A different way to look at math (Updated!)

A Different Way to Look at Math ~
Written by Jamie C. Martin of Simple Homeschool

Like many of us, I have a complicated relationship with math.

I like math.

But I don’t always like how it’s taught.

I naturally excelled at math in school. The subject made me feel powerful, and eventually I was offered the chance to skip 7th grade math (which I ended up declining – those 8th graders looked so scary!).

You’d think since I had a “positive” experience with math in school, I would have been eager to replicate that in our home.

But my heart (and my children) steered me in a different direction.

I see now that the main skill that led to my math success wasn’t understanding math; it was the ability to memorize. From an early age I used that skill to people-please my way into my teachers’ hearts, to form an identity for myself, and to cover up deep-rooted feelings of insecurity.

(See?! I told you it was complicated!)

And as the years passed, I had that familiar sense so many of us identify with when it comes to this subject: Boredom.

Nagging questions rang through my head: “What’s the point of all this?” and “When am I ever going to use it?”

I wanted something different for my kids.

I saw the value of studying numbers, patterns, and shapes – because God built those into our world. Therefore they must be interesting, useful, and worth learning about!

Yet I dared to imagine a different timeline for this subject. Because when I looked at the math scope and sequence, especially for elementary school kids, one thing appeared drastically lacking:

The principle of relevancy.

A Different Way to Look at Math

Children naturally want to learn and conquer things that are relevant to their lives.

I saw this with my own as littles when it came to a love of and interest in words. In our home my children were surrounded by reading and writing–therefore they showed interest in both (still on their own unique timeline, mind you.)

With math, the process felt different.

Some parts were relevant – the ones that appeared in our daily lives.

This included writing numbers, counting, basic adding and subtracting, temperature, fractions as related to cooking, telling time, measuring, the concepts of multiplication and division (but not complicated calculations with them early on), decimals as related to money, etc.

But math that didn’t naturally arise in our daily lives didn’t get our focus early on because it requires a different process: Abstract thought.

The ability to reason and think abstractly doesn’t come in the early elementary years–it develops closer to the age of puberty.

“Piagetian experiments have shown repeatedly that cognitive maturity may not come until close to age 12. Interestingly, the ancient Orthodox Jews, known over the world for their brilliance, provided little or no formal schooling until after age twelve for girls and thirteen for boys when children were considered able to accept full responsibility for their actions.”
~ Dr. Raymond Moore, The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook, pg. 44

The traditional approach to math study, whether done at school or at home, creates a hate of math in many kids. It makes plenty feel stupid at a young age – an internal lesson hard to unlearn later. Others (like I did) begin to measure themselves by their positive performance instead of their inner value.

All of the above is the opposite of what I wanted for my own children. Instead of making my kids fit the system, I created a new system to fit my kids.

It included a different way to look at math.

I will not for a second suggest that this was always simple to do. But in some ways, it was easy. I lightened my load considerably by allowing the principle of relevancy to guide our math learning.

My own mental battles ended up being the hard part when it came to choosing something so counter-cultural – and sticking with that decision in the face of opposition. When I started to panic (and you should know I did many times), those mental battles were usually the reason why.

We had to step way outside the grade level box to follow our family’s personal convictions in this area, and that took courage. But believing we were doing what was right for our children made the choice worth it.

If you feel at peace in your homeschool choices when it comes to math, please keep on keeping on! As always, there are a million ways of creating a successful homeschool, and zero ways to create a perfect one.

My method here isn’t “right” and others “wrong,” it’s all about discovering what works for your family and your kids.

But if you’ve hit a wall in your study of numbers, if you or your students have or are experiencing math burnout, or if you’ve ever wondered “Is this the only way?” – then know that you’re not alone.

Perhaps you just need a different way to look at math.

Over the next month or so I hope to bring a little thought-provoking inspiration across your path in this series on looking at math differently from my perspective as a now retired homeschool mom of three. Stay tuned!

“The tantalizing and compelling pursuit of mathematical problems offers mental absorption, peace of mind amid endless challenges, repose in activity, battle without conflict, “refuge from the goading urgency of contingent happenings,” and the sort of beauty changeless mountains present to sense tried by the present-day kaleidoscope of events.”
~Morris Kline, Mathematics in Western Culture

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