Instead of finishing my homework I am choosing to write instead. It reaffirms to me my intelligence again because I feel so very insecure abut my math sense. I am so use to "not getting it" I am quite pleased and amazed when I do.
In fact I did not do too badly today in math studio. I got the answer or at least understood how to get to the answer, Unfortunately tonight I have stared at the homework, reread the homework, drawn pictures, and made charts and I still can't figure out how to do the problem.
We were assured that the homework was only to take an hour to do and to stop after an hour. That is all the district is requiring of us for the homework. Somehow I don't think only getting through 1 problem is what they had in mind.
It FEELS like like I am the only one who doesn't get it. Yes, I had to look up what integers means, what exactly is a multiple, and really is there a different meaning for the connector "or" and "between" in mathematics? ( Yes there is!!!!) It doesn't help that I am sitting at a table with 2 middle school teachers, a 5th grade and 4th grade teacher. Hey, besides me being a mathophobe I have taught KG for 13 years and first grade for 1. That is about my level of math knowledge!
So I am going to write about about it and maybe the words will help me make sense of the problems. Even if it does not I find words to be a comfort to me.
I find it amusing that I looked upon my colleagues with a sense of disbelief and thought to myself,
" Really? You can keep talking about these numbers for this long and still be interested?"
Me? I just want the answer and then let's move onto the next problem. Who really cares about the placement of the colors of red and blue on a cube and how many combinations you can get? I don't.
I guess that is the difference between me and my colleagues- they crave and care about their numbers as much as I crave and care about my words. They like to fiddle with them, mix them up, put them into algorithms, fractions, percents, and patterns.
Blech! I just want them to be done with and out of my brain. If you give me a set of words and a feeling I could craft till the cows come home imagery and metaphors to sum up my life in this world!
I know the brain research tells us our brains seek out patterns. My brain seeks out patterns in words more so than patterns in numbers. I know math and numbers are everywhere- in nature, in numbers, in art, in music and probably even in words. I don't want to know the numbers or twist my brain around what numbers can do in all their infinity.
I want rich, succulent words to dine upon. Sips of metaphors to tickle my palate. Imagery to melt upon my tongue. And I find myself intimately feeling I should have groups of three in my examples.
Today while listening to my colleagues debate and explain their thinking about multiples and odd numbers between 1 and 20 I wrote words down in the phrases I heard being tossed around.
Here they are:
The Exclusive "Or"- Cake or Ice Cream
Not having to choose
one or the other,
ice cream or cake, yellow or blue,.
It is not exclusive.
It is all in the Venn diagram.
and the chocolate holds...
This mathematical "or",
means no choice:
it means it all.
So what can exist
"between" us?
In life or mathematically?
Does the you on one end
and the me on the other end
belong in the bracket
or are we excluded from the set?
A multiple that is odd-
a window of a pattern...
Multiples of 4 work well with 20.
Not so with 10.
I press for justification,
for your conjecture.
The exclusion of self,
the silence of one.
A bookend of one,
falling off a shelf.
Your multiple of two.
"See the pattern?"
Watch the fractions!
Chunks on a ten strip.
What does a multiple of 4 mean?
Divisible without leftovers-
a mathematical structure:
Conjectures, generalizations, and justifications.
(You left me without any. Fail.)
and the poetry makes the math -
meaningful
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I still don't get my math homework...
I still think of you and love you.
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