I discovered a reference series at the library this morning: Everything You Need to Know about ******** Homework (the asterisks are for the kind of homework, not an expletive that might precede the word).  I looked at the American History volume, but there are others on other subjects.  This one seemed the most genuinely useful to me, because it lends itself well to the desk reference, while the others tackle things like “English” and “math.” My guess is that those volumes are less helpful as references because their content is less look up-able. (All  of these volumes declare suitability for grades 4-6; make what you will of the publisher’s choice to target and market them that way. You can see sample pages on amazon of the various volumes and decide if the readability and content would be useful in your house.)

The one I looked at was very easy on the eyes (not too many words, not too crowded pages), and was light enough to be held by a young child (and therefore less likely to be abhorred or otherwise shied away from by a person of any age or strength).  It’s written as though the person who wrote it wants the person who’s reading it to understand what it says and means.  I think this is a good way to offer information. Have a look if you might be able to use something like this.

A 9 year-old said to me the other day “I’ve never seen anyone do long division except in school.  I’ve seen multiplication and subtraction and addition, but not long division.”

Indeed.  Why exactly are we still belaboring it?  And belaboring it is - it’s not just that we’re still teaching it.  We’re insisting on many many repetitions of it, insisting on the remembering of the procedure, insisting on the procedure itself.  I looked up belabor in the dictionary, to be sure I wasn’t overdoing it here.  All of the definitions I found match experiences I’ve seen kids having (and heard parents reporting) as a result of long division in school and at home.  Here’s a quick definition compilation:

to discuss repeatedly or at length; harp on

to attack with blows; hit, beat, or whip (!)

to explain or insist on excessively

to assail verbally

to explain, worry about, or work at repeatedly or more than is necessary

If you’re convinced that long division is necessary, or anything else you find yourself immersed in that might otherwise fit the description, then by all means, carry on.  I’m not anti-labor; it can be tremendously rewarding and useful.  But if any of these definitions fit your experience of long division or anything else, particularly more than is necessary and/or explain or insist on excessively,  I invite you to reconsider.  Why belabor it?  Is it worth what it’s costing you (and any other belabor-ees)?

One thing adults love to say to kids is “Well, too bad; there are some things you just have to do.”  If you watch a kid’s face when someone’s delivering that line, you’ll know right away how many times they’ve heard this before.  In most cases, LOTS.  You’ll also get a sense of how inspired they are to act as a result of it.  In most cases, NOT PARTICULARLY.

It’s something we say to each other, as adults too, and it’s implied in much of what we do.  Because, of course, we heard it all the time back when we, the present-day adults, were kids.  So we assume it’s true and in good conscience, we pass it on.  We want them to be ready for the real world.  And it helps us feel as though life is supposed to be as much of a drag as it can feel like when our days are full of things we’re doing because we think we just have to.

But it’s TRUE isn’t it?  There are things we just have to do.  Don’t worry; I’m not going to argue that it’s not true.  I’m going to argue that it’s incomplete.  On its own, the statement is in fact not true.  You don’t actually have to do anything.  You have to do some things if you want a specific outcome or you want to avoid a specific outcome. For example, nobody actually has to do the dishes. You might have to do the dishes if you don’t want to throw away all the ones you’ve used and buy new ones. Or you don’t want to cause a rift between yourself and a loved one.  Or you have a job as a dishwasher and you want to get paid at the end of the week.  So it would be more accurate to say “There are some things you just have to do if…” Or “There are some things you just have to do unless…”

What’s tough is that as soon as you decide you’re going to make it a point to complete the sentence, you start to see how much you’re insisting upon (from yourself and others, kids included) that demands deeper consideration of how the sentence should end.  Don’t worry, though.  There’s gold at the other end; if you commit to inquiring into why/if you have to do things, and why you actually insist on what you insist on for others, you’ll find that a lot of the fight falls away. Kids, in particular, will perk right up.  They can hear the difference between things we say on auto pilot and things we say because we’ve considered them and determined that they have some value.

Celebrate the parade of odds!  http://www.oddday.net/

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.