I’ve lots to say about the flurry of ongoing excitement over Multiplication Facts, as they were, but as long as they continue to torment and elude many a young person (and older person, come to think of it), I shall continue to look for ways to make it a smoother ride.  The other day in the course of perusing my favorite algebra text, I came across a very old book that might do just that for some with a sense of humor and/or a taste for the old-fashioned.  (I’m never sure what “old-fashioned” refers to, but I’m quite sure that this qualifies.)  It’s called Marmaduke Multiply’s, and as far as I can tell it was originally published in 1841.  It’s been reprinted several times since, as demonstrated by the fact that you can order a copy for which you’ll be asked to pay anywhere from $.01 to $209.99.  To get a taste of it, and read about the pages that were modified along the way, have a look at Google’s book search.

Enjoy…

So there I was, ready to brush up on my trigonometry, when I discovered to my amazement that the high school textbook I’d saved from my own early math years was next to useless.  The explanations were awkward and convoluted, the examples didn’t seem to illustrate the accompanying instructions, and the diagrams barely supported the text. I spent a few minutes awash in astonishment that I’d learned anything at all in the company of the book before deciding that perhaps I’d prefer to do my brushing up with a more cooperative text.  I was just about to call a friend who might have also saved a trig book when I remembered a little book my mom got me for my birthday one year. I think she bought it because she liked the looks of it and she still can’t believe she successfully raised a math-loving child. It’s a little tiny hardback called Useful Mathematical & Physical Formulae.
It features a little cartoon wizard who can be found throughout the book helping to demonstrate and illustrate various concepts. He makes the whole thing entertaining as well as useful. And it’s not just formulas - there are lots of helpful reminders about where the formulas came from as well as enough to explain many of them to beginners. It’s also artfully done - the kind of math book you might enjoy even if you definitely don’t enjoy math. It turned out that the section about trig was just exactly what I needed to remind myself how it all works, with the circles and the right triangles, etc. It’s a great gift for a math lover, and a great reference for anyone who uses the stuff. Thanks, Mom.

I consistently find that it’s easier to generate excitement for math when it’s called something else.  (A game, for example, even when it shamelessly involves multiplication, is drastically better received when it’s called a game than when it’s called math.)  I’m beginning to think that it would be wise if we retired the word math for awhile.  It’s come to embody, represent, and inspire such dread, fear, loathing, and hostility (often compounding over the course of generations) that I think it deserves a break.  And many of us deserve a break from it.

This is not at all to say that we should stop doing the things we’ve come to refer to as math.  Just that we could stop using the word.  For now.  Not only does it inspire the less-than-healthy and productive states I mentioned above, our general understanding of what it actually is has been whittled down to something that could only appeal to a very few humans who happen to function in a particular way.  Math, defined broadly, is the kind of stuff anyone could find a home in; not just those who happen to have a proclivity for memorizing columns of numbers, or substituting letters for numbers in some prescribed manner.   There is room in the math I know for artists, builders, designers, extraverts, poets, chefs.  And room for it in all of their various pursuits.  When treated well and generously conceived, math has the ability to invite, inspire, and intrigue.

The earliest mathematicians were a varied lot.  To them math was a playful, welcoming thing.  They’d have been sorry, I’m sure, to hear it spoken of today as it is.  So perhaps we should shelve the word, breathe some life back into the observation, rendering, and capturing of pattern, relationship, quantity, and then invite it back to the party when we can treat it as the spacious entity we deserve to have it be.

I was recommending a couple of math books today and realized that Marilyn Burns’* The I Hate Mathematics Book and Math for Smarty Pants make a good team.  The material is similar - offers a wider view of math than many publications and party lines - but the titles invite their readers to adhere to much different attitudes and standpoints about the whole business.  I don’t tend to encourage people to go around saying they hate math, but for those who are already saying it, or things like it, The I Hate Mathematics Book is a good way to find out otherwise.  A pairing with Math for Smarty Pants offers an opportunity to play with the love/hate relationship math can inspire, but also to inspire all kinds of intelligence and brilliance.

* Marilyn Burns is actually one of three authors on The I Hate Mathematics Book (Linda Allison and David Weitzman are the other two); I used her name there not to be disrespectful to the other two but because she’s well-known for other related work.

I was reminded today of the Lawrence Hall of Science publications.  I haven’t tried anywhere near all that they offer, but their math and science materials lean in the direction of exploration and adventure.  In the shopping area on their website you’ll find lots of things to actually do, which is always a good sign when it comes to science and math. In particular I recommend looking through the topics available under GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science).

I’ve been doing fractions for several decades, and only yesterday did I find out how the numerator (the number on the top) and the denominator (the one on the bottom) got their names. I’m not sure that knowing why they’re called what they’re called will help too many folks who struggle with fractions, but I’m pretty sure it will help a few, so here goes. Read more

I hung on to a daily math practice book from my last classroom teaching job, and it’s proven a good keep.  It’s published by Great Source, and is set up as a quick review for a range of math concepts (place value, fractions and decimals, etc.).  It’s called Practice Counts, and comes in several different grade level versions.  (It can be tricky to find - it’s available on amazon but you have to check with the vendor to be sure you’re getting the level you want; you can also order it through a retail store.  The publisher only sells them several at a time.) Read more