School daze

[mdlbear]

Had a big blow-up with the Younger Daughter last night over homework; she's struggling in math (after a good start at the beginning of the year, thanks to Sylvan). Finally did get it done, but not without a great deal of shouting and threatening to take an axe to the upstairs TV. After she'd finished, we played a couple of games of Scrabble, which is one of the few games that everyone in the family likes. The rest of the family's inability to handle math has always been baffling to me, and makes it difficult for me to help with math homework.

Meanwhile, the chaoswolf has been learning that drawing, like writing and music, (and probably programming), has to be something you need to do in order to get good at it. At least she's making her mistakes at a JC where it's cheap and close to home; I don't mind supporting her during the process. We already know she likes to write, and I suspect she'll enjoy programming if she gives it a good try.

Comments

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

The rest of the family's inability to handle math has always been baffling to me, and makes it difficult for me to help with math homework.

You're a programmer. Algorithms are cool to you. That's an engineer's mind. Most math in elementary and middle school is a combination of basic concepts (including algebraic concepts) and algorithms without explaining when you're working with an algorithm and why. The best examples I can think of are the typical ways of multiplying two numbers, long division, and factoring integers. Placing digits one on top of another requires an easiness with vertical and horizontal scanning as well as knowing about place value, and I know of at least two other methods—one, called "lattice," is how my daughter does it, and the other is an adaptation of FOIL binomial multiplication to integers. More importantly, I don't know any teachers who explain the reasons for the more widely-used algorithm or how it works. Third- and fourth-graders should know that it's just an algorithm. (Yeah, I can hear you wince all the way in the West Coast Bay Area. Just an algorithm, you say? Algorithms can be beautiful!) So in pre-algebra and algebra, students should be able to identify, "this is a basic idea" and "this is an algorithm" and figure out how to use both.

(No, I don't agree with those who have bought Piagetian developmentalism hook, line, and sinker. It's not that young kids can't learn abstract concepts, it's the introduction that needs changing. I can introduce basic algebraic concepts to a kindergartner.)

And this doesn't even touch teaching math as beauty. (Yeah, I'm a fan of Keith Devlin.)

[mdlbear]

All of that is true, but I don't think it's the problem I'm having. I think it's partly a problem with the ability to visualize 3-d objects, and partly a problem with the ability to break a task down into steps. It is, in other words, more like an inability to create an algorithm (or a proof, or a construction) than to apply one.

For example, one of the problems that the YD was working on was to compute the surface area of a cylinder. Unaware that she had the formula on a piece of paper in her notebook, I tried to walk her through the steps: compute the area of each end cap, multiply by two, then the area of the cylindrical piece.

2*(pi*r^2) + 2*pi*r*h

She just couldn't grasp it. Total lack of communication. If I'd simply written the formula down I expect she could have turned the crank and gotten the answer, but that's not what I thought was needed.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Maybe try the math version of my generic gripe response. The math version is, "Do you want the formula, or do you need an explanation of why it works?"

(My generic gripe response is, "Do you want advice or do you just want me to listen right now?")