"One Thing" for Mon. Nov. 25

Change can be difficult. Whether that's deciding to make a decision to move to a new district (like I did 4 years ago) or deciding to change something in your school, it's something that as educators, we deal with frequently. Today those two examples came together for me as a former colleague of mine from the private school I used to work at came out to visit us at Diefenbaker. Mr. Young had mentioned that he wanted to come and visit me at my new school and just see how things in general ran before, but he had a specific goal this time, so we set up a lunch and afternoon date.

In Richmond I have had the pleasure of working with some great people at schools or others who have led pro d on how to do "new math" or what I like to call "friendly numbers" math. In our district, we have been lucky enough to have people like Carole Fullerton helping to pass on the ideas of how to teach math this way. I know that some teachers teaching combined classes also find it an easier way (teaching a big idea) to the whole class instead of having to teach two separate concepts to two different grades. So, there are many teachers out there who are doing math this way. I also believe that it's working. My daughter (currently in grade 3) is lucky enough to have had math taught to her this way each year since she began (in the first year of all day K). My son (currently in grade 5) has had things taught to him in different ways, often going back and forth. It could just be that one of them is a more mathematical thinker than the other, but my miniature social math experiment suggests that my daughter is great using friendly numbers, grouping and holding math in her head. My son? Not so much. Connection? Possibly.

Anyway, Mr. Young has heard about the math we have been doing in Richmond from a variety of sources and wanted to come and see it for himself. We sat in on a grade 2/3 class where students had made their own "friendly number problems" and then answered them together (sharing different ways to solve each one if that were the case).

One problem was:
26 + 29 + 27 + 25 + 28 + 25. 
I now know that's 160 because it's just 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 + 1 (from 26) + 4 (from 29) + 2 (from 27) + 3 (from 28). The six 25's go together to make 150 and the remaining bits add to 10!

Easy stuff when you do it that way. If only I had known when I was younger how to do things that way. Subtraction with borrowing might have even made sense.

Mr. Young then went and watched some Kindergarten and grade 1 students playing math games and doing math stations. He said it was inspiring and liked how it directly led to how the students the next grade up were doing it. His biggest challenge lies ahead, however as it is his goal to try and bring some of the ideas about how to present math this way to his school. I know it won't be easy, (change never is) but hopefully with some support from places like here, they can do that and it will make sense. Even if "Math Makes Sense", doesn't always seem to.