Today is a very special episode of the Math Dude. To begin with, it’s episode 300. And because we humans have 10 fingers, we love to give special meaning to multiples of 10. But while that’s fun, it’s not the big news of the day or what makes this episode special to me. The big news is that this 300th episode is my last. Between my day job as a physics and astronomy professor and my day-and-night job of being “Dad” to an awesome and bustling 3-year-old, my free time for Math Dude duties has dwindled. And although I will surely miss all of you math fans, after seven years on the job, it's time to say goodbye.
But before I go, I have one more thing to say—and I think it’s the most important thing I’ve ever said on the show. It’s not something that I would (or even could) have said when I wrote the first episode seven years ago, because I wasn’t yet a father and so I wasn’t yet watching somebody discover the world for the first time. So please take a few minutes and listen, because I think this is something that everybody who has kids or might have kids or works with kids or might work with kids should know.
Here it is: Math is a playground … so play! Allow me to explain.
Math Is a Playground
A few days ago, I was at the park with my daughter watching her play. She’s at a very adventurous age and is constantly testing out every possible pathway to the top of what she has dubbed the “mermaid castle.” As she stretched her relatively tiny legs from rung-to-rung over what comparatively looked like a gaping chasm, I squiggled and squirmed as I struggled to keep myself from jumping up and lifting her over what I perceived to be a great danger. But she was careful, she didn’t fall, and she learned a bit about the world.
To be sure, playgrounds can be dangerous. So why do we let our kids play on them? Because playgrounds exercise their bodies. And not just in the sense of improving cardiovascular health or building strong bones and muscles. Those are all lovely side-effects, but what playgrounds do is provide kids with a relatively safe way to learn about using their bodies to navigate the world—how to balance, how to get from here-to-there, what to do when you get stuck. In other words, how to solve problems in the physical world.
As I was watching my daughter, I realized that math too is a playground. But it’s not a playground for our bodies, it’s a playground for our minds. In a way I’ve always known this to be true, but I’d never thought about it quite like this. And the thing is that this is pretty much the opposite of the way kids are commonly talked to and taught about math (and many of the sciences, too). All too often we’re taught that math is a tool—and only a tool—that we need to master in order to complete some boring but purportedly important task. We drill and drill our kids with arithmetic or factoring problems, but we never allow them to explore. And we never really allow them to play.
So Play!
But play is exactly what kids do best. It’s how they learn. And it’s what we need to allow them to do—both with their bodies on the physical playground and with their minds on the mathematical one. Many adults struggled with math as kids. Why? In many cases, it’s because their parents struggled with math. And why was that? Because their parents struggled with math. And so on. Which means it’s time to break the cycle.
Your child, or grandchild, or friend’s child, or student, or whoever it may be, does not need to struggle just because you did. Please don’t let your past struggles determine your child’s future struggles. Don’t say things like “I’m bad at math” or “I’m just not a math person” when talking to kids. When they hear such words they just hear that “math = pain,” and it gives them the easy excuse that “I too am bad at math.” But they aren’t bad at math. They’re bad at drills. And drills aren’t math. Math is the playground.
So let them play. And just like my daughter figuring out how to span that jungle gym chasm, let them work to get better at playing. Because even play requires work. Before children walk, they fall. But when our kids fall taking those initial shaky steps, we help them to their feet and we encourage them to keep trying. Eventually those steps lead them to the playground and to chasms like the one my daughter crossed a few days ago. So why is math any different? Why do we treat the mental playground differently than the physical one? I don’t honestly know, but I know that we shouldn’t. And I believe that if we change our attitude and encourage our children to play—both physically and mentally—we’ll help create the greatest generation of creative and critical thinkers the world has ever seen. Which is something we could use right about now.
That leaves us with one final but very important question: What does playing with math actually look like? What is the mathematical playground? The good news is it’s simply the world around you. Math is everywhere if you just stop and look. You can explore the patterns on sea shells. Play with tiles and shapes. Categorize objects in bizarre and creative ways. Do puzzles. Do origami. Study the patterns in music. Study the structure of trees. Paint. Knit. Create secret codes. Program computers. Be creative. And check out the many amazing resources on the web such as http://naturalmath.com and http://gdaymath.com that are there to help you, your kids, your grandkids, your students, and everybody else learn how to play with math. Because math is a playground…so go play!
Wrap Up
OK, that's all the math we have time for.
Thanks again to everybody who has tuned in over the past seven years to hear what I’ve had to say. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve learned a ton along the way. Hopefully you’ve gotten as much out of it as I have (although I doubt that’s possible). If you want to follow along with me on my future adventures in life, you can always find me on Twitter.
For the last time, this is Jason Marshall with The Math Dude’s Quick and Dirty Tips to Make Math Easier. Thanks for reading, math fans.
Playground image from Shutterstock.
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