Today’s Film Friday is brought to you by one of my favorite teenagers in the world, Simon, who introduced me to Tom Lehrer earlier this year. This version was done by lipsyncORswim.
(Warning for those who are satirically challenged: this is supposed to be funny. So laugh!)
Math for Grownups blog readers tend to fall into two camps: grownups who are not parents and really hate math (or think they’re not good at it), and parents who are worried that they’re going to pass along their math anxiety to their kids. And so I thought I’d spend a little bit of time addressing some of the concerns of these parents.
Earlier this week, my friend and fellow freelancer, Debbie Abrams Kaplan forwarded the summary of a new bit of research on kids and math. Debbie is the author of two great blogs: Jersey Kids and Frisco Kids, and she figured that I might find some blog fodder from this study.
Boy did I! A couple of things jumped out at me:
No one has ever studied how the basic math skills of first graders affect their later understanding of math throughout elementary school. (Compare that with the many studies of early reading skills, and this fact will blow your mind, too.)
There are three basic skills that will help first graders become good fifth-grade math students.
I’m going to tell you those skills a little later, but first I want to introduce the concept of numeracy. Quite simply, numeracy is the ability to work with and understand numbers. When children are young, numeracy includes the ability to count, recognize the symbols that we use for numbers (which is akin to learning the alphabet), and even do some very simple operations (like 1 + 1 = 2). For high school students, numeracy includes more complex problem solving skills and properties of real numbers.Among math educators, there are big debates about how we can better teach numeracy. I guess this is like the debates about phonics vs. context support methods in reading education. But now that this study is out, it’s clear parents can help lay a firm foundation for our kids’ later success in math. According to this study, published by a team of University of Missouri psychologists, rising first graders should understand:
Numbers — I’m going to take this to mean whole numbers, since most first graders aren’t very familiar with fractions or decimals.
The quantities that these numbers represent — In other words, kids should be able to match a number with that same number of objects (five fingers, two cats, etc.)
Low-level arithmetic — And I’m guessing researchers mean things like adding and subtracting numbers that are smaller than 10 (excepting problems with negative answers).
If you’re like most parents, this is probably a duh moment. What’s so hard about recognizing whole numbers or understanding what five objects are? But I don’t think many parents spend much time emphasizing these ideas — at least not in the way that we commit to reading to our children every night.So here are a few ways that you can help instill numeracy in your pre- or elementary-school aged children.
Count things. Count everything — like the stairs that your climbing or the cars that pass your house or blocks as you take them out of the box or those adorable little toes!
Have your child count things. You can do this in really simple ways. Ask him to get you five spoons so you can set the table. When she wants some goldfish, tell her she can have 10 (and watch her count them). When you’re planning his birthday party, have him tell you which 10 friends he wants to invite. (Write them down for him, so he has something visual to count.)
Notice numbers. When she’s really tiny, ask her to say the numbers that are on your mailbox or on a license plate. Older kids can name multi-digit numbers, like 157 or 81. (And if you want to really be precise and prep your kid for school, don’t say things like “one hundred and fifty-seven. In math, “and” represents a decimal point, which is something most elementary school teachers will really drive home.)
Teach your child to count backwards. This can be a great way for kids to start understanding subtraction. If you know you have 10 steps in your staircase, count backwards as you go down the stairs. Then count frontwards as you go up!
Start adding and subtracting. Give your child 5 raisins and show her how to “count up” to 7 by adding 2 raisins to the pile. Then as your child eats the raisins one by one, “count down” to find out how many are left.
You don’t need to make a big deal about math. And for goodness sakes, skip the worksheets, flashcards and even video games — unless your kid really loves them. Integrate these basic skills into your daily life, and you’ll see your child’s understanding grow. (And you probably won’t feel so stressed out about it all!)What kinds of things do you do with your young elementary-age kids? Any teachers out there want to share their thoughts with the class? Post in the comments section.
The bad: You do need math, even as a writer. Whether you’re reporting on a business, interpreting statistics or managing your freelance career, math is a big deal.
The good: You don’t have to like it. The better: Forget about finding cosine or using the quadratic formula. A few basics are all you need. You can start with these:
1. Calculate a percent. You learn that a company’s revenue has fallen by $2.5 million over five years. That’s a lot of money, right? Well, actually it depends on the company’s revenue over the last five years. If total revenue was $5 billion, the company lost 5 percent. To calculate that, divide 2.5 million by 5 billion. But if the company’s total revenue over five years was $5 million, the company lost a whopping 50 percent. Using a percent gets to the meat of those numbers.
Graham Laing is my brother, and I don’t think he’d be offended by my telling you that some of us in the family were a little worried that he might not amount to anything. But that’s another story for another day. Today, he’s a fish hatchery technician, which basically means he raises trout — “from eggs to eating size,” he says. That means he moves truckloads of live fish from pond to pond (and raceway and stream) according to their size, and he treats them for parasites and other oogie things. He also does a lot of weed whacking and mushroom hunting.
You might not think that a guy who works outside all day long would use math, but Graham does. And I think his approach is pretty unique. As you read through this, see if you can figure out what he’s not doing. I’ll share my thoughts at the end.
Graham wrestles a snapping turtle. Yes, this is part of his job (but I don’t think the turtle does math).
When do you use basic math in your job?
I use basic math every day. When we load the trucks in the morning, we’re told to load a certain amount of pounds of fish per tank on the truck. Since we can’t load all of the fish at one time, we’re handed a net of fish that usually weighs between 40 and 50 pounds. We have to keep track, in our heads, of how many pounds we have in each tank until it is loaded.
I also use basic math when we treat fish for parasites, using either salt or formalin. Salt baths depend on volume, so I find the volume of the tank in cubic feet and then multiply that by the number of gallons in a cubic foot–to get the total number of gallons to be treated. Then I have to multiply that by the number of pounds in a gallon of water to find the total number of pounds of water to be treated. Since we usually do a 5% salt bath, we find the number of pounds in 5% of the volume and weigh the salt. Finally, we can mix the salt in the water.
When treating with formalin, we have to calculate a gallons-per-minute flow rate. We find this by counting the number of seconds it takes to fill a gallon and then divide that number into 60. (There are 60 seconds in a minute.) So if it takes 10 seconds to fill a gallon, the flow rate is 6 gallons per minute. Since the treatment runs for an hour, I multiply by 60 and then multiply that number by 0.0036, which is the number of grams of formalin needed per gallon. Finally, I multiply by the parts-per-million needed for the treatment, which depends on the water temperature.
Do you use any technology to help with this math?
I use calculators for sampling and for calculating the treatments. If we’re doing a lot of samples at one time, we plug the numbers into an excel spreadsheet that has the formulas we need. Calculators reduce error. One blown sample due to error could cause us to underestimate the number of fish in a raceway. Or it could cause us to underfeed a raceway, resulting in a large size-variation of the fish.
How do you think math helps you do your job better?
Graham is also a master at finding little critters like this toad. Click on the picture to see it up close. (Photo courtesy of Mary Bruce Clemons)
My whole job revolves around math. Without math, the fish would die or become infected with parisites. We would not know how many fish we have on the farm, and we wouldn’t know if we were reaching our stocking goal set forth by the state.
How comfortable with math do you feel? Does this math feel different to you?
I feel very comfortable with math and have since I was a very small child. When I got this job, I had all the skills I needed — it just took a little remembering to become adept at using them.
What kind of math did you take in high school? Did you like it or feel like you were good at it?
I took algebra, geometry, and trig. I was forced to take trig, so I didn’t do so well in it. I slept through trig everyday and was still able to make 40s and 50s on the tests just by intuition.
Trust me. If you met Graham you wouldn’t know he’s a math geek. He doesn’t give a whit about calculus or abstract algebra or fractals. He’s just really good at mental math.
Here’s the interesting thing about Graham’s process: All of the math he describes above can be represented by formulas. And when Graham uses a spreadsheet for the math, he has to use the formulas. BUT when he uses math in the field, he unpacks each formula into a set of steps. (First multiply, then divide, then multiply, etc.) He doesn’t have to memorize a formula to do the work. Instead, he thinks about the process, and he’s attached meaning to each step (“divide by 60 because there are 60 seconds in a minute”), so he doesn’t forget to do something. This is the foundation of mental math — breaking up complicated problems into doable steps.
I’m betting many of you do the same thing. Want to share that process in the comment section? I sure hope you will!
And if you have questions for Graham — whether they’re about huge snapping turtles, tiny toads or wildlife management in general — post them, and I’ll be sure to get Graham to answer them. (I am his big sister, so I can boss him around — a little bit.)
You really don’t have to know or care what “binary trees” are to appreciate Vi Hart’s genius. And I’m so excited to finally introduce you all to her.
Vi calls herself a “recreational mathematician.” In other words, she plays with math, and it’s really amazing stuff. Just a couple of years ago, she graduated from Stony Brook University, with a degree in music. (Her senior project was a seven-movement piece about Harry Potter.) Before that, she got hooked on math when her father took her to a computational geometry conference. (George W. Hartis now chief of content for the soon-to-open Museum of Mathematics in Manhattan.)
In short, she’s not a trained math geek. She just loves math.
She’s also funny and infectious. I dare you to watch this video and not laugh. And nope, you don’t have to know what binary trees are to get the jokes. (Psst, you don’t even have to love math to love Vi.)
I’ll post more of Vi’s awesome videos in weeks to come. Let me know what you think in the comments section!
When I was a camp counselor after my sophomore year of college, I had a standard response to kids who asked, “Do I have to?” Whether they were complaining about sweeping out the cabin or taking a hike, I’d look them in the eye, smile and say, “No. You get to!”
I wasn’t a teacher yet, but I had this instinct to spin complaints into commendations. Sometimes this worked. The hikes were a good time, and even sweeping sometimes ended in fits of laughter or song.
But the more I think about math and grownups, the more I think that this flip response doesn’t apply. I do think math is fun — well, some math. I love proofs, from the two-column geometry proofs that I did in high school to proving properties of our real number system. I also love doing some kinds of algebra, like solving systems of equations with two variables.
But I don’t love all math. Try as I might, probability still screws with my head. And I honestly and truly despise logarithms. (Those are to solve for x, when the variable is an exponent. More than likely, you haven’t seen logarithms in decades.)
The realization that math doesn’t have to be fun really hit home twice this past year. When I wrote my proposal for Math for Grownups, the publisher offered positive feedback, except for one thing. “Don’t focus on the fun of math,” my editor said. “Focus on the fact that we need it.” That was a real wake-up call for me. I couldn’t say to my readers, “You don’t have to do this math; you get to!”
And this spring, I also served as an instructional designer for two online, high school math courses, Algebra II and Probability and Statistics. This meant that I reviewed the lessons, looking carefully at the pedagogy and mathematics. I could tell when I loved the math. I was ready to work every day and genuinely didn’t want to stop until everything was finished. But when I hit a unit that was less engaging for me, I stalled. I looked for anything else I could be doing — laundry, cleaning out my email, visiting my favorite blogs.
I didn’t love all of the math I was doing. Why should I expect that of anyone else?
That’s why I say that math doesn’t have to be your BFF. It’s like making dinner every night. Some people can’t wait to get their hands into some fresh bread dough or chop up onions or heat up the grill. Others are satisfied with take-out. And then there are plenty of us who are very happy somewhere in the middle.
But we’ve all got to eat, whether we love cooking or not. And we’ve all got to do math. You don’t have to love it, but you can learn to tolerate it.
What do you love or hate about math? Share your ideas in the comments section.
As I was planning my posts for the week, I came across this fantastic video about the U.S. deficit and debt. At first I had it scheduled for Friday, but with Geithner’s debt ceiling deadline looming on Tuesday, I decided you would probably benefit from seeing it sooner. Who knows what will happen this week, right?
No matter what happens, you may have been wondering about the math involved with the deficit, debt and debt ceiling. This handy video will lead the way. It’s a bit long — almost 10 minutes — but very easy to follow and worth every second. You’ll end up being a much smarter person for watching it!
Questions? Ask them in the comments section! (But keep the political commentary for another site, please.)
Because of the 4th of July holiday here in the states — and because this is so darned cool! — I’m veering a little from the normal Math at Work Monday topic. We’re going to get a little geeky today with Andy Testa, a simulations and analysis engineer for NASA.
Andy Testa, simulation and analysis engineer
Okay, I don’t even know what a simulations and analysis engineer is, but yeah, Andy uses lots of math in his job–but not the way you think. He operates a robotic arm for the Space Shuttle, which will enjoy its last launch later this month.
So get your geek on, and enjoy a little independence from any math fear or anxiety you may have. Andy has a cool job that’s worth reading about!
Can you explain what you do for a living?
I work at NASA’s Johnson Space Center as a support engineer for the Space Shuttle’s robot arm, known as the Remote Manipulator System or Canadarm. I’m responsible for running computer simulations of the arm performing new tasks or moving new payloads and am also an expert on the arm’s control software running on the Shuttle’s computers. [pullquote]It isn’t efficient to do advanced math all the time. The hard stuff is built in to the simulators and special software that we develop one time. The day-to-day work is much more basic.[/pullquote] The simulations are usually to make sure that planned operations won’t stress the arm beyond what it’s designed to handle, which is surprisingly easy to do. I do troubleshooting when something doesn’t work right during a mission, whether that’s a software glitch, a mechanical failure, or an unplanned procedure that has to be simulated. Much of the time I’m working on backup plans for how to complete a mission if any number of potential failures happen.
When do you use basic math in your job?
When I describe my job to most people they respond with “I could never do that!” They imagine that I do a lot of advanced math, but the reality is that it isn’t efficient to do advanced math all the time. The hard stuff is built in to the simulators and special software that we develop one time. The day-to-day work is much more basic.
So, I use basic math every day. When working with robots like the Shuttle arm you’re constantly having to think about two things: the position of the tip of the arm in space, and the angles of all of the joints. These are related by geometry and trigonometry. I spend a lot of time working out geometry problems relating to the payloads that the arm moves. Each payload, like satellites or a piece of the Space Station, has to have a lot of numbers generated to allow the robot’s computer software to move them correctly. I need to calculate where the arm attaches itself, where the mass is centered, where the docking ports are located, and the direction the arm should move in when the astronauts move the controllers. Trigonometry is also used quite heavily, since I spend a lot of time worrying about angles and rotations, whether for each individual joint on the arm, or coordinated rotations of the payload as a whole.
Do you use any technology to help with this math?
That’s the robotic arm. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Yes, we use computers constantly to help with the math, especially when we have to calculate trigonometry problems. Many of the problems I work on are similar enough that I can make a template for them in a spreadsheet, and use that over again with new payloads. For example, I frequently have to calculate a specific set of rotations to define how the arm attaches to payloads. By doing the calculations once and storing them in a spreadsheet, I can use it again just by inputting the unique geometry of each new payload. It saves a huge amount of time and effort, and lets me send all of the calculations to other people by sharing the files.
How do you think math helps you do your job better?
Not just better; without math my job would not be possible. Everything about spaceflight, including the Shuttle robot arm, is completely dictated by math. Knowing math not only allows me to continue to solve the problems we know about right now, but it also gives me the tools I need to figure out how to solve new problems.
How comfortable with math do you feel?
I feel quite comfortable with the level of math I use on a daily basis. I will frequently use similar math at home for hobbies or entertainment, for example, finding out exactly how much bigger a new widescreen TV is than my old tube TV.
What kind of math did you take in high school?
I took mostly standard college prep math classes in geometry and algebra. I didn’t take calculus until college. I was relatively good at math in high school, but I didn’t really understand it well until after a few years of practice in college.
Did you have to learn new skills in order to do this math?
Much of the math I use daily could be easily taught to someone with good high school math skills. Using the geometry and trigonometry to build descriptions of payload and robot motion is a skill that was developed more in college physics classes, though. That doesn’t mean it’s harder, just that it’s a specialized way of using the basic math that is being taught in high school. But the meat of what I do, hand calculating angles, areas, and sines and cosines, are straight out of basic high school math.
Thanks so much for playing, Andy! Readers, if you have questions, please feel free to post them in the comments section.
Over the last year, I’ve come across lots of great math-related videos, and now that my blog is up and book is out, people are sending me links to many more. I thought Fridays would be a great time to share them. So, welcome to the first edition of Film Fridays!
Today’s little clip comes courtesy of my mother-in-law, who majored in math and then went on to have a seriously incredible career as a sales representative for American Greetings. She uses math like it’s a second language — no big deal, thankyouverymuch. (She also makes the most amazing pies ever.)
Still, this clip is a bit geeky — as many math videos are. What I encourage you to do, though, is find the artistry and magic. There will be no quiz. This is just for fun. (Details are below the clip.)
So while this looks absolutely magical, it really does boil down to some very simple math. The length of the pendulum determines how far it swings, and that in turn determines how many swings (or oscillations) it can complete in a given period of time. In plain English: a short pendulum swings faster than a long one. So the smarty-pants at Harvard built this pendulum based on the design of University of Maryland physics professor, Richard Berg. Here’s the nitty gritty, if you’re interested:
The period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. The length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations.
In other words: Pretty.
I am so excited to show you more videos! I especially can’t wait to introduce you to Vi Hart, who does the most captivating math doodles you can imagine. (Wait a minute, who else does math doodles?) So check in next week. And if you have a video that you want to share, please send me the link: llaing-at-comcast-dot-net.
I’d like to welcome my first guest poster here atMath for Grownups, Carole Moore. Carole is a fellow writer and the author ofThe Last Place You’d Look: True Stores of Missing Persons and the People Who Look for Them, which hit bookstores in May. Her book is a gripping account of a variety of missing persons cases around the country. A former police detective, Carole knows her stuff.
Carole Moore’s most recent book.
She also knows how darned scary missing-persons statistics can be. And so she’s offered to take a closer look at these numbers and what story they really tell. This is a critical way that we can use math without even being aware. See, as scared of math as many of us are, we may also be inclined to trust numbers. Unfortunately, without some perspective and context, numbers don’t mean a thing. Keep reading…
When it comes to crime, statistics can be misleading. The truth is in how you break down the numbers. Let’s look at one example: According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 797,500 children under the age of 18 were reported missing in one year’s time. That’s an average of 2,185 kids per day. What’s more interesting is what those numbers don’t say:
First, the category of the report from which they’re drawn (NISMART-2) specifies “reported” missing. That means that some kids who disappeared in the same time bracket were not reported within the reporting period. It doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t reported at all – although many aren’t. Illegal immigrants often won’t call police out of fear of reprisals, and the children of the mentally ill, transients, the homeless, prostitutes and drug users, as well as foster kids, often escape the count. So, while the figure 797,500 sounds huge, the actual number of missing children in a year well exceeds “reported” missing.
Now, look a little closer at those numbers, starting with family abductions, which account for 203,900 children reported missing, and 58,200 kids classified as non-family abductions. That leaves 535,400 children unaccounted for – of these children only 115 were considered “stereotypical” kidnappings. (Examples of stereotypical kidnappings are usually extreme and include cases such as those of Jamie Duggard and Adam Walsh.) The remaining 535,285 children fit in none of these specific categories.
The children left are grouped miscellaneously. For example, a child reported missing after stopping at a friend’s house following school (and who didn’t notify a parent or caretaker) would now be a reported missing child for statistical purposes. So would a child who becomes lost or hides out whose disappearance is reported – even if the child is really not missing in the truest sense of the word, they would be classified as “reported missing.”
My point is that while the statistics here don’t lie, they also don’t tell the whole story in and of themselves. Many missing children are never reported missing, while many of the reported missing really aren’t missing at all. To truly understand crime stats, it’s important to dig deeper than the numbers.
Carole Moore is a former police detective and current freelance writer, as well as contributing editor and columnist at Law Enforcement Technology. You can learn more about her atwww.carolemoore.com.
Do you have questions about crime statistics? Ask them in the comments section!
If you’ve ever visited the website of a prescription medication or picked up a brochure from your doctor’s office, you’ve seen the kind of work that Kim Hooper does. And she’s proof that math and writing are not mutually exclusive endeavors.
As a senior copywriter for an advertising agency, Kim writes brochures, websites and other copy that helps promote a brand or a product. Since her agency’s primary client is a pharmaceutical company, much of her writing is science-based.
When do you use basic math in your job?
Much of my job involves scanning through research papers about specific drugs and interpreting clinical data in a “sexy,” Madison Avenue way. This tends to involve a bit of math. For example, let’s say we want to point out that our drug is really successful with women over 40 years old. I will look through the demographic tables in the clinical study to create a compelling factoid. Let’s also say that out of 100 women, 60 are over 40 years old. So, when writing a piece, I may have a big headline that says something like, “60% of women in the clinical study were over 40 years old.”
Most of the math I do involves basic addition or subtraction and percentage calculations. Very often, I’ll do percentage calculations for side-effects data. So if 3 patients out of 150 in the clinical study experienced side effects, I’ll take this fact and make sure to call out that 98% of patients did not experience side effects.
Do you use any technology (like calculators or computers) to help with this math?
I do use the calculator built into my PC to double check my work. But I almost always have to do “margin math,” meaning I show my calculations on paper so the client’s regulatory committee can review them.
How do you think math helps you do your job better?
Math keeps my left brain strong. In advertising, the right brain is very important. This is a creative business. We’re trying to find interesting, compelling ways to communicate product messages that may not be that thrilling at first glance. My left brain can help make the messages thrilling. Numbers are very appealing to consumers. If they can see information broken down into easy-to-understand percentages, for example, they may be more likely to try our medication over another one.
How comfortable are you with math?
I’ve always been a bit of a math nerd, and I went all the way through Advanced Placement Calculus in high school. In fact, it was really difficult for me to choose a major in college because I loved math and science and I also loved the arts. For a short time, I double-majored in genetics and psychology. I ended up majoring in communications, which seemed broad enough for me to explore a number of career options. I just happened to fall into a career that makes use of both sides of my brain, which I love. I really enjoy sifting through data and doing the math necessary to make facts come to life.
I think we all get a little rusty if we don’t use math regularly, but it’s been part of my job for a number of years now. There’s no way I could do calculus again, but I have no problem doing basic math. I enjoy it.
Kim Hooper is an advertising copywriter by day, novelist by night. Get to know her work at KimHooperWrites.com.
Do you have questions for Kim? If so, ask them in the comments section!
When I was in college, majoring in math education, I learned that math is the language of science. In fact, we called it the Queen of the Sciences. (You’d better believe that gave me a sense of superiority over the chemistry and physics majors!) And yeah, I think that the math I was doing then–calculus, differential equations, statistics and even abstract algebra–is mostly useful for describing some kind of science. [pullquote]We too often think of mathematics as rules rather than as questions. This is like thinking of stories as grammar. — Rick Ackerly[/pullquote]
In some ways, everyday math is also the language of science. Home cooks use ratios to ensure that their roux thickens a gumbo just right. With proportions, gardeners can fertilize their vegetable beds without burning the leaves from their pepper plants. And a cyclist might employ a bit of math to find her rate or the distance she’s biked.
But I think too often we adults get caught up in the nitty gritty of basic math and lose the big picture. This is when many of us start to worry about doing things exactly right–and when math feels more like a foreign language, rather than a useful tool.
Why do Americans do so badly in mathematics? Because mathematics is a foreign language in America. The vast majority of children grow up in a number-poor environment. We’ve forgotten that the language of mathematics is founded in curiosity. We too often think of mathematics as rules rather than as questions. This is like thinking of stories as grammar. Being curious together can be a really special part of the relationship in families.
And I couldn’t agree more. For all of you parents and teachers out there: how many questions do your kids ask in one day? 10? 20? 100? 1,000? As Ackerly points out, especially younger children are insatiably curious. They want to know why the sky is blue and what makes our feet stink and how come that ladybug is on top of the other ladybug.
These Stevendotted ladybugs are not wrestling. Photo credit: Andr Karwath
A full 90% of the time, we can’t answer their questions. Or maybe we just don’t want to yet. (“That ladybug is giving the other one a ride.”) With Google‘s help, we can find lots of answers. But how often are we asked a math-related question–by a kid or a grownup–and freeze?
For whatever reason, many people are afraid to be curious about math. Or they’ve had that curiosity beaten out of them. I think that’s because don’t want to be wrong. As fellow writer, Jennifer Lawler said to me the other day:
It’s funny because when I make a mistake in writing—a typo, etc.—I let myself off the hook (“Happens to everyone! Next time I’ll remember to pay more attention.”) But if I misadd a row of numbers I’m all “OMG, I’m such an idiot, and everyone knows I’m such an idiot, I can’t believe they gave me a college degree, and why do I even try without my calculator?”
The same goes for answering our kids’–or our own–calls of curiosity.
So what if we decided not to shut down those questions? What if it was okay to make some mistakes? What if we told our kids or ourselves, “I don’t know–let’s find out!” This could be a really scary prospect for some of us, but I invite you to try.
What’s keeping you from being curious about everyday math? What do you you think you can do to change that? Or do you think it doesn’t matter one way or the other? Share your ideas in in a comment.
