Whenever I hear people talk about how much they hate math or how they just aren’t good at it or how their kids are crying every night doing math homework and the whole system of Mathematics is tearing kids down and families apart, it makes me terribly sad. I wish I could jump into every one of those homes and show them how math is really not so scary and even quite lovely if you look at it the right way; I want to help students build a solid framework of understanding by working through authentic, relevant, and interesting learning activities so that they truly own the knowledge they gain. I believe students should be given the opportunity to work through concepts to the point of mastery (not to the point of complete and utter boredom because they’re swallowing a one-size-fits-all prescription) and see math not as some painful adolescent ritual but as the language of the universe — the description of all the patterns and phenomena we see at play in nature and in art and architecture and engineering … and computer coding and aviation and seafaring and gambling … to name only a very few aspects of a universe written in the beautifully patterned and predictable* language of math.
 Read more…