ILikeMathPart2

from Barry Garelick (I've added paragraphs to increase white space):

When my daughter tells me she hates math, my response is always the same. "Well, I have good news for you. You don't have to like it. You just have to know how to do it."

She's stopped telling me she hates math.

We shouldn't be so concerned with whether kids like or hate something. I hated history and English, but you either toe the line or get bad grades, and I didn't want bad grades.

In terms of math, kids hate it when they can't do it. When my daughter catches on to something, she likes doing it.

Math is not easy sometimes and it takes work, and that message should also be imparted to children. Not that it's impossible; but that it can be difficult, and that we all had to work at it.

When math isn't taught properly, then kids are not able to do it, and then they hate it. I've been talking to various adults lately who fit the description NCTM wrote about in the Jay Mathews' Post column of May 31 in which they talked about adults groaning when they heard the familiar story problem about distance, rate and speed. (A man starts out at 9 AM at 15 mph, etc etc). The adults I talked to said they hated those problems because they couldn't do them. When pressed, they admitted their teachers were not very good.

This is not a definitive sample by any means. I lucked out and had a very good algebra teacher who gave us very good instruction on how to solve story problems. As a result, I liked them. The fact that I ended up majoring in math may or may not be coincidental.


I like math
I like math, part 2
BeingYourChildsFrontalLobes
GreatMomentsInWorldHistory
ProgressReport
ATeachersStory ("I like the idea of math")
BonusPreTeenPost
SummerSupplementTimePart2
SundaySchool
TheGoodNewsFromHere
GoodNewsBadNews
ImGoingToPlayland
ImportantQuestionFromJoanneCobaskoOfSocmm
ImportantQuestionPart2
OutsmartingTheTests
ConversationsWithKids

Back to main page.