On Thursday and Friday I attended a conference sponsored by the US Department of Education. The conference was follow-up to a report that was just released by the National Math Panel, which was convened by the President to a) understand how the US can regain its competitive advantage in the math, science, and engineering fields and b) to provide recommendations on how to make math more accessible to everyone. That’s right, even you and me.
There was a lot that came out of the report, and by association the conference, much of which we already kind of know one way or another when it comes to education. In short: that the quality of a child’s teacher matters to the quality of that child's learning
But there were a couple of other things that came out of the report that I’m not sure we know:
- That EVERYONE can do math (That's right, even you and me).
- That we must stop making excuses for our mathematical limitations, especially as a way to accept the mathematical limitations of our child, student, neighbor, little sister, etcetera (that is, "I can't blame him for not doing well in math, I was never good at it either!").
I deduced one thing from those two things that could be applied to most aspects of life. To illustrate what I deduced, I am going to tell a story. A true story that actually took place about two weeks ago, before I even knew a math panel existed at all.
I was talking to a friend about high school teachers—ones we liked, loathed, maybe laughed at. Math teachers came up repeatedly as by and large good teachers, when my friend said, “I was good at math up until 9th grade and after that I sucked at it.”
He was good. He was good enough to be in advanced classes in middle school through 10th grade, at which point he’d met his requirements for a diploma and saw no reason whatsoever to continue down the path of mind numbing theorems and quadratic (quadratic sounds like something big and green that skulks in a sea and every now and then raises its fifteen heads out of the sea to slime and scum everything around it, doesn’t it?) equations, which he was naturally bad at.
I accepted his belief at face value: he just stopped being good at math and it was as black and as white as that.
Only after thinking about a couple of things I heard at this conference, I am not so sure that is true.
Because what I deduced is that natural ability will take you so far, like the 9th grade, but then you have to kick in some effort to get the rest of the way (which, of course, will vary according to individual).
There are some things that come to me very naturally: like knowing when I have a really good cup of coffee in my grip (though not knowing what, exactly, makes it good), like seeing gaps in things (arguments, concepts, teeth) and flashes of how to fill them in, and, making up alternative endings in my head to movies with really bad ones.
But I’m going to be especially conscious of putting in a little extra effort to push beyond what comes naturally and see just where it can take me and my family (I’m thinking bigger than just adding a twist to our breakfast for dinner standby).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go crazy with effort, just going be a little more conscious of it (and continue to shower my husband with respect because he is one of the few who pushed on with mathematical effort when natural ability ran out).
One Small Step
I'm going to start with trying really really hard to get birthday cards out on time and even sending random how are ya doing notes to friends and family once in a while.
Splurge, Soil, and Spray
We now have, finally, a respectable (though I wouldn’t quite call it manicured) flower garden in our front yard. Thanks to: Leslie W., Lowes, Frank’s Greenhouse, and, of course, day laborer Pete (husband). We bought, he dug, he planted, we sprayed. Everything. A lot. (Don’t forget, little love has mastered the righty tighty lefty loosey concept, which she applies regularly to the hose).
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