My father is an engineer; my mother was an artist. Despite the suggestion of an early boss, I do not need therapy. However, the math genes seem to have been wired backwards in me, and I have always enjoyed the beauty and poetry of mathematics without being particularly good or patient at the nitty-gritty.
Of my early mathematical adventures, I remember little before the age of nine or ten. At that time, my father was teaching a class in Boolean Algebra at the local community college. (Boolean Algebra is what is used with binary code and is the basis for computer systems. You might recognize its more familiar form in database search terms: "Mother AND Hubbard" "Dog NOT bone.") I sat on his lap while he prepared his lessons and must have understood at least a little, for I can still remember it. While I never pursued a career in computer science, it did help me when I got to law school and had to learn to do Lexis searches. (That's the LEXIS-NEXIS database, not the Lexus car, which is usually out of the budget for a while after graduation.)
From sitting in my father's lap while he helped my older siblings, and from reading books I hadn't reached yet, I acquired a smattering of regular algebra by this point, as well. So when I visited the homeschooling convention that year, I was intrigued to find a fellow selling a product that used manipulatives to communicate algebraic ideas. He, in turn, was quite pleased to have a sample student to demonstrate his wares to passers-by. I remained at his booth much of the day, showing the amazing powers of his system of teaching algebra to third-graders. (Not that my understanding demonstrated much, since the equations he used I could already do.) I don't remember if I sold any for him, other than to my mother. When I left, he thanked me by giving me a candy bar, which I bit into with glee, as candy was a rare commodity at our house, only to spit it out in disgust when I tasted carob. It was one of those crushing disappointments of childhood. I've never been willing to try carob since.
I don't recall that we used his manipulatives very much, though. We played with Cuisenaire rods occasionally, but more for the fun of the cool little blocks than for their mathematical properties. Still, I think they helped develop a feel for things.
On the other hand, we constantly were dipping into our favorite math puzzle books, such as the Brown Paper School Books, Math for Smarty Pants and the I Hate Mathematics Book. A whole course that made a great impression on me about this time was A Mathematical Mystery Tour. I loved that book. The Fibonacci numbers and I have been great friends ever since, and I still love a good book of mathematical puzzles or ideas.
One course that made a very negative impression on me about then was Saxon Algebra 1/2. It may brand me a homeschooling heretic, but I hated Saxon math. Truly. Madly. Deeply. I wouldn't say that I will forbid my children from studying Saxon, for I have heard there are some learning styles to which it does appeal, but I certainly would never suggest it. It drained all the poetry and beauty out of math and beat the remaining skeleton into fine powder on the ground. Ugh.
Thinking back, even Saxon might not have been so dreadfully bad if I had simply been permitted to skip problems I already knew how to do. Writing numbers out was the exercise I hated most; it hardly took a year's worth of practice to master and the numbers were always so unreasonably long. The only place I have ever needed to write out numbers was on checks, and as I have never been employed by Publisher's Clearinghouse, I've never found it necessary to write out such large numbers.
Fortunately my love of mathematics was already well enough established that I blamed the problem on the course and not the subject; and even more fortunately my parents were wise enough to help me find something else to try the next year. I used my brother's old public school textbook for Algebra I, not scintillating but much less painful.
I was in such a hurry to get on to the higher mathematics that I'm afraid I skipped over getting a thorough understanding of fractions, decimals and percents. However, I did eventually pick it up, partly from their interaction with algebra, partly from getting a job that involved analyzing statistics, and partly from teaching them to my youngest brother. I'm sure I'll learn them even better as I teach my children. |
