate your ability to learn deeply and effectively, you’ll definitely want to see what he has to say.
What your philosophy about math?
My approach to math is to say, What do we adults use numbers for? We use them to measure things. And we measure things so that having measured them we can do things with them, or make certain judgments about them. And so I say let children do with numbers what we do with numbers. I’m a great believer in many kinds of measuring instruments – tapes (centimeter tape, inch tapes, rolls of tapes), rulers, scales, thermometers, barometers, metronomes, electric metronomes with lights flashing on and off that you can make go faster and slower, stopwatches, things for time.Another thing is money. Kids are fascinated by money. We all say: “We’ll have to teach them all this arithmetic so that some day they can deal with money.” I think dealing with money is inherently interesting to children. I say family finances ought to be out on the table, charts on the wall: expenses, food, taxes, insurance, health care, how much this costs, how much it cost last year. I think actually, like typing, double-entry bookkeeping and basic accounting are fascinating skills, and if you’re talking about basics, those are basics.The fundamental idea of double-entry bookkeeping, the distinction between your income and expenses and assets and liabilities is one of the really beautiful inventions of the human mind. It’s fabulous the way it works, and I think families should do their finances as if they were a little teeny corporation with income and expenses and assets and liabilities and depreciation.Some kids might get to the point where they would want to be the family treasurer and keep the family books and balance the checkbook. This is all really “big adult stuff.” Let the child write out the checks that are paying the bills, instead of the harassed picture, you know, of father with his tie untied, sitting at the desk and papers all over the place. Why? This is inherently interesting, so let’s at least make this part of our life – like every other part – accessible to children. The best way to meet numbers is in real life, as everything else. It’s embedded in the context of reality, and what schooling does is to try to take everything out of the context of reality. So everything appears like some little thing floating around in space, and it’s a terrible mistake. You know, there are numbers in building; there are numbers in construction; there are numbers in business;there are numbers in photography; there are numbers in music; there are fractions incooking. So wherever numbers are in real life, then let’s go and meet them and work with them.
“The human animal is a learning animal. We like to learn; we need to learn; we are good at it; we don’t need to be shown how or made to do it. What kills the processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it.”
"A classic! It will apply to the businessman, teacher and mom alike."
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