Becoming Numerate

I specialized in math learning and teaching for over 40 years. I worked in a charter school, a private school and public schools on three continents as well as directing a learning center for home learners. I have taught thousands of children math and am in awe of how children develop quantitative thinking and become numerate. Mathematical thinking like linguistic thinking is a process that has its own individual rate and style of development which, with the right nurturing and stimulation flourishes by itself. If however methods rather than concepts are insisted on, a child’s ability to think mathematically is compromised and the horizons of what is possible for them to achieve becomes smaller. If children in second grade are shown a process for solving number problems they will stop thinking about finding their own solutions and will soon forget that they ever could. The method becomes more important than the thinking.

I have run workshops for parents and teachers where I introduce them to some of the activities that I do with children. It is clear that those of us who come from rigid learning backgrounds have a very hard time visualizing mathematical processes. I’ve seen adults struggle with what for 6 year olds comes naturally. When children are allowed to develop their own problem solving strategies by using materials and doing mental experiments with numbers they can develop a very high level of numeracy. However in order to survive in our culture we do not need this high level of numeracy so most of us do not know we do not have it. We are missing the icing on the cake. So much…