So this apparently is big news in Myrtle Beach. A middle school math teacher actually took her kids out of the classroom to teach them math. In the school cafeteria, the students converted decimals to percents and found surface area and volume — as they were cooking up some healthy eats.
Ya’ll, seriously. This is what how we use math as grownups.
(Okay, so the surface area and volume is a bit of a stretch.)
If you think doing math is about chalkboards and protractors, you’re flat out wrong. (Besides schools use dry erase boards these days.)
Math is about getting your hands dirty, sketching a picture on a scrap piece of paper, doing some quick calculations on the iPhone. Most of all, math is about solving real problems — not those silly things that have something to do with trains in Omaha — and coming to these solutions in creative and sensible ways. (There. I said it: creative and sensible.)
Look, I like what this teacher is doing. And so do her students:
“You learn it better because you enjoy doing it,” said Maya Bougebrayel, who made a vegetable chicken stir fry with teammates Allison Klein and Carlisa Singleton. The girls, all 13, agreed that the project put a creative spin on learning and made it easier for those who are visual learners.
But if it wasn’t such a novel idea, wouldn’t grownups be better at math? Feel free to chime in in the comments section.