Debra Rossing

Guess I was lucky - I was taught to enjoy math by teachers that loved
math. Two of my favorite math teachers in middle/high school were women
(pre-algebra and calculus). But then again that was back in the middle
ages and the whole 'space race' and all - late 60s through the 70s (high
school class of '79) - when there was still a huge focus on developing a
generation of math/science professionals and not so much emphasis on
standardized testing. We learned the 'shortcuts' right along with the
textbook methods and the patterns and whys of things not just rote
stuff. We had the time to explore the ideas with the teacher rather than
plow through in time for a test.

That attitude is really paying off because, by verbalizing my plan of
attack when dealing with numbers, DS is now using the same methods. Not
necessarily textbook, but quick and accurate. He told me that the other
day he added 3100+3050 in his head by first adding 3000+3000 then adding
100+50 then adding 6000+150 to get 6150. That's exactly how I would have
done it. Comes from lots of playing with numbers with him - a favorite
car game was for him to reel off strings of numbers for me to
add/subtract/multiply/divide and he'd be pretty amazed that I'd get the
answer pretty quickly after he got to the end of the string. On
occasion, when he asked, I'd go back and show him how I handled it.
Sometimes he'd make it a challenge match between me and DH to see who
could answer faster. And sometimes he'd think up "word problems" for us
which usually devolved into silliness because we'd ask him questions
about the things in the "problem" - If you are making 3 apple pies and
you've got 15 apples, how many more apples do you need? Would have
questions like "how big are the apples? How big is the pie pan? What
kind of apples are they? Which recipe are you using? Do any of the
apples have worms in them?..." and it would go downhill from there :-)

Deb R


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