Someone sent me some email saying that I hadn't answered the question Steve Graham asked about unschooling. The question was: "What if the children don't choose to learn math?"
He was right. I didn't answer that question. And I'm not going to. Instead, I've been working on two different questions, ones that I think are more applicable to our lives with our children. Those questions are:
As I was thinking about these issues, I realize that many unschoolers have a distinct math non-curriculum. We know what basic skills our children will need to master. I've been working on Morganne's math non-curriculum since before she was born, since math education is a particular interest of mine.
I thought I'd share a bit of our math non-curriculum with the list.
First, it's a non-curriculum because it doesn't have a timetable attached to it or particular exercises to be completed. We do have specific ideas about what learning math involves, the steps involved in learning math and how math mastery occurs. There is definitely an agenda. I personally feel that numeracy is very important.
So, how do we encourage our children to become numerate, to learn math?
First of all, we act as examples. We use math daily, hourly. We have animated discussions over, for example, the number of tubs of Black Jack we'll need to seal our driveway or how much it costs us to feed electricity to our two computers. We care about the results, we make mistakes, and the mistakes have real-life consequences.
We also use math for fun; often trying to estimate, for example, the number of bananas we eat in a year or how many eggrolls would it take to reach the moon. I'm afraid we often get silly and laugh a lot while we're doing these problems. I hope that doesn't bother any of you who are very serious about math, but there it is.
We let the children stew in their own juices a bit when they're confronted with a problem that requires math. We let them get a bit frustrated. I think that it's important that children learn how to solve problems themselves. It's important for them to realize that they need to use their own brains to figure things out. So, we let them struggle with their problems.
Okay, now they realize math is useful and interesting (this will happen if we've done even a passable job of provoking interest. In the case of our 5.5-year-old, it has happened. She's interested.).
So, what do we do to help our children master math skills?
First, we ask them questions. These questions are not intended as quizzes, but are questions we would have to answer anyway, in the course of daily life. They are, gasp, the little word problems that life presents us with each day. Questions like: if we need 5 cups of flour, how many 1/2 cup measures to we need to get the right amount of flour in the dough? If it took us 13 bags of concrete to secure the first post, how many bags will it take us to secure all 5 posts? If we have 35 bags of concrete, do we have enough to finish the job? If you have to leave for gymnastics at 10:15, then how much time do you have to get your hair brushed and your shoes on? You have $10 birthday money from Grandma. How will you use that money?
We ask the questions, even when they are way beyond their math capabilities. We think out loud about math problems in our lives.
We provide access to manipulatives and other materials for exploring math in a concrete way. We have pattern blocks, measuring devices, a small balance, water, beans and sand and containers, calculators, computers and other assorted odds and ends. We borrow manipulatives and games from the resource library. We're looking for a reasonably priced set of Cuisenaire rods to augment our collection.
We read books about teaching math to children and talk to other parents and teachers. We are interested in how people think about math. I had a calculus professor in college who had a knack for making calculus seem simple (which it really is). He cut through the fancy language and Greek letters and explained what calculus meant in real life. We want to make all math as easy as possible, to find good ways to think about and demonstrate math concepts.
We set up math labs for family projects. We try to do family projects every day. We sometimes work on art projects or real tasks around home, or field trips, or science projects or math projects. Morganne has veto power over the math and science projects. Usually, her response is an enthusiastic "Yeah, sure!" Last night, we did an estimation project with dry lentils and a variety of containers. The 17-month-old joined in and the kitchen was a real mess, but Morganne did learn something about tall and short containers.
We play games. Dominoes, mah jongg, Tortoise and the Hare, cards, Pente and many others.
In choosing math manipulatives and books to make a permanent part of our unschooling non-curriculum, our resource library has been invaluable. A few days spent with the book Family Math convinced me that it is a very useful guide for concrete math activities and ways of helping children learn math. Similarly, two weeks with Cuisenaire rods convinced us that they are very useful things.
Other manipulatives were of shorter-term usefulness and we were glad to return them. A game called "Vegetable Soup" was useful for introducing fractions (and fun for about a month). A thing called a "Clock-o-Dial" was fun and useful for learning time for about a month as well.
I want to put in a plug for the book Family Math by Stenmark, Thompson and Cossey. It's the closest thing I've seen yet to my own math philosophy. They present math activities and ways of learning math that are concrete and simple. They have short sections about helping children learn various concepts that are pretty compatible with unschooling. They greatly value estimation (so do I) and statistics. Even if you are using a math curriculum, I think you will find the book Family Math useful for basic math. Over and over, they stress that math activities should be fun, not stressful, for the child. The sticker on Family Math says $15.
Copyright © 1996 by
Heather Madrone. All rights reserved.