Luke Holzman from the Sonlight blog wrote a very interesting post today about math. He describes a post by another blogger in this way: “Cherish has a very interesting post on our aversion to math which is often linked to school teachers.” Both posts rang very true to me and got me to thinking about why I love math. I think much of the reason that I love math is that my dad loved math and expected I would do well at it. Also, I had a great Algebra teacher in the ninth grade that made it seem elegant and interesting. Because my parents expected I would understand math and do well at it I expected I would understand it and do well at it. Both of our kids do well at math. They are not Newton, but they do very, very well. Lorena and I both grew up around people who understood math. My sister and I both have engineering degrees and Lorena has three brothers with engineering degrees. Our expectation of our children was that they could excel at learning math.
Because we knew math was possible, we were very careful in the selection of homeschool materials for that subject. I wrote about why we switched from Singapore Math to Teaching Textbooks when the kids got to Algebra. It was specifically because the kids started to struggle with that material and we knew that it was not necessary to struggle. It was not the kids fault that they struggled to understand. They worked hard at their math, did everything the program asked, yet they were still not getting it. So we did a little research and switched. The same thing happened again when we switched from Teaching Textbooks Precalculus to Thinkwell Precalculus. The recommendations provided by Sonlight for when to start using Teaching Textbooks and when to start using Thinkwell have been spot on for our kids.
Still, there is an even bigger point in all this. It is not just about understanding the material. Sure it helps that we know Kelly is smart enough to understand precalculus, but it is just as important that she derives some joy from her studies. We could have stuck with Singapore Math when she got to Algebra and Teaching Textbooks when she got to Precalculus. She would have eventually gotten through the material with a good level of understanding, but we saw the joy of math dying. That is the beauty of homeschool. When we saw the joy dying, we could actually do something about it.
Luke left this link in the comments. It was too good not to put up:
“…derives some joy…” [snicker] Like the pun that slipped in there.
I was so bogged down by Saxon’s Pre-Algebra that I only got through half the book in a year. The next year I switched programs and rocked through Algebra. You are right on: Don’t let the joy of math die.
~Luke
PS Thanks for the “link-love” [smile].
Luke – I couldn’t resist putting up the “Derive” you-tube video. I cannot believe I had never before seen that.
My older son is feeling the joy of Math (never really did before) after switching from Saxon to TT Algebra 1. He is jamming! I am so happy for him. He finished Saxon 8/7 (which I happen to love and think it prepares the kids well for Alg 1, but some kids just don’t do will with the format of Saxon), but it took him a long time. We will work steadily through the summer…when we are home, we do math. That is the only way I can survive it…no beginning of the year backslides, doing 40 lessons of review before moving forward. I think that is such a waste. Better to keep on keeping on through the summer…especially in math. I am hoping to move the younger kids through math levels by this ‘keep on trucking method’ and increase the ease at which they can handle the higher sciences by the time they hit those in highschool. Got to have a grasp of the math so the struggle is lessened in leaning the concepts of the higher sciences.
We all enjoyed the video, I am going to add, “I WILL DERIVE TO SURVIVE!!!”
DERIVE TO SURVIVE! That will be my motto at work now! You know what is very interesting, is that a lot of homeschool families have appeared to have this exact same experience. People struggle with the material until it is instructed in a way that is interesting to them, then it becomes easy. We are not going to completely give up on math during the summer either. It works for us, just to keep our hand in, to do a couple of lessons a week. Isn’t homeschool great. The kids don’t need to lose the thread of their learning just because school is out.
EXCELLENT VIDEO!